Thick as Thieves TV Series Review

Lasting for only one series of 8 episodes, this short lived 1974 sitcom was written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, quite possibly the greatest writing duo to ever to come out of Great Britain.
Bob Hoskins plays George Stubbs, a burglar who returns home to find his wife Anne (Pat Ashton) is now living with his best friend Stan (John Thaw). Anne loves both men, so the three end up forming a strange "ménage à trois".


While it's by no means a classic, "Thick as Thieves" is still reasonably funny. Of the three leads, Thaw was probably the most familiar to audiences having played the lead in "Redcap". Not long after Thieves, Thaw would play Jack Regan in police drama "The Sweeney", the role that made him a TV star.
As much as I love him as an actor, he's pretty annoying in this. He portrays Stan as the stupid one and speaks with a stereotypical Cockney accent. He does get a few good lines, but not many.



Hoskins is much better. George goes through the most character development, starting off completely against the new living arrangement to gradually accepting it by the final episode. The character is very similar to Terry Collier from Clement and La Frenais' earlier sitcom "The Likely Lads" and it's sequel "Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?". Both characters return home (Terry having finished his army service) to find that the world around them has changed, although "The Likely Lads" handles this bittersweet tone much better than "Thieves" does.


The only other thing I've seen Pat Ashton in was the film version of "On the Buses". She mostly gets frustrated at how useless George and Stan are, but does clearly care for both of them. She's quite attractive, in a 70's housewife kind of way, so it's easy to see why they would fight each other for her affections.


There were clearly very few retakes as the actors frequently flub their lines. This makes it feel like you're watching a live performance. In fact the whole series has this cheap, stagey 70's sitcom that dates it quite badly. I'm not sure why the series was cancelled but I'm sort of glad that it was. I don't think the premise could be stretched over more than one series. It's also not particularly memorable, it's easy to see why it quickly became forgotten.

 
Apparently Clement and La Frenais reworked some of their ideas for later episodes into their comedy master work "Porridge".

The complete series is available on DVD in both the UK and US and is recommended for fans of Thaw, Hoskins and the writers. It's not perfect, but if you don't compare it to their other, better works, you may just have fun with it.