'Cowboys' was a very funny little series from 1980 which despite starring some of Britain's finest comedy talent ( not to mention an award-winning screenwriter ), has surprisingly ( and unfairly ) been forgotten. Now, let me start off by stating that this sitcom has absolutely nothing to do with baccy-chewing, gun slinging rednecks in the wild West but is in fact all about bone-idle, incompetent builders. Meet Joe Jones ( played to the hilt by the late Roy Kinnear ), managing director of Joe Jones. Ltd, a building firm which Joe started up after his used car business ceased trading. His only workmen are short-tempered plumber Richard Geyser ( Colin Welland, author of the Oscar winning 'Chariots Of Fire' ) who has a fondness for strange sandwiches, drunken Irish painter/decorator Wobbly Ron ( David Kelly, who coincidentally played another cowboy workman in the 'Fawlty Towers' episode 'The Builders' ) and gormless van driver Eric ( James Wardroper, the nephew of the show's producer Michael Mills ) whose driving skills would frighten a destruction derby driver.
Everything they did would end in disaster. In the first episode, they were given the job of renovating a dangerously dilapidated house which by the time they have had a go at it collapses completely. In another episode they were given the job of painting a local police station, however the paint they were using was the same stolen paint the police were trying to track down and in another they were required to add an extra sink in a hospital sluice room, which then culminated in the entire hospital being flooded.
As Jones, Kinnear hammed it up for all it was worth. I found it hilarious the way he grumbled and buried his chin into his chest whenever questioned about the relationship between him and his secretary Doreen ( the late Debbie Linden ), who was replaced in series two by the dim-witted ( and noticeably less attractive ) Muriel Bailey, who was portrayed by Janine Duvitski. Colin Welland stood out from all though as the grumpy plumber Geyser, though David Kelly got many of the laughs as Wobbly Ron. I felt his role as one-armed dishwasher Albert Riddle in 'Robin's Nest' never did him justice. Irritating though was James Wardroper as Eric, who when not shouting ''Knockout!'' whilst jumping in the air is causing mass destruction with his reckless driving.
After 'Cowboys' ended, Kinnear took the lead role in what would be his final sitcom, the short lived 'The Clairvoyant', penned by Roy Clarke in which he was a used car salesman who thinks he has developed psychic powers after being involved in a hit and run accident. Sadly, not many viewers cared for the show and as a result it never made it past a first series. Peter Learmouth, who wrote the show, later wrote medical sitcom 'Surgical Spirit' and then the dire 'Let Them Eat Cake' ( which starred Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders ) but 'Cowboys' in my opinion was his best.
Everything they did would end in disaster. In the first episode, they were given the job of renovating a dangerously dilapidated house which by the time they have had a go at it collapses completely. In another episode they were given the job of painting a local police station, however the paint they were using was the same stolen paint the police were trying to track down and in another they were required to add an extra sink in a hospital sluice room, which then culminated in the entire hospital being flooded.
As Jones, Kinnear hammed it up for all it was worth. I found it hilarious the way he grumbled and buried his chin into his chest whenever questioned about the relationship between him and his secretary Doreen ( the late Debbie Linden ), who was replaced in series two by the dim-witted ( and noticeably less attractive ) Muriel Bailey, who was portrayed by Janine Duvitski. Colin Welland stood out from all though as the grumpy plumber Geyser, though David Kelly got many of the laughs as Wobbly Ron. I felt his role as one-armed dishwasher Albert Riddle in 'Robin's Nest' never did him justice. Irritating though was James Wardroper as Eric, who when not shouting ''Knockout!'' whilst jumping in the air is causing mass destruction with his reckless driving.
After 'Cowboys' ended, Kinnear took the lead role in what would be his final sitcom, the short lived 'The Clairvoyant', penned by Roy Clarke in which he was a used car salesman who thinks he has developed psychic powers after being involved in a hit and run accident. Sadly, not many viewers cared for the show and as a result it never made it past a first series. Peter Learmouth, who wrote the show, later wrote medical sitcom 'Surgical Spirit' and then the dire 'Let Them Eat Cake' ( which starred Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders ) but 'Cowboys' in my opinion was his best.