Mind Your Language

Mind Your Language
Created by	Vince Powell
No. of series	4
No. of episodes	42
Production
Producers	Stuart Allen, Albert Moses
Running time	30 minutes
Original release
Network	ITV
Release	1977 – 1986

Mind Your Language was a British comedy series originally shown on ITV, between 1977 and 1979. Produced by LWT and directed by Stuart Allen, it was set in a language school in London, with the late Barry Evans as the embattled night school English language teacher for a motley crew of assorted foreigners.

The series was known for its humorous take on national stereotypes: the German woman was dour and humourless; the French woman was sexy and flirtatious; the Swedish woman was liberated and straightforwardly sex-mad; the Chinese woman a rampant Maoist; while the Sikh and Pakistani men were often on the brink of war, and the Spaniard, the Greek and the Italian were macho. Much of the humour also stemmed from the trouble the students had with the English language, their often outrageous speech patterns and the students' hilarious mispronunciations of English. In the politically correct days of the late 1990s the show was criticised, but in its day the show was popular with people of many backgrounds because of its light-hearted take on multiculturalism and because it gave some otherwise unrepresented minorities a television presence.

It was cancelled in 1979 by Michael Grade, then LWT's Deputy Controller of Entertainment, who considered the stereotyping offensive. Nevertheless it was sold to other countries where it found amazing popularity, including Pakistan, Australia, Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia and Singapore . It was also one of the first British TV programmes shown in South Africa after the end of the boycott by Equity. It was even resurrected, briefly, for the export market by an independent producer, in the late 1980s. Only Granada Television transmitted the final 13 episodes consecutively as a complete series. Some ITV companies didn't show any of the episodes made in 1986. The programme was remade for US television as What a Country! In India, a comedy serial based on Mind Your Language was aired on DD2. In the program Zaban Sambhal Ke (Hindi for Mind Your Language) people from diverse regional Indian background studied Hindi.

Jamilla Massey who played the Indian lady Jamila Rahjha is now appearing as a character in BBC Radio 4's long-running soap opera The Archers.

The comedy was released on DVD in 2003 for Region 2, and in 2004 for Region 1. The DVD set has four discs and does not have Series 4. It has all the episodes from Series 1 to 3 except Kill Or Cure (24 Feb 78) from Series 1, Don't Forget The Driver (4 Nov 78) from Series 2, and Guilty Or Not Guilty? (24 Nov 79) from Series 3.

Transmission Details

• Series One (13) 30 Dec 1977-24 Mar 1978 · Fri 7pm
• Series Two (8) 7 Oct-25 Nov 1978 · Sat mostly 6pm
• Series Three (8) 27 Oct-15 Dec 1979 · Sat mostly 6.45pm
• Series Four (13) 4 Jan-15 Dec 1986

Memorable Phrases

• Ali Nadim (Pakistani): "Squeeze me please!", "Oh Blimey!", "Jolly Good","U damn fool!"
• Giovanni Cupello (Italian): "Santa Maria!", "Holy Ravioli!"
• Maximillian Papandrious (Greek): "Hokay!"
• Jamila Rahjha (Indian): "God heavening!"
• Deloris Courtney (the prim-and-proper English headmistress): "MISS Courtney, if you don't mind."
• Ranjeet Singh (Punjabi): "A thousand apologies."
• Chung Su-Lee (Chinese): "Chairman Mao, he says..." "The Democlatic Lepublic Of China", "...peace-roving Chinese!"
• Taro Nagazumi (Japanese): "Ah-so" (proceeds forward and bows)
• Juan Cervantes (Spanish): "Por favor?","s'awright", "One fate/fete/fit, Two fate/fete/fit!"
• Zoltan Szabo (Hungarian): "Bocsánat?"
• Anna Schmidt (German): "Wery Good!"
• Gladys the tea lady (English): "Her ladyship wants to see you"
• Jeremy Brown (English): "Is the old dragon in?"
• Sid the caretaker (English): "You sure you got the right cucumber?"

Cast list

• Barry Evans as Jeremy Brown
• Zara Nutley as Miss Courtney
• Francoise Pascal as Danielle Faure (Series 1-3)
• Dino Shafeek as Ali Nadim (Series 1-3)
• Albert Moses as Ranjeet Singh
• Ricardo Montez as Juan Cervantes
• George Camiller as Giovanni Cupello
• Jacki Harding as Anna Schmidt
• Jamila Massey as Jamila Ranjha (Series 1-3)
• Pik-Sen Lim as Chung Su-Lee (Series 1-3)
• Robert Lee as Taro Nagazumi (Series 1-3)
• Kevork Malikyan as Maximillian Papandrious (Series 1-3)
• Tommy Godfrey as Sid (Series 1-3)
• Iris Sadler as Gladys (Series 1-3)
• Gabor Vernon as Zoltan Szabo (Series 2)
• Anna Bergman as Ingrid Svensen (Series 2,4)

Trivia

The resurrected version in the mid to late 1980's was filmed at Uxbridge Technical College, Middlesex.

External Links

Tributes to Mind Your Language