Patrick Malahide, An Appreciation

Happy Birthday.  Let’s celebrate.

Admin: Happy Birthday to “Minder”.  It debuted October 29, 1979 and went strong until March 1994.  We here at the Appreciation are pretty much only concerned with the Chisholm episodes which ran sporadically from ’79 to ’88, but those 24 episodes give us a very good idea of what it is about “Minder” that made it last so long and have allowed it to remain popular 26 years after its finale.

“Minder” has a timelessness about.  While it is in many ways of its time, the central idea of a small man (Arthur Daley) trying to to make a successful living in a big city while avoiding all the pitfalls of bureaucracy (actually, avoiding bureaucracy itself) is a theme that will likely never die.  His mild disdain for the rule of law never goes into outright horrible criminality, so we wind up with a character who is easy to relate to.  Basically, wheelers and dealers will always be with us.

Don’t judge him too harshly, boys.

RF:  Daley is that rarity, a “lovable scamp” that actually manages to be lovable – or if not lovable, at least highly entertaining.  He’s the one who’s always trying to find a shortcut to vast wealth, except he isn’t totally clear on what an effective shortcut should be – goldfish being exchanged for clothes out of the back of a dodgy van?  Cleated football shoes being sold as stylish trainers?  Musical monkeys playing “Scotland the Brave”?  His schemes were always unique head-scratchers.  And yeah, his willingness to flout the law ensured that he’d always be under Chisholm’s watchful eye.

Admin:  The musical monkeys really should have hit off big.  🙂  And, yes, Daley is a very entertaining character.  You just can’t help but like the ol’ spiv.

RF:  It helped that Arthur never broke any heavy-duty laws and had no ambitions towards higher profile illegal activities.  A criminal mastermind, he wasn’t.   When someone once tried to suggest Arthur was fencing stolen jewelry, Chisholm knew that was far beyond his scope.

Bootleg bills?

Admin: One of my favorite episodes, “What Makes Shamy Run“, deals with pirating VHS tapes of popular Bollywood movies.  Yeah, VHS is dead as the dodo, but piracy continues to be a burning issue, and Bollywood has only become increasingly popular, garnering followers from all over.  The details may have altered, but the general concept is daisy fresh.

RF:  True, and Daley’s scheme involving bootleg mobile phones was a form of piracy, too.  Only nowadays I suppose he would be stealing wifi, selling dodgy burner phones,  and/or hacking into people’s Cloud accounts.  Mind you, Arthur would have to get a talented nephew (or great-nephew) to help him with the latter. Continue reading →