Reggie Perrin at 50

Today sees the 50th Anniversary of the first broadcast of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.

The classic BBC sitcom charts the antics of a middle-aged office worker who snaps, will take no more, and escapes.

Reggie was the original Escapologist and I used to watch the series over breakfast when plotting my escape.

You can watch watch the series and read the original books by David Nobbs.

EDIT: From a Radio Times item this afternoon about RP’s enduring appeal:

Adapted by David Nobbs from his own novels, [the series] saw Perrin reacting with escalating eccentricity to the madness of middle management … Dictating rude letters, having hippo hallucinations, pumping loganberry essence into the river where his boss is fishing. Things like that.

Ronnie Barker said of the source novel that he laughed 283 times and cried twice, and there is a darkness to the premise – after all, the lead character is driven to the point of faking his own death in order to reinvent himself. The phrase “doing a Reggie Perrin” soon entered common parlance.

[Screenwriter Simon Nye says:] “We love any character who questions the status quo or shines a new light on the way we live our lives. Reggie Perrin does that, despite just wanting a normal life full of love, sane relationships and honesty. Maybe we are all a bit Reggie, all aware that modern life is basically absurd and makes fools of us all.”

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New Escapologist Issue 19 and the anniversary edition of Escape Everything! are both available now.