User Reviews

The 1975 Christmas special My Brother and I is especially notable for a great dual role for Arthur Lowe as both Mainwaring and his alcoholic brother, Barry. Lowe makes each character so distinct from the other that it's easy to forget it's the same actor at times, despite the dated split-screen effects. He changes his entire body language and demonstrates, through his accent and mannerisms, the working class background of which Mainwaring is partly proud and partly ashamed. A dispute over their dead father's watch, which Mainwaring has and Barry wants, allows for a subtextual examination of family ties, with its resolution being quietly moving without being overly sentimental. It is nicely punctuated by Godfrey's delight in the simple pleasures of a cucumber sandwich. Though this is a very good episode in many ways, the route it ultimately goes down involving a slapstick routine with the platoon trying to remove an inebriated Barry unseen from the church hall is a little disappointing given the emotional charge of the early scenes. If Croft and Perry had explored the Mainwaring brothers' relationship a little deeper, this could've been a classic, especially since they had an extra ten minutes on the usual half hour runtime. Sadly, they are kept apart following their first meeting and only Mainwaring's final gesture betrays anything further about the fractured but inescapable link between them.