Sink or Swim

As the 1970s handed over its comedy baton to an altogether more rebellious 1980s, Peter Davison’s career was on a high. A familiar face due to the success of All Creatures Great and Small, it was no wonder that when Tom Baker hung up his scarf, Davison was given the mammoth task of being his successor as the fifth Doctor in Doctor Who. But while those shows were still gaining accolades from their legions of fans, Davison was chancing his arm most successfully on both sides of the BBC/ITV divide at sitcom success. From 1980 to 1982, while appearing as a house husband on ITV opposite Patricia Hodge in Holding the Fort, he was playing the part of the older of two brothers in the charming Alex Shearer-penned comedy Sink or Swim.

The fact that the opening credits were backed by a Ronnie Hazelhurst adaptation of He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother gave a good indication of what the core of Sink or Swim would be. Before Del Boy and Rodney made the pairing of one rough and ready brother and one trying to elevate himself from his perceptions of his circumstances their own, Steve and Brian Webster were already mastering the craft.

Brian Webster (Davison) has escaped the trappings of his one-parent home in the North East and is living a new life in London. He’s got a big self-contained place having fallen on his feet with a good job and a steady girlfriend…at least that’s what he’s been telling his father and younger brother in his letters home. In reality, he is living in a grubby bedsit with a ferocious landlady watching his every move. While holding down working behind the till in a petrol station, he is studying in his spare time.

The arrival of Steve (Robert Glenister - Hustle), Brian’s younger brother, is somewhat of a surprise. They’ve not seen each other for a year and after finding life with just him and his father at home too argumentative, Steve is descending on his brother expecting more than the squaller he finds. The two’s different characters quickly come to the fore. As loyal as they are to one another, Brian wants more from life, while Steve just wants to get by and have fun.

Steve’s ways quickly have an impact on Brian’s life. With his landlady finding out that Brian has somebody else in his bedsit, he is thrown out. Worse still, Steve covers for Brian at the garage while he goes and looks at a potential bedsit they can share. Steve promptly pops round to the pub for a quick pint while leaving the garage unlocked, everything disappearing during his time supping.

The apparently old arguments soon restart. Brian thinks he’s superior to Steve and sees his younger brother as a burden, seemingly determined to be the family’s breakaway success. Brian disapproves of his younger brother’s more streetwise language and ways, while Steve sees Brian as aloof…and yet Brian clearly remains loyal to his sibling, while Steve is clearly not as streetwise as he’d like to be, and consistently looks to Steve as a guiding light.

To further complicate Brian’s life, he concedes to Steve’s request for him to introduce him to his girlfriend, Sonia (Sara Corper), in the hopes that she might know somebody he can date. When they do meet for a pub lunch, Steve is perplexed by her ways. She runs a playgroup and makes sandals and her own peanut butter. She is vegetarian, something rarely seen in tv shows from 1980, and she is at pains to point out that her and Steve aren’t going out together: ‘We don’t deal in those contexts – we’re in a relationship.’

Sonia quickly tires of Steve, and Brian is caught between the two. He shares some of Sonia’s frustrations at his brother, but deep down there remains a loyalty to him, never more evident than when the two stand up ready to have a fight in the pub and a passer-by accidentally touches one of them, at which point they unite – the enemy of my enemy is my friend. After the first series, Steve and Brian buy a boat to live on and by the third series are firmly rooted back in Newcastle, Sonia in tow.

The pair’s loyalty to one another is what holds the show together, right to the very end. We see Steve looking to go to France, hiking and grape-picking. Brian is being cajoled by Sonia for something more spiritual, heading to India to get their heads together – although Brian’s budget will only stretch to a TransAsia Overland Nomadic Intertrek train that will take somewhere near six weeks to reach its destination. Sonia is repulsed by the idea of going to somewhere like the Costa del Sol as all people want to do is enjoy themselves, but in a rare moment of rebellion, Brian buys a camper van and decides he would actually like to enjoy himself for a change. We close with Steve accidentally getting on the ferry with just him and the camper, waving farewell to Brian and Sonia.

Given its age, Sink or Swim holds up remarkably well. In a comedy-cancelling world, some of its language would now seem very dated. Steve exasperated that his brother has become so snooty that he has, ‘a heavy thing going with a chick,’ rather than just, ‘knocking a bird off.’ There are plenty of other dated attitudes, and of course Sonia’s spiritual ways are a well frequently visited for laughs. But key to the show’s success is just how amiable Steve is made by Glenister. He and Davison seemed to have real chemistry, and for someone with limited sitcom experience, Davison’s timing and believability is excellent. The pair would reunite soon after the show finished in Doctor Who, Glenister taking the role of Salateen in 1984’s The Caves of Androzani.

Despite 20 well-written and largely likeable episodes, Sink or Swim will likely be confined to online websites. But if you can see past the language and attitudes of a transitional generation, it’s a comedy that’s well worth a revisit.

Review – Brian Slade