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You Got an Ology
Maureen Lipman, star of stage and screen and author of "How Was It For You" and "Something To Fall Back On", is now famous as the heroine of the award-winning British Telecom commercials in the character of Beattie. Here are all Beattie's classic encounters, including "Anthony and the Ology".
144 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1989
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April 25, 2022
Can you really write a book about a television advert? And a biggish glossy book at that? Isn't that milking the concept a little too far? Well perhaps it is really, but this book provides an hour or so's amusement just the same.
You probably have to be British to understand the reference - and to have been watching television in the 1980s too. At that time, a series of adverts for what was "British Telecom (British Telephones and Communications) made the nation laugh. Despite ourselves, we got caught up in the ongoing saga of Beattie and her family, fed us in short two-minute chunks between the main programmes.
"Beattie" was the invention of the book's co-author, Richard Phillips, a copywriter for an advertising agency. The firm had been approached by BT to produce a new series of adverts to replace some featuring furry animals. Richard Phillips was a bit stumped, until someone said "Phone your mother." From that, the whole idea began to take shape,
"The mother who treats a telephone line as the next best thing to an umbilical cord is a familiar character in Jewish humour".
But was this too dodgy? It would need very careful handling, in order to not be offensive.
Perhaps the true inspiration lay in casting Maureen Lipman. Never mind that she was a few decades too young for the ageing grandma he had in mind; she was a consummate actress with a rare talent for comedic timing - and moreover had a way of making all her characters very appealing. Yes, once Maureen Lipman was on board, it was almost bound to succeed. She was duly decked out in grey coiffured wig, thick glasses and prim clothes. And throwing herself into the part enthusiastically, she even had the wit to rename the main character, who had originally been called "Dora", "Beattie" (a word play on "BT".) Once the pilot episode had gone out, the entire cast and crew held their breath. Would there be an uproar of righteous indignation? But no. The "Jewish Chronicle" complimented the advert, apparently enjoying the joke, and the team knew they had a winner.
Over the next few years 26 short film adverts were made, of which snapshots from 20 are included here. We were introduced to Beattie's long-suffering husband Harry, her downtrodden son Melvyn, and stroppy daughter-in-law (whom Beattie couldn't stand) Bernice; her unscholarly grandson Anthony, her brother in Toronto, various other members of the extended family - even a sister, Rose, in Australia (also played by Maureen Lipman). Each was a caricature who made us laugh, and famous actors such as Bernard Bresslaw and Miriam Margolyes were recruited. It sounds as though it was a lot of fun to make, and the gentle humour never went sour. Perhaps the reason is that although Jewish mothers are often the butt of jokes, it is not an offensive butt. We know that their over-indulgence is kindly meant, and so we can poke fun at it, because we have a soft spot for this ourselves.
Maureen Lipman herself is philosophical about the enormous success of this "role" after years of avoiding becoming stereotyped in television, repertory and national theatre companies, to find herself, rather gallingly,
"... to be known as a Jewish GRANDMA, with a sharp tongue, a warm heart, and a fatal obsession with food and family. A household name - like Harpic" (a toilet cleaner)... "Twenty-two years to be greeted by one and all with, 'You look so much younger in real life' and to find myself on the financial pages of 'The Times', alongside a report of BT's quarterly profits."
The book has chapters detailing how the programme was made, the actors' views on it, interspersed with "Beattie's Household Tips" or "Beattie's Recipes" - written very much in the style of a women's magazine from the 1940's or 50's, but with Beattie's wry comments added. There's an - indispensible - family tree (subtitled "Far From Which the Apple doesn't Fall"), some storyboards and glossy colour photos ... but best of all, most of the stories are included by means of monochrome still photos, three to a page, with speech captions alongside comprising what is said, and (in a different font) Beattie's innermost thoughts. One story might be spread over 8 pages ie 24 photos. Of course, the whole book is tongue-in-cheek - and very funny.
One of my favourites, "Do you Have a 12 in the Green?" features a phone call to a department store, where the long-suffering assistant (played by Richard Wilson - who went on to be stereotyped as everybody's favourite "grumpy old man") checks rail after rail to see if a certain dress is available in a specific colour, or size. A masterpiece in building up frustrated tension, the crunch line comes when Beattie realises that if the item is still available in all sizes and colours, it can't be very popular. There must be something wrong with it! So she then decides that she doesn't want it any more after all.
In another similar episode, "Not Keeping Up with the Joneses", Beattie is 'phoning to check the availability of some products, in a store which has a sale of white goods. Yes, they say, they have that item - ah, but a Mrs Jones has just called to reserve it. As time goes on, this "Mrs Jones" seems to have reserved every appliance Beattie is interested in. In desperation, she asks about a dishwasher she has seen. Yes, the store say, they have that one, and - good news - it is still in the sale. "No, Mrs Jones hasn't reserved that one, Madam. Would you like to?"
You can almost see what's coming, can't you? "No thank you," says Beattie crisply. "If it isn't good enough for Mrs. Jones, it isn't good enough for me!"
And the "ology"? Well that is perhaps the most famous catch-phrase from the entire series, from "Anthony and the Ology":
Beattie has phoned her teenage grandson, to congratulate him on his exam results. Not that he has told her his results yet ... but he's her grandson. How could he do otherwise than be a complete success? She has baked and iced him a cake especially ... But there's an ominous silence at the other end.
"Grandma, I failed" comes the devastating news. The advert continues, as Beattie tries to make the best of things, removing the icing-sugar academic scroll she had carefully placed on the cake and mentally reworking it into various other things. It turns out that Anthony has passed in Pottery "My Grandson, the artist" she muses, thinking that perhaps Picasso's grandmother also might have had this sort of conversation to contend with, continuing to talk him up, "Anthony! People will always need pots!"
It turns out that Anthony also passed in Sociology, a cue for the priceless,
"An Ology! He gets an ology and he says he's failed! ... You get an ology, you're a scientist!
Of course we also get all Beattie's inner thoughts - such as how modest her grandson is, on top of his brilliance. And the advert ends up with Beattie quipping about it all being the teachers' fault anyway - half of them couldn't see what they were doing ...
Reading this book we learn that as the series progressed, quite a few of the ideas such as this last one, came from Maureen Lipman herself, although the writer hoped that the end result was seamless.
How amazing that something which is dangerously close to offending can actually be so very funny, and so very gentle. "You got an Ology?" aways makes me smile.
Strip - Scripts included:
"Anthony and the Ology
Melvyn (the Telephobic Son)
A Voice like an Angel
Not Keeping Up with the Joneses
Something for Nothing
A Parent's Woes
Sale (or Return)
The Answerphone
The Call That Never Came
Melvyn (The Workaholic Son)
Do you Have a 12 in the Green?
We'll Meet Again
Good News
The Dangling Fiancee
Have Phone Will Travel
Such Devoted Sisters
Melvyn's Promotion
A Worried Woman
The Driving Test
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?"
The byeline for this book is "You've seen the ads ... Now read this book - then phone your mother!"
You probably have to be British to understand the reference - and to have been watching television in the 1980s too. At that time, a series of adverts for what was "British Telecom (British Telephones and Communications) made the nation laugh. Despite ourselves, we got caught up in the ongoing saga of Beattie and her family, fed us in short two-minute chunks between the main programmes.
"Beattie" was the invention of the book's co-author, Richard Phillips, a copywriter for an advertising agency. The firm had been approached by BT to produce a new series of adverts to replace some featuring furry animals. Richard Phillips was a bit stumped, until someone said "Phone your mother." From that, the whole idea began to take shape,
"The mother who treats a telephone line as the next best thing to an umbilical cord is a familiar character in Jewish humour".
But was this too dodgy? It would need very careful handling, in order to not be offensive.
Perhaps the true inspiration lay in casting Maureen Lipman. Never mind that she was a few decades too young for the ageing grandma he had in mind; she was a consummate actress with a rare talent for comedic timing - and moreover had a way of making all her characters very appealing. Yes, once Maureen Lipman was on board, it was almost bound to succeed. She was duly decked out in grey coiffured wig, thick glasses and prim clothes. And throwing herself into the part enthusiastically, she even had the wit to rename the main character, who had originally been called "Dora", "Beattie" (a word play on "BT".) Once the pilot episode had gone out, the entire cast and crew held their breath. Would there be an uproar of righteous indignation? But no. The "Jewish Chronicle" complimented the advert, apparently enjoying the joke, and the team knew they had a winner.
Over the next few years 26 short film adverts were made, of which snapshots from 20 are included here. We were introduced to Beattie's long-suffering husband Harry, her downtrodden son Melvyn, and stroppy daughter-in-law (whom Beattie couldn't stand) Bernice; her unscholarly grandson Anthony, her brother in Toronto, various other members of the extended family - even a sister, Rose, in Australia (also played by Maureen Lipman). Each was a caricature who made us laugh, and famous actors such as Bernard Bresslaw and Miriam Margolyes were recruited. It sounds as though it was a lot of fun to make, and the gentle humour never went sour. Perhaps the reason is that although Jewish mothers are often the butt of jokes, it is not an offensive butt. We know that their over-indulgence is kindly meant, and so we can poke fun at it, because we have a soft spot for this ourselves.
Maureen Lipman herself is philosophical about the enormous success of this "role" after years of avoiding becoming stereotyped in television, repertory and national theatre companies, to find herself, rather gallingly,
"... to be known as a Jewish GRANDMA, with a sharp tongue, a warm heart, and a fatal obsession with food and family. A household name - like Harpic" (a toilet cleaner)... "Twenty-two years to be greeted by one and all with, 'You look so much younger in real life' and to find myself on the financial pages of 'The Times', alongside a report of BT's quarterly profits."
The book has chapters detailing how the programme was made, the actors' views on it, interspersed with "Beattie's Household Tips" or "Beattie's Recipes" - written very much in the style of a women's magazine from the 1940's or 50's, but with Beattie's wry comments added. There's an - indispensible - family tree (subtitled "Far From Which the Apple doesn't Fall"), some storyboards and glossy colour photos ... but best of all, most of the stories are included by means of monochrome still photos, three to a page, with speech captions alongside comprising what is said, and (in a different font) Beattie's innermost thoughts. One story might be spread over 8 pages ie 24 photos. Of course, the whole book is tongue-in-cheek - and very funny.
One of my favourites, "Do you Have a 12 in the Green?" features a phone call to a department store, where the long-suffering assistant (played by Richard Wilson - who went on to be stereotyped as everybody's favourite "grumpy old man") checks rail after rail to see if a certain dress is available in a specific colour, or size. A masterpiece in building up frustrated tension, the crunch line comes when Beattie realises that if the item is still available in all sizes and colours, it can't be very popular. There must be something wrong with it! So she then decides that she doesn't want it any more after all.
In another similar episode, "Not Keeping Up with the Joneses", Beattie is 'phoning to check the availability of some products, in a store which has a sale of white goods. Yes, they say, they have that item - ah, but a Mrs Jones has just called to reserve it. As time goes on, this "Mrs Jones" seems to have reserved every appliance Beattie is interested in. In desperation, she asks about a dishwasher she has seen. Yes, the store say, they have that one, and - good news - it is still in the sale. "No, Mrs Jones hasn't reserved that one, Madam. Would you like to?"
You can almost see what's coming, can't you? "No thank you," says Beattie crisply. "If it isn't good enough for Mrs. Jones, it isn't good enough for me!"
And the "ology"? Well that is perhaps the most famous catch-phrase from the entire series, from "Anthony and the Ology":
Beattie has phoned her teenage grandson, to congratulate him on his exam results. Not that he has told her his results yet ... but he's her grandson. How could he do otherwise than be a complete success? She has baked and iced him a cake especially ... But there's an ominous silence at the other end.
"Grandma, I failed" comes the devastating news. The advert continues, as Beattie tries to make the best of things, removing the icing-sugar academic scroll she had carefully placed on the cake and mentally reworking it into various other things. It turns out that Anthony has passed in Pottery "My Grandson, the artist" she muses, thinking that perhaps Picasso's grandmother also might have had this sort of conversation to contend with, continuing to talk him up, "Anthony! People will always need pots!"
It turns out that Anthony also passed in Sociology, a cue for the priceless,
"An Ology! He gets an ology and he says he's failed! ... You get an ology, you're a scientist!
Of course we also get all Beattie's inner thoughts - such as how modest her grandson is, on top of his brilliance. And the advert ends up with Beattie quipping about it all being the teachers' fault anyway - half of them couldn't see what they were doing ...
Reading this book we learn that as the series progressed, quite a few of the ideas such as this last one, came from Maureen Lipman herself, although the writer hoped that the end result was seamless.
How amazing that something which is dangerously close to offending can actually be so very funny, and so very gentle. "You got an Ology?" aways makes me smile.
Strip - Scripts included:
"Anthony and the Ology
Melvyn (the Telephobic Son)
A Voice like an Angel
Not Keeping Up with the Joneses
Something for Nothing
A Parent's Woes
Sale (or Return)
The Answerphone
The Call That Never Came
Melvyn (The Workaholic Son)
Do you Have a 12 in the Green?
We'll Meet Again
Good News
The Dangling Fiancee
Have Phone Will Travel
Such Devoted Sisters
Melvyn's Promotion
A Worried Woman
The Driving Test
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?"
The byeline for this book is "You've seen the ads ... Now read this book - then phone your mother!"
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