Waiting For God - Series 2

Oh what a wonderful role model for growing old: cranky, cynical, bright, perceptive and anti-socia!

Tom's awful family demonstrate the superficiality of modern society which Diana's perceptive, acutely directed venom pierces superbly.

Grow old gracefully? Not these two. Tom and Diana stil prove that growing old Disgracefully is far more fun. Diana along with her trusty sidekick Tom are still able to defeat any con job that 'The Idiot Bains' tries to pull on the residents of the Bayview Retirement home.

This has got to be one of the best series to come out of Britain...

EXCELLENT COMEDY SERIES FOR START TO END

This review refers to the Waiting For God series 1-5 as a whole as they are impressively consistant and well sustained from start to end, never flagging or becoming stale in their humour and keepinng their plotlines fresh. I only caught the odd episode of this when it was on TV, being slightly too young to fully appreciate it at the original air dates. I have worked my way through the whole 5 series now though and loved every minute.

Diana Trent is the perfect character, stubborn sarcastic and aggressive but with just enough humanity and an undercurrent of vulnerability woven into the plots that you can genuinely invest in and root for her as a complex, realistic, fully formed character. She's an example of what you can get away with when you've had it all in younger life but now are too old to have anything to lose. The frustration at being a successful globe trotting photographer that now has to defend her respect and independence in the face of the cooing, dimwitted wet blankets that surround her now and constantly patronise her as a decaying old lady is inspiring to watch.

Her despair at the intelligence of the modern world is exemplified in the way she constantly taunts the well meaning but hopelessly dowdy, spineless, bible clutching care-worker Jane. Her nemesis is the narcicistic, selfish, penny pinching manager of the retirement home she rents an apartment in who cares for noone but himself. It is gleefully funny to see her browbeat, outwit and phisically assult anyone who tries to cross her. Her stubbornness is justified by the liberal, worldly, intelligent position she has earnt through her earlier life experiences.

She takes meaning in her life now by fighting for anyone who looks like they have a battle worth fighting, instantly taking the side of any minority or oppressed individual she comes accross, especially if her own interests are at stake as well. Her co-star Tom is the perfect balance to her hardened facade of cynical old battleaxe. The giddy, optimistic, fantasy fuelled mindset he adopts gives the springboard against which Diana's more pesimistic sarcastic humour can beat. Through her friendship with him her softer side comes into view and her envy for his state of ignorant bliss is constantly apparent. Both characters feed off each others strengths and they balance perfectly: his kind, scatty, happy-go-lucky yin against her inpenetrable, quickwitted, hardened yang.

Essential training for anyone who intends to grow old disgracefully; kicking and biting their way through life and never acceppting defeat to the very end.