Holy (Bottom)

"Holy" is the fifth episode of the second series of British television sitcom, Bottom. It was first broadcast on 29 October 1992.

Synopsis

It is Christmas time in Hammersmith once again, and Richie and Eddie experience a Christmas miracle.

Plot

On Christmas morning, Richie enters Eddie's room disguised as Father Christmas and presents "gifts" for himself and Eddie. He accidentally sets off Eddie's homemade security system, which results in Richie being hanged. After being spared by Eddie, Richie returns as himself and proceeds to list off the gifts that "Santa" has left them, which consist of the ingredients for Christmas dinner, while Eddie himself receives no stocking stuffers. Eddie presents his gifts for Richie: a small empty bottle of Malibu rum, and a used toilet roll made into a "play telescope" featuring an image of Sue Carpenter. Richie presents his gift for Eddie: a childlike-styled self-portrait of Richard which was completed in only fifteen minutes.

Later on, Richie forbids Eddie from watching TV and proceeds to start Christmas dinner. Short on brandy butter, the two settle for the highly-flammable "vodka margarine". During the cooking, Richard accidentally cuts off one of his fingers and begins to lose blood. To get on with Christmas dinner, they crudely staple the finger back into place. Dave Hedgehog and Spudgun arrive to attend Christmas dinner and are served glasses of gravy as a replacement for the sherry that Eddie already drank. For dinner, they are served rock hard potatoes, sprouts, and a turkey that is overcooked so much that it has shrunk and it is inedible. They skip to pudding; when they set the vodka margarine alight, they are forced to extinguish the powerful blaze. Richie attempts to play charades, but the others are incapable of understanding the rules. The doorbell rings, and a baby is found abandoned on the doorstep. Richie decides that he and Eddie should adopt the child, despite Eddie's protests. Eddie laments "get rid of it" and "why couldn't you be more careful?".

Spudgun, Eddie and Dave decide to give the child gifts; respectively, Terry's All Gold, a Frankenstein mask and an aftershave named "Grrr". At the time, the three are wearing paper crowns and Richie, a virgin, is wearing a blue towel like a veil. Noticing the similarities with the Nativity, Richie believes that he is the Virgin Mother of God, the child is the Messiah and that they are witnessing the Second Coming. Richie gives himself the title "Richard Mary" and demands the servitude of the others. However, it turns out that the child is the grandson of their landlord, whose daughter returns to collect the child. But Eddie and Richie get excited when she prepares to breastfeed the child in front of them.^[1]

Continuity and production errors

• This episode was over long and edited down by five minutes for transmission, producing a number of discontinuities. The original uncut version is now available on the series 2 DVD.
• During the episode, Eddie wants to watch Noel's Christmas Family Video Accidents (a fictional program title to parody a genre of programming involving Noel Edmonds), but Richie won't let him. In reality, the time Eddie was about to tune the television to BBC 1, he would've been watching Children's television.
• Richie cuts off his finger with a knife. Eddie attempts to staple the finger back to his hand, but after various staples, he realises it was the wrong finger. Throughout the rest of the episode, no damage is seen to any other of Richie's fingers.
• Following on from the above, for a majority of the episode, Richie's finger is attached to his hand with tape. In one scene, his finger is trapped in the window. At one point, it is noticeable that Mayall's real finger is bent underneath it.
• Richie believes he has broken his leg after Eddie caught him acting as Santa Claus. He them re-enters Eddie's bedroom as himself, and limps. However, he does not limp for the rest of the episode.
• Richie lights the Christmas pudding and goes up in a blaze. The flames were added via an optical effect, and this is obvious when Richie is moving the pudding, and the flames do not follow. A similar effect was used in the same episode involving a Christmas tree, but was really alight the next shot, despite the flames dying down. In Series 3, this effect was scrapped, and controlled flames were used (see Dough).
• In this episode, Spudgun tells Eddie and Dave Hedgehog that Emmerdale Farm had changed its title to just Emmerdale, claiming "it doesn't take so long to read" and they can "pack a lot more story in". It is implied that this happened quite recently but in reality, Emmerdale Farm changed its name in November 1989, almost three years before this episode was recorded.

Cast

References

External links

• "Holy" at BBC Programmes
• "Holy" at TV.com
• "Holy" at the Internet Movie Database