Citizen Smith
Power to the People!
Citizen Smith ran from 12 April 1977 to 31 December 1980. The show was written by John Sullivan, who went on later to write Only Fools and Horses.
Sullivan worked at the BBC as a scenery shifter, and wrote a script after deciding he could do better than some of the scriptwriters whose works he was helping to produce. He approached producer Dennis Main Wilson, a one-off episode "Roof Over My Head" was produced for Comedy Special. The pilot was a success, and four series and a Christmas special were produced between 1977 and 1980.
The star of the show was Robert Lindsay as "Wolfie" Smith, a young Marxist urban revolutionary living in Tooting, South London, and is leader of the Tooting Popular Front. He hero worships Che Guevara and his "Movement" made up of petty crooks, the unemployed and old school friends; they have the goals of "Freedom for Tooting" and the rallying cry of Power to the People. Wolfie's plans seem to fail due to laziness, disorganisation and are the basis for endless comic situations.
In the penultimate episode, Wolfie's full name was revealed as Walter Henry Smith - WH Smith.
Robert Lindsay has gone on to have a successful stage career appearing in musicals on stage on Boadway and in the West End, as a serious actor in TV series such as Hornblower and The Trial of Tony Blair, and is currently familiar to millions in the UK as the put upon dentist Ben Harper, husband to Zoe Wannamaker Susan Harper, in the BBC sitcom My Family.
Cast
Robert Lindsay ... Wolfie Smith
Mike Grady ... Ken Mills
Hilda Braid ... Florence Johnson - Mum (
Tony Millan ... Tucker
Tony Steedman ... Charlie Johnson - Dad
Cheryl Hall ... Shirley Johnson
Peter Vaughan ... Charlie Johnson - Dad
George Sweeney ... Anthony 'Speed' King
Stephen Greif ... Harry Fenning
Bill Ward ... Reg
David Garfield ... Ronnie Lynch
Dana Michie ... Floyd
Susan Baker ... Mandy Lynch
Barry Hayes ... Cyril
Anna Nygh ... Desiree
John Tordoff ... Brian Tofkin
Rosalind Elliot ... Fiona
Janine Duvitski ... Phillipa
