‘THE CHRISTENING’
Please feel free to comment on my review.
This is the second episode of Series 4 of ‘The Brittas Empire’. Mr. Brittas hopes to have his twin sons christened by his brother Richard Braine as Horatio at the leisure centre. It was nice to have Richard Braine back in the series, having seen him in that amusing Series 3 episode called ‘Two Little Boys’. 🙂
I enjoyed the first scene in the episode where Brittas gets staff members like Laura, Colin, Linda, Gavin and Tim to partake in a rehearsal for the christening. It doesn’t go according to plan when Helen’s not about for the rehearsal and Colin and Tim take out of the heads of crying baby dummies.
When Horatio arrives and meets Brittas in his office, he tells his brother that he’s fallen in love with a girl. Brittas is pleased that Horatio has found himself a girl. But Horatio has a problem, as he’s contemplating marriage with her but cannot bring up the questions due to the girl being obnoxious.
Incidentally, Horatio’s sweetheart happens to be Jemma Churchill as Philippa Belmont. I’ve heard Jemma in the ‘Doctor Who’ Big Finish audios ‘Creatures of Beauty’ and ‘Breaking Bubbles and Other Stories’. She did a guest cameo in ‘The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot’ with Peter Davison, which I enjoyed.
Helen Brittas meanwhile has a problem when she neglected the twins whilst shopping for a hat at the christening. Everyone is sent out to search for the twins in town. Brittas looks around too at a Belgian chocolate shop but the shop owner, Roger Sloman as Pete, gets his revenge on Mr. Brittas. 😐
Apparently, Brittas prevented the shop owner to see his daughter perform a swim event at the leisure centre. Meanwhile, Philippa Belmont becomes infuriating. Not only does she send everyone home but she also inadvertently insults Helen for losing the twins. It causes Helen to lash out at her.
At this point, I’ve never known Helen to get so emotionally violent, even head-butting Philippa and pushing her head down the toilet, causing her to lose her ear-ring. Helen doesn’t like being called ‘a bad mother’, to which she really is as she should have taken more care of her twins in the first place.
Eventually, the twins are found but the christening service isn’t as Brittas hoped. He has to find Philppa’s lost ring whilst Carole serves cake that has a combination of her Ben’s wee-wee and tippex. Ugh! I did like the last scene between Gordon and Laura in the office where they talk about things. 🙂
‘The Christening’ rating – 8/10
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Hi Tim,
I enjoyed this episode and found to be a breath of fresh air after ‘Not a Good Day’. It was nice to see Horatio again, as I enjoyed him in ‘Two Little Boys’. I do feel like he deserves better than Philippa though, as I found her to be cold and obnoxious. She was supposed to be a mirror of Gordon I suppose, and there may have been an element of truth in what she said about Helen. That being said however, I laughed when Helen head butted her.
The actual christening stuff was joyous and funny. I thought it was a little mean of Laura to tell Colin that the dummy that had it’s head taken off was a real baby.
P.s. did you see that I’ve made some additions to the home page on my blog?
Xavier
Hi Xavier,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on ‘The Christening’. Glad you enjoyed this ‘Brittas Empire’ episode. Since writing this review, Jemma Churchill, who plays Philippa Belmont, has also been in ‘Village of the Angels’, the fourth episode of ‘Flux’ (Series 13 of the new ‘Doctor Who’ TV series) with Jodie Whittaker. Perhaps it was a little mean of Laura to tell Colin that the dummy baby was real when he pulled its head out, but it’s astonishing Colin fell for the fib before he fainted. It’s a shame that Horatio didn’t return for more episodes in ‘The Brittas Empire’, even in Series 6 and 7, as we could have had more insight on his relationship with Philippa.
Thanks for letting me know about your additions to your blog. I’ll check them out.
Best wishes,
Tim 🙂