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The Guardian shocked by the Hungarian ‘You Rang, M’Lord?’-craze
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Britain’s most influential newspaper, The Guardian, recently wrote about the Hungarian obsession with the British TV-series ‘You Rang, M’Lord?’. In order to find out about the reasons why this TV-series is still a success in Hungary when it has been long forgotten in Britain, one of their reporters attended an anniversary celebration in Budapest, organised by Hungarian fans.
Fans of all ages gathered at the 30th-anniversary celebration at a restaurant in Budapest, where some members of the main cast made an appearance, including Michael Knowles (Teddy) and Jeffrey Holland (James).
Even the restaurant’s chef is a fan of ‘You Rang, M’Lord?’, recalls the article, highlighting the Hungarian love for the series.
The Guardian attributes the show’s success to the fall of the Communist regime: with Hungary’s turn to democracy, new horizons were opened, and the dubbing of films and TV-series from the West began. The first such series was a Brazilian romantic comedy, followed by the American ‘Dallas’, and then came ‘You Rang, M’Lord?’.
Three decades later, the series is still on air on several Hungarian TV channels,
and the fan club of 23 thousand members goes to show that its popularity will last for another couple of decades. Some of these members decided to organise a celebratory event for the shows’ 30th anniversary, however, they did not stop at a Hungarian fan get-together: they tracked down some of the still living members of the cast.
A crowdfunding page was set up to cover the expenses of flying the cast to Budapest. The idea’s popularity grew with each day, eventually reaching a point where the page had to be shut down (after only a month), as over 800 people put in a request for an audience with the cast members, even though the ticket prices varied from 5000 to 20000 forints (EUR 15-60). The fans raised millions of forints to pay for their favourites’ plane tickets and hotel rooms.
“with Hungary’s turn to democracy, new horizons were opened, and the dubbing of films and TV-series from the West began. The first such series was a Brazilian romantic comedy, followed by the American ‘Dallas’, and then came ‘You Rang, M’Lord?’
What absolute twaddle! As if Hungary had been some sort of penitentiary island modeled on North Korea, and not the most liberal place in the Soviet Block, where you could watch films like Last Tango in Paris or Fellini’s Casanova as a matter of course. Dubbing Western films for cinema or tv had long been business as usual from times immemorial, and of course, Western series on tv were nothing new when the Berlin Wall fell. If the Guardian’s reporter is typically clueless about the place, I would have expected this website dedicated to Hungary to not just repeat these ignorant claims.