Citizen Smith

Citizen Smith
Created byJohn Sullivan
StarringRobert Lindsay
Mike Grady
Cheryl Hall
Hilda Braid
Peter Vaughan
Tony Steedman
Tony Millan
George Sweeney
Stephen Greif
David Garfield
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series4
No. of episodes30 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time30 minutes
Original release
NetworkBBC1
Release12 April 1977 (1977-04-12) –
31 December 1980 (1980-12-31)
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)

Citizen Smith is a British television sitcom written by John Sullivan, first broadcast from 1977 to 1980.[1]

It starred Robert Lindsay as Walter Henry "Wolfie" Smith,[2] a young Marxist[3] "urban guerrilla" in Tooting, south London, who is attempting to emulate his hero Che Guevara.[4] Wolfie is a reference to the Irish revolutionary Wolfe Tone, who used the pseudonym "Citizen Smith" in order to evade capture by the Dublin Castle administration. Wolfie is the self-proclaimed leader of the revolutionary Tooting Popular Front (the TPF, merely a small bunch of his friends), the goals of which are "Power to the People" and "Freedom for Tooting".

Wolfie dresses in a stereotypical fashion for rebellious students of the period: logoed T-shirt, denim jeans, Afghan coat and black beret. He supports Fulham and occasionally wears a Fulham scarf. He rides a scooter and spends most of the time at his girlfriend's house, which means he constantly clashes with her parents.

  1. ^ "BFI Screenonline: Citizen Smith (1977-80)". screenonline.org.uk. Retrieved 12 August 2021.
  2. ^ Barnett, David (20 March 2017). "We remember Citizen Smith fondly but is there a place for him in today's politics?". The Independent. Retrieved 4 January 2022.
  3. ^ "The British Comedy Guide". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 25 September 2011.
  4. ^ "Citizen Smith (1977)". BFI. Archived from the original on 18 January 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2021.