Mark Gatiss Archives - The Skittish Library

Happy Families, old-school style, is a fascinating game – mainly because of the tradition of depicting the families in Victorian caricature, all big heads and semi-human appearance. For this reason, I was equally intrigued and unnerved by the card game as a child.

For the princely sum of 99p on Ebay, I purchased this lovely Chad Valley Games pack from 1910. In pretty good condition for a pack of cards over 100 years old.

Here’s the rules:

If you’re a comedy fan like me, a fun game with Happy Families is to decide which League of Gentleman would play each role, if Happy Families was a film (please do this, Mark Gatiss).

So for example, deffo Steve Pemberton for the terrifying Mr Drug the Doctor and Mr Blonde the Barber. Reece Shearsmith for Master Groats the Grocer’s Son and Master Putty the Painter’s Son (and Mrs Putty too), and Mark Gatiss for Mrs Howler the Singer’s wife and Mr Clamp the Carpenter. You’re allowed Jeremy Dyson.

However, I am having trouble imagining anyone but Michael Palin as Mr ‘Arris the Aristocrat. This is a good pun, ‘Arris being the first part of Aristocrat and also a slang word for arse. I love the tortured way this became Cockney rhyming slang – arse was firstly “bottle and glass”, then just “bottle”, which, via a new rhyme, became “Aristotle” and then “Aris”.

Anyway, here are the families. Creepy, aren’t they? Look at the cold, dead eyes of Master Bull, the Butcher’s Son.

Oh yes! Last Saturday’s Doctor Who, Robot of Sherwood, was so entirely up my street that I think I actually live there.

Robin Hood, Ben Miller, Peter Capaldi’s vibrantly grumpy Doctor, robots for the robot-obsessed small boy in my house, Clara continuing as my style icon with a magnificent red gown, (and getting a good part to play this week). All that and the use of slang…well, that was just the cherry on the cake for me.

I came across Gallimaufry a few weeks back, while putting together my post on Gander-month, as it’s on the same page of The Slang Dictionary of 1865 – https://skittishlibrary.co.uk/victorian-slang-word-of-the-week-gander-month/

Gallimaufry here means a type of jumbled stew of all kind of things chucked in the pot. It’s not quite the Doctor’s cheese sandwiches in cling film that Ben Miller’s Sheriff of Nottingham referred to in the episode, but at the time I was struck by its similarity to Gallifrey and how it sounded like something that Time Lords should eat. So I was overjoyed that someone else had found that word and also thought it suitably Timey Lordy.

Of course, that someone is Mr Mark Gatiss, writer of this episode, and frankly if anyone is also likely to own the Victorian Slang Dictionary, it’s him.

It’s followed by Gallipot, meaning apothecary (and also the pot where the ointments were kept), which isn’t a million miles away from “Doctor” either.

Oh, and there was also a mention of one of my favourite “head” insults – I’ve covered Cupboard-head, Chuckle-head, Buffle-head and Culver-head already, but here we had Pudding-head, still an excellent word to be used wherever possible today, I would say. Maybe this episode will bring it back to life? I hope so.