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Victor Meldrew is a fictional character in the BBC One sitcom ''One Foot in the Grave'', created by David Renwick and portrayed by Richard Wilson. The character epitomised the archetypal grumpy old man. Meldrew is a foil for the bothersome aspects of children, cars, animals, power cuts and next-door neighbours (his particular example being Patrick Trench, played by Angus Deayton). == Character == In the first episode, the cantankerous Meldrew, aged 60, is forced into retirement as a security guard (which he describes as "being replaced by a box"). The series follows Meldrew as he tries to fill his new-found leisure with odd jobs and unusual idiosyncrasies, or to get a new job. However, he regularly finds himself mistreated, misunderstood or simply the victim of bad luck, which leads to his complaining heartily.〔 The pensioner is most famous for his catchphrase, "I don't believe it!!", an expression of discontent which was actually used fairly infrequently.〔 Quite often, he stops short at "I don't ...". According to Wilson, this is because series creator Renwick wanted to avoid overusing it.. Other frequently used expressions of exasperation are "Unbe-lieeeve-able!", "What in the name of ''bloody hell''?!" and "In the name of sanity!" Victor is something of a hypochondriac, keeping a medical book with him to look up every ailment he believes has befallen him. (Margaret describes it as "browsing through to see what he can die of next".) The series was so successful that in the UK the term ''a Victor Meldrew'' has become a euphemism for a bitter and complaining elderly man. However, both Renwick and Wilson himself have disagreed that Victor is an example of this stereotype; Wilson himself once said in an interview that he was a "normal man in a world full of idiots", and he is shown to be more of a tragicomedy character, not bitter and grumpy by nature, but driven to it due to his habit of attracting trouble. Renwick once pointed out in an interview that the name "Victor" is ironic, since he almost always ends up as the loser.〔"The original British loser that we recognise in Victor Meldrew and Alan Partridge." ''(Tony Hancock, The Definitive Biography )''. HarperCollins, 2008. Retrieved 2 June 2012.〕 Although he is seen as misanthropic by the many victims of his wrath and misfortune, Victor is often depicted as an honest, likeable and sympathetic character. Ultimately, many felt that the things that he railed against, e.g. yobbish behaviour, lack of consideration for others, shoddy service, and bureaucratic indifference, were things that he had every right to get angry about; in fact, if anything, most admired him for having the guts to stand up and be counted; as the bizarre misfortunes that befell Meldrew would be enough to exasperate anyone. In the episode "Warm Champagne", his long-suffering wife Margaret defends him. When Margaret contemplates having an affair with Ben, a man she meets on holiday, Ben puts Victor down and accuses him of being insensitive. Margaret replies that Victor is in fact the most sensitive person she's ever met. If he weren't so sensitive, he wouldn't be upset by the smallest of things, and that is the reason she loves him (and "continually wants to ram his head through a television screen"). In "Descent into the Maelstrom", Margaret is visited by a woman she used to care for as a child, but Victor discovered that she was in fact mentally unstable, sought by the police for kidnapping a toddler, and had stolen a pair of earrings Margaret treasured; Victor turned the woman over to the authorities and chose not to tell Margaret, preferring to let her think he had lost the earrings, knowing how much the truth would upset her. In the episode "Hearts of Darkness", Victor chanced upon a nursing home where the elderly residents were suffering severe abuse at the hands of the nurses. In revenge, Victor drugged the staff and placed them in a nearby field with their feet encased in concrete, like scarecrows. In the episode "Timeless Time", it is implied that Victor and Margaret had a son named Stuart who died in childhood. David Renwick's novelisation of the series confirms this interpretation. In the final episode, "Things Aren't Simple Any More", Meldrew is killed after being hit by a car. This eliminated any realistic possibility of a seventh series. Passers-by left bouquets of flowers in homage at the railway bridge in Shawford, a small village in Hampshire, England, the filming location. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Victor Meldrew」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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