Swiss Toni
Swiss Toni is a fictional used-car dealer played by Charlie Higson, and also the title of a sitcom in which he is the main character. Swiss Toni is a 50-something car dealer going through a midlife crisis. To Toni almost any situation in life is best understood as being "like making love to a beautiful woman", in some rather implausible ways. Swiss Toni is usually depicted wearing a grey suit and with his hair styled in a platinum-blond bouffant quiff. The character was created by Charlie Higson and Bob Mortimer and originally introduced in the BBC comedy series The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, but is best known as a recurring character in another BBC comedy series The Fast Show. Swiss Toni was later spun off into a sitcom, which developed both the character and his situation beyond the confines of the Fast Show sketches. The two series ran on BBC Three, the first three episodes of the first series also being repeated on BBC One. As well as playing the title character, Higson was the show's main writer and one of its producers.
Now that he's had to downgrade Swiss has become depressed and going to the doctor sends him from one extreme to the other...
Swiss' company is feeling the strain, so he hires a woman who can sort out his problems but he's not keen on what she has to say.
When the opportunity arises to go speed dating with Miranda and the others, Swiss is first in line. The event is not a great success however, as when Swiss finds himself without a partner he drunkenly offers to take everyone back to his place.
While Geoff has been on holiday the showroom has been busy making sales and it's all down to one customer - Peter Gellward - who has bought several new cars. But why? What has been drawing him to the showroom? Paul, Swiss and Miranda all have their own theories and we see the same events from their different viewpoints as each character tells their story.
Sasha, a slacker college friend of Miranda's, visits the showroom and Miranda is horrified to discover that she is now a TV producer, making awful sadistic reality shows for cable TV. Sasha has only one thing on her mind when she comes to the showroom which is to check out Swiss and see if he is as extraordinary as Miranda has made out. She's in luck - Swiss is even more ridiculous than she expected and she seduces him into agreeing to host a talk show for Men and Motors.
When the showroom closes for the weekend for rewiring it's a chance for the staff to enjoy a proper weekend off and they all plan to make the best use of the time. Paul is going to earn some extra cash decorating Swiss's mother's flat as a Mother's Day surprise, Ruth is planning a dirty weekend with Geoff and Swiss is planning a dirty weekend of his own.
Miranda's sister comes to vist and the men can't resist competing with each other to win her over.
Swiss is trying another new way to bring in customers and this time he's hired a robot called Fothergill 2000. Fothergill is controlled by a nerdy obsessive, Bric-A-Brac Leonard, and, like all of Swiss's ideas, is totally useless.
Both Geoff and Swiss' chances with Ruth aren't good as Geoff can't express what he wants to say, and Swiss doesn't know how to attract the 'modern' woman. Miranda helps him out and so does Geoff, albeit inadvertantly...
It's Swiss's birthday - although he won't tell anyone how old he is. "That is the mystery of Swiss Toni". The staff have pulled together to buy him an I-Pod so that he can catch up with the modern world and Swiss realises that he has become stuck in the past. In order to win Ruth back he needs to re-invent himself as a modern man. He ends up loving modern technology and learning things he didn't know before...
When Swiss sees a TV ad for a rival bicycle company saying that cars 'Make You Fat', Swiss hires movie maker 'Derek Askwith' to film an ad for Swiss' Motor Showroom, but the filming doesn't exactly go to plan...
Geoff bets Swiss £500 that he can't sell the "Brown Monster". Their sales techniques prove useless and both decide they need to brush up on their sales pitches.
Swiss tried to motivate his team and his family but a trip to a nightclub isn't what they had hoped for.
A group of drunken girls cause problems for Swiss.
Swiss confronts his sexuality after his friend runs off with another man.
Swiss' celebration takes a turn for the worse and if this wasn't enough he now faces the prospect with living with his mum.
Plot of this episode is not specified yet. Please check back later for more update.
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| Language | English |
| Release | 2003-02-10 |
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