Frasier has aged so well – but rewatching it has left me feeling dated

Where once he saw a character resembling his dad, Will Gore now sees in Frasier Crane too much of himself

When I first watched the show, Frasier (or at least, the actor who played him, Kelsey Grammer) was – or so I assumed – about the same age as my father (Getty)

We all face moments of reckoning in our lives – but rarely do they come while viewing a repeat of an American sitcom that originally aired two decades ago. And yet this was the situation I faced last week as, from the comfort of my sofa, I became increasingly discomfited at what I saw before me on the TV.

Frasier, the show in question, is patently one of the comedic greats. A rare example of a spin-off being better than the original, it ran for just over a decade from 1993, and has since been repeated almost as regularly as Friends. Oddly, those two powerhouses of US light comedy ran almost exactly concurrently: and while I adore both, one has aged much better than the other.

That’s not to say that there isn’t the odd wincey moment in Frasier, but much of the humour – a mix of brilliantly delivered lines and situational high farce – remains surprisingly fresh. And whereas in Friends the smugness is often unintended and now grates, in Frasier, it exists deliberately to be laughed at.

But beyond all the other things that make Frasier brilliant, there is a personal element to my love for it: the central character has always reminded me of my father. To some extent there is a physical resemblance, both of them with high foreheads and square jaws. Mainly though, it was Frasier’s love of his own voice and his mild-mannered expertise on every subject under the sun, which was redolent of my dad. They also shared the occasional look of clumsy panic at a potentially awkward situation or the loss of a vital piece of paper.

Naturally, the comparison was made more obvious by the fact that when I first watched the show, Frasier (or at least, the actor who played him, Kelsey Grammer) was – or so I assumed – about the same age as my father. And when I have watched repeats in the here and now, I have still seen in Frasier a man of my father’s generation – never mind the fact that my dad is now in his seventies.

As I watched a couple of episodes from the seventh series on Tuesday, however, I had a sudden pang of doubt. Initially, I had been pondering why it was that Frasier was so often portrayed as being keenly attractive to women apparently rather younger than himself. Then I began to question the central tenet of that conundrum – just how old was Frasier?

I lurched for my phone, looking up Kelsey Grammer’s date of birth and the year that the relevant episodes were filmed – and was immediately stunned. The Frasier Crane before me, that long-time comedic embodiment of my dad, was almost exactly the same age as me. And I realised that I was no longer looking at a man who resembled my father, but at a reflection of myself.

There are differences between us of course. Fortunately, my marriage remains intact and my children are ever-present. Less fortunately, I don’t have the kind of wealth that can afford a large, open-plan, Seattle apartment. What’s more, unlike Frasier, I don’t decant my sherry – but only because I prefer it chilled. And anyway, my decanters are full of port and gin.

Yet in the minor pomposities, in the peculiar mix of deep-seated self-confidence and bouts of daft anxiety, and in the utter incapability of using one word when two – or indeed, a glorious multitude – are available, Frasier and I are as one.

Perhaps it doesn’t do to overthink these things. After all, I have spent most of my life acting like a middle-aged man, so really it shouldn’t come as such a terrible shock that I am one. The thing that’s harder to come to terms with is that, if I have turned into Frasier, it also rather suggests I’m turning into my dad.