This anthology series of seven light-hearted comedies from Thames Television revolved around the ever-intriguing subject of sex.
The debut play, ‘The Lovemakers’, had rich, attractive Mimsy (Moira Lister) keeping her two ex-husbands in a large apartment in the luxury they expected. The men schemed to preserve their status quo when Mimsy announced she was thinking of taking a third husband (Ian Dewar) – a man the ex-husbands hated.
‘The Return Match’ featured Ian Bannen as Ronald Napier, a struck-off dental surgeon turned failed salesman who agreed to a preposterous plan put to him by Alison Watkins (Andree Melly) – to pretend to be her boyfriend for an evening to provide one in the eye for her philandering husband Gerry (Terence Alexander) when he returned from his umpteenth (failed) affair expecting to find her waiting chastely for him.
Edwin Stroud (George Baker) divorced fabulously wealthy Louisa (Siân Phillips) in ‘Women Can Be Monsters’ (written by Ernie Gebler) and married nice, ordinary Liz (Eileen Atkins), but discovered that Louisa regarded divorce as being far from final.
‘Darby Hates Joan’ (by Richard Waring) featured Jane Baxter and David Langton as Diana and Roger, a comfortably well-off married couple who had stuck together for “thirty summers” because of their children. But now the children had left home what was to keep them together?
Pretty young Anne Bamford (Felicity Gibson) climbed through a window to let drunken middle-aged married architect Frank Healey (George Cole) into his own home when he forgot his key in ‘Cold Game Pie’. He found a note in the house saying his wife had left him. Further complications arose when his mother-in-law turned up.
Barbara Jefford and Anton Rodgers starred in ‘A Quartet at Sheila’s’, in which a woman found herself attracted to a man, and both knew they should draw back to avoid an agonising dilemma – But didn’t.
‘Hippy-Hippy-Who-Cares’ (written by Fay Weldon) starred Julia Foster as a Cinderella-like typist and Julian Orchard as a successful businessman with a vast appetite for girls. but who really only wanted to get married and settle down to a simple life. Valerie Gearon and Frederick Jaeger were suitably Ugly Sister-like as advertising executives.
Episodes
The Lovemakers | The Return Match | Women Can Be Monsters | Darby Hates Joan | Cold Game Pie | A Quartet at Sheila’s | Hippy-Hippy-Who-Cares
Edwin Stroud (George Baker) divorced fabulously wealthy Louisa (Siân Phillips) in ‘Women Can Be Monsters’ (written by Ernie Gebler) and married nice, ordinary Liz (Eileen Atkins), but discovered that Louisa regarded divorce as being far from final.
