As Good Cooks Go

1 9 6 9 (UK)
1 x 30 minute episode
1 9 7 0 (UK)
6 x 30 minute episodes

Originally airing as an episode of Comedy Playhouse in May 1969, British Music Hall leftover Tessie O’Shea (sometimes known as “two-ton Tessie”) rollicked through a script by John Warren and John Singer playing Blodwen O’Reilly, a freelance cook sent to work in a transport cafe.

Her cooking was so good that she attracted the elite to the cafe, and the lorry drivers had no place to go.

Discovering the error of her ways, Blodwen organised a punch-up to drive the toffs away – during which she had a bottle of tomato sauce stuck down the front of her dress – and we were right back in the world of the old-fashioned English farce with a wild-tempered Irish-Welsh woman and golden-hearted two-fisted lorry drivers.

As Good Cooks Go returned as a short-lived BBC Wednesday evening series in January 1970 with the Comedy Playhouse episode repeated as a scene-setter.

Tessie delivered her jokes with a pantomime quality and a beefy lack of intonation but a brilliant sense of timing.

Unfortunately, it was unfunny and generally depressing.

Blodwen O’Reilly
Tessie O’Shea
Frankie Bullock
Frank Williams

Episodes

A Good Pull Up for Bentleys || Trial by Banquet | The Perils of Blodwen | Battle of the Bulge | Frying Squad | Tummy Troubles | Bring on the Ghosts