His And Hers

1 9 7 0 – 1 9 7 2 (UK)
20 x 30 minute episodes

Sue Lloyd – and later Barbara Murray – played Kay Sherwin, a jet-set executive wife (she was a chief accountant who read the Financial Times and had a brolly and a bowler) whose husband, Rupert (Ronald Lewis), reverses roles and stays at home to be the house-husband.

Not as revolutionary as it sounds, because he was a freelance magazine writer and worked at home – even if he did put a pinny on now and again, was generally useful around the house and made delightful shortbread.

The original idea for this Hoare and Sharland sitcom was role-reversal, with next-door neighbours the Burgesses (Tim Brooke-Taylor and Madeline Smith) happy to ridicule the Sherwins’ deviation from the norm.

But when His and Hers returned for a second series, virtually two years after the first, the role-reversal premise was largely overlooked in favour of the depiction of unlikely scrapes that one or other of the Sherwins (usually Rupert) got into – including such far-fetched stories as a defecting Russian ballet dancer taking refuge in their bathroom.

Sue Lloyd did not return for this second run, so Barbara Murray was cast as Kay, and the Burgesses were also gone, although, curiously, Tim Brooke-Taylor turned up in one later episode in a different role.

Norman Rossington, Roy Kinnear, Peter Jones, Patricia Routledge and Freddie Jones appeared in guest roles in one episode apiece.

Rupert Sherwin
Ronald Lewis
Kay Sherwin
Sue Lloyd (1)
Barbara Murray (2)
Toby Burgess
Tim Brooke-Taylor
Janet Burgess
Madeline Smith
Dorothy
Janie Booth