House That Jack Built, The

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

This late-night BBC1 drama covered ten years of marriage from the wedding night (the subject of the first episode) to the present day of Jack (Comedians star Duggie Brown in an uncharacteristic dramatic role) and Lu (Sharon Duce).

For Jack, the dream was to live in a castle with grounds big enough to ride a horse for two hours. For Lu, it was the dream of love.

The first episode (’10 Years Ago: Winter’) was all stark, down-to-earth stuff. Lu entered in full bridal attire carried across the threshold by Jack and dumped on a sofa as she slowly recovered from getting roaring drunk at the wedding reception.

She was plagued by an urge to be sick and deep remorse, while her husband philosophically resorted to quoting slabs of poetry.

Jack’s trenchant summing up – “Today’s been a bloody fiasco, it seems to me” – was dangerously near the truth. As the bride ranged between maudlin regret and anger at her display, she did so to her husband’s precise description of what happened: “You danced every dance, you told a couple of jokes and, when you’d had enough, you fell down.”

So the aspirations of the pair gradually emerged, culminating in Lu’s eventual departure to sleep on her own only to return, sans everything, to greet her groom.

The six episodes – designed as two-hander – were written by Shelagh Delaney.

Jack
Duggie Brown
Lu
Sharon Duce

Episodes

Episodes

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