1 9 8 6 – 1 9 8 7 (UK)
12 x 30 minute episodes
Widow Sheila Haddon (Maureen Lipman in her first comedy series since Agony) discovers that she no longer has enough money to keep up repayments on the mortgage for her huge house when her husband dies.
Her deceased husband hadn’t bothered to take out any life insurance and what little money he’d left her has now gone.
Aged in her early forties, Sheila is fiercely independent, and her daughter Monica (Lisa Jacobs), a 20-year-old art college student, is charged with the job of finding likely lodgers.
She brings in all manner of people, like her art-student friend Carol (Gabrielle Glaister), Hamish the Scotsman (David Bannerman), Henry the doctor (Martin Clunes), vain Chris (Gregory Doran), who has just arrived in London and is looking for a place to stay, Candy (Carol Hawkins), Frankie (Desmond McNamara) and others.
Soon Sheila has a full house, but the odds, inevitably, are now stacked against her enjoying a quiet life. To ward off the bank manager Sheila also tries to get part-time jobs, with limited success, working as a PA and then typing book manuscripts.
Plus, she is troubled by the increasing attentions of a blazer-and-cravat man, Richard Beamish (Gary Waldhorn), an old friend of her late husband’s, who fancies his chances with the widow to the point where he proposes marriage. Sheila declines, exit Beamish.
Sheila Haddon
Maureen Lipman
Monica Haddon
Lisa Jacobs
Henry
Martin Clunes
Richard Beamish
Gary Waldhorn
Chris
Gregory Doran
Carol
Gabrielle Glaister
Candy
Carol Hawkins
Hamish
David Bannerman
Frankie
Desmond McNamara
