Russell and Penny Milburn are a young couple with a baby daughter (Emma).
In the opening episode, wisecracking Russell (Peter Davison) faces the choice of relocating in his job as a modestly paid brewery executive away from London to Workington, where he will gain promotion and a better salary or staying put and being made redundant.
He wants to move but Penny (Patricia Hodge) won’t, and so – in a reversal of roles – Russell becomes a house-husband, staying at home with the baby, the nappies, the Hoover and some productive ale barrels in the cellar, while Penny brings home the bacon by returning to her former post as a Captain in the Womens’ Royal Army Corps.
Russell is aided in his chores and his brewing adventures by his free-spirited lorry-driving pal, Fitzroy (Matthew Kelly) – known as ‘Fitz’ – and both share a penchant for pacifism (at odds with Penny’s army career), beer and football.
Holding The Fort was the first sitcom to bear the writing credit of Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran – perhaps the most illustrious names in British situation comedy writing in the last 20 years of the 20th century.
They later spun off Fitz into his own series, called Relative Strangers.
Penny Milburn
Patricia Hodge Russell Milburn
Peter Davison Fitz
Matthew Kelly Captain Hector Quilley
Christopher Godwin Jennifer Quilley
Maev Alexander Colonel Aubrey Sanderson
Christopher Benjamin Annabel Chesterton
Brigit Forsyth Terence Chesterton
Keith Barron Dr Heather Wolstenholme
Arwen Holm Emma Milburn
Katie Louise Reynolds (1)
Victoria Kendall (2)
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