Just Liz

1 9 8 0 (UK)
6 x 30 minute episodes

Just Liz came from the writing team which produced Please, Sir!, Get Some In! and The Good Life. John Esmonde and Bob Larbey came up with a series for Thames Television with a woman at its centre.

Liz Parker (Sandra Payne) is a jolly girl, sprightly in a very English sort of way. The type who can cope with anything – she is politeness personified.

But Liz is also a woman alone. Her boyfriend, Nigel, is away in Bahrain for 18 months making money for their marriage – which means she is left to fend off all those men who feel they can replace him: There is the very short comedian with hair like a toilet brush and John Denver glasses who tries to win her over with pork pies, or the stiff-upper-lip boss who is fond of placing his pink, swollen arthritic hand on her knee.

Liz lives in a tidy flat where all of the furniture squeaks of newness and a framed photograph of dear old moustachioed Nigel sits atop her sideboard.

She works at Jetstream Travel where her work ranges from grappling with mannequins (her contribution to window dressing) and keeping the boss at bay.

Reg (Rodney Bewes of The Likely Lads) is Liz’s solemn workmate at the travel agency. Slow-moving and slow-thinking, he is something of a mother hen figure who desperately wants to protect Liz and save her from promiscuity.

Unfortunately, Just Liz was one of those comedies where the predictable always happened and the laughs were sporadic and mostly relied on sexual innuendo.

Liz Parker
Sandra Payne
Reg Last
Rodney Bewes
Jessie Worth
Avril Angers
Mr Dalzell
Terence Alexander
Trevor 
Mike Walling
Mr Chatto
Gorden Kaye