This four-part ITV series (adapted for television by Nigel Kneale from an award-winning Kingsley Amis novel) had John Thaw as middle-aged newspaper advertising manager Stanley Duke, whose comfortable life is turned upside down when his son, Steve (Sam West, son of Prunella Scales and Timothy West), is diagnosed schizophrenic and hospitalised.
To make matters worse, Stanley is thrust into conflict with his literary critic wife, Susan (Penny Downie), his actressy ex-wife, Nowell (Sheila Gish) and her drunken husband, Bert (Michael Elphick), and Dr Trish Collings (Geraldine James), the positively awful publicity-conscious psychiatrist, who blames Stanley for his son’s problems.
There’s also his horrible mother-in-law, “Lady D” (Doreen Mantle) and his son’s ex-girlfriend, Lindsey Lucas (Sian Thomas), a bolshy, rude and eccentric militant feminist.
Steve is eventually allowed out of the hospital, but his strange behaviour continues.
When the alarm bells sound at Stanley’s office at the Daily Graphic, he is called into the editor’s office to find out that his son has attacked his boss with a knife.
Stanley finally has to admit his son is mad when Steve decides to live in a tree in his front garden and is only coaxed down with the help of his mother, Nowell.
Stanley Duke
John Thaw Dr Trish Collings
Geraldine James Nowell Hutchinson
Sheila Gish Susan Duke
Penny Downie Bert Hutchinson
Michael Elphick Lindsey Lucas
Sian Thomas Rufus Hilton
Alun Armstrong Stephen Duke
Samuel West Dr Cliff Wainwright
David Lyon Harry Coote
Donald Churchill Taff Wyndham
Dafydd Hywel Dr Alfred Nash
Michael Aldridge Lady Bailey
Doreen Mantle Sister Wheatley
Joan Ann Maynard Dr Patel
Harmage Singh Kalirai Alethea
Alison Fiske Mrs Shillibeer
Joanna Mays Tom Devenish
Ronan Vibert
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To make matters worse, Stanley is thrust into conflict with his literary critic wife, Susan (Penny Downie), his actressy ex-wife, Nowell (Sheila Gish) and her drunken husband, Bert (Michael Elphick), and Dr Trish Collings (Geraldine James), the positively awful publicity-conscious psychiatrist, who blames Stanley for his son’s problems.
Steve is eventually allowed out of the hospital, but his strange behaviour continues.
