Friday 18 October 1963

Kate Starling's feeling unsatisfied.  She's been for lunch with an old schoolfriend who now owns a beautiful house decked out in the latest style, and it's brought home to her just how little she has herself: as she notes to neighbour Norah, the hem of her skirt's "been raised and lowered more times than the Union Jack). "I couldn't help thinking all we own is the bed," Kate sighs.  Norah tries to comfort her: "Well, that's nice to fall back on, dear!"

Norah's got her own worries: husband Peter's due to find out whether or not he's got a payrise: if he has, it's an extra £200 a year - nearly £2 a week! Finally he arrives home - it's good news for he and Norah, but just makes Kate feel all the more glum.  Cheer up dear, at least you've got a new hat.

Kate's been resigned to the fact that George'll never get promoted - he's just not the type who pushes.  But on his return home he announces fantastic financial news.  Kate's strangely unenthused by the revelation that he got three lemons on the fruit machine - that's winnings of 54/6!

Kate doesn't get round to telling George Peter's news before Peter and Norah pop round and announce that what's more Peter's firm are moving them to a luxurious estate outside Edinburgh.  All of a sudden poor George feels like a complete failure.  He and Kate both decide their flat's a dump, and Kate suggests they buy a few new items to brighten it up.  The notion of even an amiable husband like George having to give Kate permission to spend his money on things she wants, and her pathetic gratitude, now seem absolutely bizarre.

When Kate complains about the dreary wallpaper in the flat, George finds himself trapped in a promise to visit the letting agent and complain.  Terrified, he rehearses being forceful in advance.

The trouble is that he's too forceful, and seedy agent Cartwright (a martyr to his deaf-aid, and played by Maitland Moss, who was a different but similarly forbidding character in the first episode of the series) responds by giving him two weeks' notice to quit the flat.  There follows a film montage of George going in and out of various estate agents without any luck, which will no doubt appeal to those keen on 1960s shopfronts.

A penitent George returns home to break the devastating news to Kate - who's already busy kitting the place out with the latest decorative nick-nacks.

Before he gets the chance, Peter and Norah appear again, this time to congratulate George on the promotion a deliriously envious Kate told them George had received.  The deception's made especially difficult when an estate agent (John Nettleton, who receives another of those "appears by permission of the Royal Shakespeare Company credits") turns up to show an enthusiastic young couple around the flat.

Kate's aghast at seeing these youngsters fall in love with her home, like a ghostly replay of she and George's viewing of the flat.  Once they've gone (deciding they'll take it), George reveals exactly what's happened.  Norah suggests she and Peter sub-let their flat to the Starlings, but this idea loses its sheen when Peter indiscreetly points out how much nicer the Starlings' flat is than their own.  Poor George feels more a failure than ever, and it's deeply touching when Kate assures him he's the only person she'd ever want to be with (she's even stopped dreaming about Dr Kildare).

It looks like there's just one course of action available: George picks up the phone and prepares himself for some extreme grovelling.

The Starlings manage to get their flat back - with a rent increase of a guinea a week.  The shiny new items are packed away, ready to go back to the shop.  As George and Kate convince themselves how much they love their home anyway, the episode ends rather gloomily with a lampshade collapsing and causing a vase to smash on the floor.

The last episode of the current series, The Old Place is a surprisingly melancholic way of bowing out, but as it's one of the best-written episodes yet, it bodes well for the future.  A second series follows in 1964, but sadly that one no longer exists, so it'll be quite a while before the Starlings return to these parts.

Friday 11 October 1963

It's the eve of Kate and George Starling's anniversary.  The anniversary of their engagement, that is.  Kate's worried George might not consider it as important an occasion as she does, and decides to drop a subtle hint, placing a calendar and their wedding photos in full view on the kitchen table.  It's a waste of time: not only has George completely forgotten but he arrives home with an old schoolfriend, the very loud Bill Parker (Howard Pays) - commanding Kate to remove the photo album on the table and replace it with one that has photos of him and Bill in.  Their shared enthusiasm for a toy car Bill's bought his son does little to make Kate feel better.

Cars manage to ruin Kate's day further when she learns that, rather than take her back to Padley, the romantic beauty sport where they got engaged, George has planned an outing for them to Brand's Hatch with Bill the following day.  Sensing Kate's incipient wrath, he acquiesces to her plan, though he needs to steal not-so-surreptitious glances at the photos of their engagement outing in order to convince her he remembers anything about the day.

Kate wants to have dinner at the same swanky hotel where they got engaged.  "It's rather exp-crowded," George protests, but of course he has no real choice.

The anniversary gets off to a bad start with George in a grump about the increase in the rail fare since the previous year.  "Next time I get engaged I'll do it closer to home," he huffs somewhat unromantically.

Things aren't improved with the arrival of an aggressively gregarious hiking enthusiast (Blake Butler), who turns their carriage into a living hell for the duration of the journey.

Kate and George's walk in the countryside (on film) is a picturesque comedy of disappointments, including the discovery of another couple in the boathouse where they shared an intimate moment the previous year, and their own later discovery by their new friend in the same boathouse.

A collapsed bridge means the Starlings are late to dinner and have to share their table with another couple.  Added to which the staff fail to remember them from the previous year despite George's elaborate prompting, and practically everything on the menu's off.  Kate's longed-for romantic anniversary receives a final nail in its coffin when the couple sharing with them make a sharp exit on learning the man's wife is on the phone.  When Bill and his wife Patsy (Diane Elliott) unexpectedly appear and join them, Kate decides that, as there's no way of salvaging the day she wanted, she might as well embrace their company.  As the men head to the bar Patsy assures Kate she can empathise with her situation: it's her wedding anniversary and Bill has totally forgotten.

The Anniversary is especially fun for giving the Starlings a change of scene, and it's great to see Kate coming across as a truly likeable character again at last.  There's some brilliant acting from Prunella Scales as Kate wistfully accepts the end of her romantic dreams, and Richard Briers' astonished reaction to how reasonable she's being is a joy to behold too.

Friday 4 October 1963

An almost Galton & Simpson-esque two-hander for most of its length, Party Mood is the most successful episode of The Marriage Lines yet, following Kate and George Starling on a rollercoaster ride of emotions as they react to the news that all their friends are going to a party to which they haven't been invited.  It's brilliantly simple, and gives Prunella Scales and, especially, Richard Briers, a superb opportunity to show off their comedy chops.

Kate and George's life's been a social whirlwind of late, a seemingly endless round of parties.  So they're looking forward to a nice evening in by themselves for a change.  George has bought a record of Kate's favourite song, a slushy ballad called "People in Love" (written especially for the episode by The Marriage Lines' writer Richard Waring and composer Dennis Wilson, and sung by crooner Gary Miller).  It's an amazing coincidence as Kate was just thinking of it that day, and how it makes her feel about her relationship with George.  The breathless excitement in the way she describes her banal life is strangely lovable: "It was in Mr Harrison's, I went in to see him about the new wastepipe and I suddenly thought, it's just the two of us tonight, how wonderful.  And I went straight in the butcher's and bought a chicken."

This domestic idyll comes crashing down around their ears when George calls their hosts of the previous night to thank them - and learns they're off to Tom and Joan's party.  Which Kate and George haven't received an invite to. Kate's immediately appalled about this, but George laughs it off.  "If you had any sense of gallantry at all, George, you'd do something about it," Kate insists, though she's unimpressed with his offer to challenge Tom to a duel.

The romantic evening in forgotten, Kate insists the Starlings hold a party of their own - she can string her chicken out into a big risotto if she uses plenty of rice.  She heads next door to invite Peter and Norah, and George rings up Miles.  But they're all going to Tom and Joan's.  As are all of their other friends, even the ones who don't even know Tom and Joan.  Even Stephen and Jenny, who nobody's asked out anywhere in their lives.

Kate and George never liked Tom and Joan anyway.  He's a pimply, toffee-nosed communist who pours "the smallest Scotches this side of the border".  And she never cleans the bathroom.  Not that George has ever noticed: "We men just hop in and out, you know."  And you know, there's nothing like a gruesome character assassination of your friends to cheer you up.  They even start to speculate on Tom and Joan's future children: "With his lips."  "And her bosom.  Joan's bosom would just about pass on a boy."  "I've often passed it on Joan."

Next thing, of course, Kate and George are having a huge row, with Kate convinced George wants to go to the party.  After all, the only thing left to drink at the Starlings' is sweet vermouth - and not even any soda. And the B-side of the record is Gary Miller enthusing about non-stop partying in "Let's Go Gay".  George is driven to call up Tom, and is incensed when he makes no reference to the party despite the deafening crowd in the background.

One minute George has decided that people see the Starlings as so loved-up they're crashing bores, the next he's convinced it's their constant rowing that put people off.  Either way, they're clearly considered poison.

Then Peter turns up, having argued with Norah - the fight kicked off with them disagreeing about whether or not George and Kate were invited to the party.  George, of course, makes out they were but didn't want to go.  Inconveniently, Tom then rings back to invite them - insisting he did send an invite.  When George pops out to the off licence Kate discovers it was in George's dressing gown pocket all along!

There's a callback here to the first Marriage Lines episode, with Peter reminding Kate of the embarrassment she felt on finding she had the key to the flat after they'd been locked out all night, and insisting she not tell George about the invite.

But she doesn't need to - on returning he swiftly finds it himself, and is accordingly gobsmacked.

But fortunately it all ends well, with all the partygoers on their way to Kate and George after escaping Tom and Joan's deathly dull soirée.  Marriage Lines has had more than its share of dud episodes, but the warm, witty Party Mood shows how good it can potentially be.

Friday 27 September 1963

Kate and George Starling are feeling smug: it's two weeks since they last rowed, and Kate's convinced they're over "the hump" that it took her parents two years of married life to negotiate.  George is taking them out for dinner to celebrate.

Their smugness is doubled when they overhear their neighbours Peter and Norah having a humungous barney (not that they're deliberately listening in, you understand).

When Norah starts calling Peter things neither Kate nor George have ever heard of, and the Starlings hear the distinctive sound of a sauce boat being chucked at someone, Kate decides it would be a good idea to defuse the situation (i.e. meddle) by inviting the pair over for a drink.  And how could they fail to forget their troubles when they're exposed to a couple as loved-up as George and Kate? And if nothing else, as Kate wisely points out, "There's never been a row yet that was worth missing somebody else's drink for."

George heads over to invite the warring pair for a drink but it's just a grumpy Peter who appears, Norah pleading a headache.  Kate goes to jolly her along, leaving George to commiserate with Peter.  "Don't worry old man," he unhelpfully ventures, "Some people just have bigger humps than others."  "We'll probably need Sherpas and oxygen to get over ours," Peter growls.

It seems the root of Peter and Norah's argument was Norah's jealousy over the new sexy-voiced phone operator where Peter works.  She's actually not much to look at, but Peter's made out she's gorgeous just to tease Norah - who's now seen him out shopping with her.  The sauce boat Norah threw at Peter scored a direct hit.  "What rotten luck!" George sympathises, "They're normally such bad shots."

Eventually Kate produces an unhappy-looking Norah, and her attempts to reconcile her with Peter aren't exactly subtle: "Oh Norah, that's my chair - I'm afraid you'll have to sit next to your husband."  After Kate and George have an elaborate smooch by way of encouragement to their guests, Kate makes some rather elaborate gestures in an attempt to get George out of the room with her.

It doesn't do much good.

The Starlings provide some background music as a way of putting their guests at ease.  Kate enthuses about how George has been buying a lot of "modern" records lately.  "He used to be such a square - now he's... what's the opposite of square?"  The crooner George puts on the Hi-Fi would scarcely have been trendy 10 years previously, but he manages to reunite Peter and Norah through their shared amusement at his atrocious dancing.

Norah and Peter agree to accompany Kate and George to dinner, and the four of them head off to Angelo's.  As Peter comments, it's not much to look at from the outside.

Here, predictably enough, it's George and Kate who start rowing, when Peter offhandedly points out he saw Kate out with another man.  It was her old boss, who George has always been jealous of (it's nice to see George jealous of Kate for a change - she's more likeable in this episode than she has been since the first episode) - it turns out Kate was actually angling for a part time job.  The evening progresses with each couple alternating their rows.  The accordionist who's fascinated by all the bickering is played by Dennis Wilson (not the one from the Beach Boys), composer of The Marriage Lines' music.

Having left the restaurant separately without eating, Kate and George are reunited at home, where it looks like dinner's going to be some Spanish rice out of a tin and a couple of braised kidneys.  Scales and Briers do a lot of snogging this week.

The episode ends with the Starlings once more listening into their neighbours' row - and this time contentedly realising it's about them.  Oh, and George hits his head.

The Good Neighbours continues The Marriage Lines' upward trend - it's a sweet little episode with Kate and George at last seeming once again to actually like each other.

Friday 20 September 1963

This week's Marriage Lines is one of the best to date: a frenetic 30 minutes that provides an especially good opportunity for Richard Briers to show off his skills as a farceur as George Starling desperately attempts to keep his past from colliding with his present.  We get to meet two more of George's colleagues, nervous, Welsh Ossie (Anthony Hall) and cheerily misogynistic Harold ("It's a large, empty space surrounded by cotton wool", he says of a woman's brain), played by Richard Carpenter, who'd later create Catweazle and Robin of Sherwood.  Ossie invites George to his engagement party - or at least it will be his engagement party if his girlfriend Ethel agrees to marry him.

Ossie looks up to George and Kate as his ideal of wedded bliss, which grants George a rare chance to play man of the world.  George dispenses his considered wisdom on the fair sex: "They're like Martians" (John Gray got it wrong).  Devoted as George is to Kate, he reveals that he still carries around a photo of his ex-girlfriend Jackie, for old times' sake: "Just because you get married to one of the opposite sex doesn't mean you're inoculated against the rest of them.

George's swagger dissipates when he learns, to his horror, that Jackie has been invited to the party too - Kate having been on the warpath since a chance meeting between George and his old flame in the local  library (they were both reaching for the same Agatha Christie).  George decides he can't possibly risk Kate and Jackie's paths crossing - the trouble is he's already called Kate and told her about the party that night.  Sheepishly returning home, he has to break it to his excited wife that the party's off.  But she's been lacquering her hair all afternoon!

Shortly afterward, Harold calls to say Jackie's been put off attending the party: having de-lacquered, Kate's a bit miffed about hearing the party's back on.

Women's hairstyles of this time look such a ridiculous faff that it's no wonder a major revival of the bob was just around the corner.

There's more trouble ahead for George, as the phone rings again - and it's Jackie on the end of the line.

She will be going to the party after all, but George is spared the need to come up with an excuse: Kate's so unhappy about her hair she insists George go alone: "It'll take you back to the days before you were married, won't it?"

George sets about preparing for the evening, and I feel it would be rude to allow the Starlings' intriguing bathroom decor to go unnoticed.

But wait - now Kate's decided she's got her hair to a presentable state, and wants to come after all.  George calls Harold in despair: "There's nothing left now but to feign death, and I'm so nervous I wouldn't be able to keep still."  Harold insists they'll get rid of Jackie shortly after she arrives, and George delays his and Kate's arrival to be on the safe side.

When they do get there, Jackie hasn't even arrived yet.  George and Harold get their cover stories confused, leading to one of Kate's trademark weepy storm-offs.  When Jackie (Sally Bazeley) finally does get to the party, she humiliates George by telling the whole party that nothing ever really happened during the course of their relationship. Kate takes this opportunity to return and stick up for her husband: "Why do you behave like an early Joan Crawford picture every time he happens to bump in to me?" asks Jackie, while Kate finally bests her by suggesting it's rather suspicious that George should have changed from a rubbish boyfriend to a brilliant husband as soon as he and she were no longer together.

Ossie thinks that the scene will have put Ethel (who's surprisingly glam, and played by Katy Wild) off the idea of marriage for good.  Instead, she asks him to marry her: previously she'd heard Ossie's admiring tales of Kate and George and thought getting wed sounded hideously dull.  On seeing the big drama she's decided marriage could be fun after all.  Once again it's a bit frustrating to be presented with another female character who seems so much more interesting than Kate.