Schoolteacher Helen Barker learns that her husband Tony has been cheating on her.
At her 20th wedding anniversary, Helen Barker discovers that her headmaster neighbour Jeremy, married to severe G.P. Harriet, is in love with her. Her younger brother Marcus, married to Imelda, suspects he has gay tendencies and her randy teenaged son Tim is caught in bed with his uncle John's bride-to-be Debbie before going on to service neighbour Wendy Wadlow. Thank heavens her marriage to Tony is sound. Well, it seemed to be until she finds Tony has fathered a child with the much younger Nicole.
Helen throws Tony out and he moves in with Nicole, becoming her glorified babysitter. Bizarrely, Helen is joined in her house by Felix Nash, a handsome young screen actor over whom she fantasises and who has been mysteriously whisked halfway across the world from a film set to be with her. He is not happy because he is unable to leave the house. A depressed John, having been arrested and released for burning his house down,comes to stay with Helen. He cannot see Felix. No one but Helen can and it is assumed she is bonkers. Imelda, fancying a lesbian interlude, decides to go on a date with DI Short, who arrested John.
Whilst Imelda has second thoughts and chickens out of her date with Short, Marcus gets down to it in the stationery cupboard with colleague Andrew. Helen resists Jeremy's advances to cook a romantic meal for an increasingly bemused and frustrated Felix. She sends the boys to the pub but Tim, now the neighbourhood stud being pimped for money by Mrs Wadlow, sneaks back and is surprised when he spies on his mother, apparently talking to herself.
Tony is having a rotten time playing babysitter whilst Nicole goes on holiday and tries to write a sitcom. He receives no sympathy from Helen, who is also tiring of Felix and is more accommodating than usual with Jeremy. Depressed again, John climbs onto Helen's roof and threatens to jump. Marcus climbs up to rescue him but both brothers get stuck. When the rescue services arrive they include Short, who takes John in on suspicion of having done away with Debbie.
Tony has the idea for a sitcom based on his family's current experiences whilst Jeremy, on the arrival home of his teenage son, has a mid-life crisis to Harriet's horror, throwing up his job and buying a motor-bike and leathers. Imelda wants to make a go of her marriage but Marcus is now out and proud, though at least he has spotted Debbie, so she must be alive. Tim catches Helen apparently talking to herself again and assumes she's crazy.
Tony gets a black eye when the local husbands assume he is the local stud and not Tim, who flees via train. Tony's sitcom is a success and Helen, now proud of him in view of Nicole's news, has him back when Felix disappears as suddenly as he arrived. Things will never be the same for Imelda and Marcus whilst Harriet has a confession for Jeremy but at least Debbie's re-appearance lets John off the hook. Things are back to normal... after a fashion.
Liza Tarbuck
Helen Barker
Mark Addy
Tony Barker
Alex Hassell
Felix Nash
Sylvestra Le Touzel
Harriet Waterhouse
Charles Aitken
Tim Barker
Oliver Chris
Marcus Lewis
Tim Dutton
Jeremy Waterhouse
Stewart Wright
John Lewis
Sandra Reinton
Imelda Lewis
2013
1954
2002
1975
1960
2023
2017
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2020
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2003
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