(Middle-aged brother and sister Timothy and Muriel Lumsden are having a heart-to-heart conversation in the family kitchen)
MURIEL: You know the facts of life...
MRS LUMSDEN (suddenly appearing without warning): No he DOESN'T, Muriel, thank you very much!
This is how
I like Sorry! best, when it plays like one of Sigmund Freud's darker
case studies. The mother is particularly frightening here, staying with her son
when he's away at the Librarians' Conference in Eastbourne at the start of the
episode, and removing the spark plugs from his car and throwing them in the
bushes to stop him seeing a woman at the end. But unlike Harold Steptoe failing
to pull the cart away from home, Timothy does manage to get away from home,
thanks to a helpful push from his sister. Admittedly he then loses control of
the car and crashes it into a lamppost, but its still a curiously hopeful
conclusion.
Mrs Lumsden gives something of an explanation of her fears and motivations this week, when she tells her husband that they have to prevent Timothy from getting married, because if he left they'd have to go into sheltered housing. Mr Lumsden also gets a character moment with his son in the pub, telling Timothy about a lost romantic opportunity 40 years ago, something which barely emotionally registers with him now, but has a greater effect on the son.
The story is framed around a pastiche of the famous balcony scene from Private Lives, with Timothy reunited with a childhood sweetheart (whom his mother banned him from seeing) when they meet on adjacent balconies at the Eastbourne Hotel. The balconies then reappear in a dream for Timothy, in which he assumes a more sophisticated persona, a dream that then acts as a catalyst for him to break out from home and seek the woman. Sitcom dream sequences are normally not to my taste (opportunities for performers to lark about in costume and act out of character which betray that confidence in the programme's actual setting is starting to ebb away), but this is a rare one that actually enhances an episode. The Noel Coward idiom is recognisable and playing about with that register is funny, and the dream genuinely advances the plot and creates insights into Timothy's character that the viewer wouldn't otherwise get.
Mrs Lumsden gives something of an explanation of her fears and motivations this week, when she tells her husband that they have to prevent Timothy from getting married, because if he left they'd have to go into sheltered housing. Mr Lumsden also gets a character moment with his son in the pub, telling Timothy about a lost romantic opportunity 40 years ago, something which barely emotionally registers with him now, but has a greater effect on the son.
The story is framed around a pastiche of the famous balcony scene from Private Lives, with Timothy reunited with a childhood sweetheart (whom his mother banned him from seeing) when they meet on adjacent balconies at the Eastbourne Hotel. The balconies then reappear in a dream for Timothy, in which he assumes a more sophisticated persona, a dream that then acts as a catalyst for him to break out from home and seek the woman. Sitcom dream sequences are normally not to my taste (opportunities for performers to lark about in costume and act out of character which betray that confidence in the programme's actual setting is starting to ebb away), but this is a rare one that actually enhances an episode. The Noel Coward idiom is recognisable and playing about with that register is funny, and the dream genuinely advances the plot and creates insights into Timothy's character that the viewer wouldn't otherwise get.
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