A Comedy On This Day: Shelley - Love Is... (11 August 1992)

 Andy Hamilton's final script for Shelley is another leisurely, drawn-out, affair formed of only three scenes, in which humour is mostly drawn from conversation rather than incident. Such actual plot as there is is culturally rather risky.
 

 Shelly and Ted are visited by a young Indian neighbour, who invites them out to his parents' restaurant. While there, they witness a dispute between the man and his family about his refusing an arranged marriage. The primary comic function of this theme works very well, creating many opportunities for Shelley and Ted to come up with tactless worldly pearls of wisdom about the matrimonial state and to react in embarrassment to the heated arguments around them. The secondary dramatic purpose is problematic, however, trying to engage sensitively with a serious issue from a culture outside the programme's regular characters in only 25 minutes. This isn't helped by matters becoming resolved by a very obvious development (when the prospective bride who the son has been refusing to see arrives - guess what? - she's a babe!) which is also rather poorly executed.

 I've realised something about Hywel Bennett's acting that's always nagged me. When Shelley is at his most oracular, his diction and delivery sounds just like Alan Bates. Homage? I can't think of any other actors of that generation who spoke in that manner.

 The detail that most pinpoints this episode to the time it was made is Ted getting a Poll Tax bill in the post. This provokes a series of reflections from Shelley about the unconvincing assurances given by John Major as Chancellor of the Exchequer - something that exposes the two-years-ago recording date.