A Comedy On This Day: Terry & June - Bats In The Belfry (17 August 1987)

 A Sunday morning in Purley. Terry's boiled egg has exploded. I am interested to spot that the Medfords take the Sunday Telegraph (headline: "Labour fears at poll smear campaign"), although Terry admits that he only gets it for the comic strips and the easy crossword (both of which there would be more of in other papers, I would have thought). Watching Terry handling the Sunday Telegraph, I imagined him struggling with some complex report about the Iran-Contra affair or Geoffrey Wheatcroft piece about the fortunes of David Owen after Sunday lunch and quickly falling asleep. I would have imagined the Medfords taking the Mail On Sunday myself, although that paper (est. 1982) would still have been a bit newfangled in 1987.

 

 June is slow cooking a joint of beef - no one else appears to be invited to lunch. She asks Terry about getting one of those new microwaves, which Terry thinks is a hairstyle. They are still churchgoers, which makes sense considering what we can make out of their backgrounds. June's mother phones up, and Terry and June have to take her to hospital for her legs.
 

 In a sense, Terry & June would be a more interesting programme if fewer incidents occurred in it. Before long we're into the story proper, in which the Medfords become trapped in the church's belfry when Terry offers to mend the bell (a bell which doesn't look very metallic, incidentally). "He might have a heart attack going up all those stairs!" June exclaims, exactly what I was thinking at the time.
 

 The ending of this caper is rather muffed. Terry and June secure their release when they attract the attention of the police by throwing slates at their car, but we don't ever see them actually get rescued or interacting with the police (who only exist in a filmed insert). The situation peters out instead of reaching a memorable climax.