A Comedy On This Day: After Henry - Home Comforts (6 February 1990)

 This week's plot is exactly what you'd expect from an After Henry storyline, with Eleanor threatening to leave Sarah and go to live at The Sycamores home. Clare spends much of her time in this episode with a female friend, not something that I can remember seeing in any other one. Come to think of it, Sarah doesn't seem to have any woman friends, either, although Russell would fit most narrative purposes when they might otherwise feature.

  I am intrigued to see in the set dressing for Clare's flat that she still hasn't got rid of her 1982 Patches annual, which feels authentic. In a rare incidence of comparative time-and-place London 1989 specificity Eleanor wants to get to Sainsbury’s early on a Saturday morning, "before the yuppies wake up" and leave her queuing behind their trollies filled with "Perrier water, mange tout and garlic".

A Comedy On This Day: After Henry - Intellectual Aspirations (10 January 1989)

 The one with a young Stephen Tompkinson as Clare's new boyfriend.

 I am intrigued to see that Sarah reads the Independent, in its dauntingly serious and beautifully designed eighties heyday. My theory is that Henry would have read the Times (or maybe the Telegraph) and that the launch of the new title in 1986 would have coincided with Sarah becoming a widow. She probably gets to read a second paper at Bygone books when Russell has finished with it (Telegraph or Guardian).

 I also note that Clare's top floor flat is furnished with two matching sofas. It does looks very comfortable and inviting. Not many people would think to buy more than one, but I would imagine that Henry left his daughter a generous legacy.

 After Henry is rare sitcom that presents a world that I know that I'd actually enjoy living in.