Comedy
Dinnerladies is a BBC sitcom written by and starring Victoria Wood that chronicles the antics of a group of workers in a canteen in the north of England. Bren tries to maintain a semblance of order in amongst the chaos, while dealing with the canteen supervisor, slightly sex-obsessed cancer sufferer Tony. Dolly and Jean are the bickering menopausal older women, always at odds but best friends beneath it all. Then there's thick-as-two-short-planks Anita, and the terminally uninterested Twinkle, more concerned with having a good time than anything else. Making up the motley crew are military man handyman Stan, all rules and regulations, and ditzy Philippa, who never seems to get anything right.
Top-rated
Thu,
12 Nov, 1998
S1.E1Monday
On an otherwise typical Monday morning, Bren's canteen is thrown into crisis when Norman the bread man fails to deliver the granary torpedoes. Should she sign the docket or not? Meanwhile, Jean is preoccupied with planning her daughter's wedding and finding the entertainment. Bren's mother Petula drops in with some ideas, but they're probably not quite right. Tony has to go to the hospital to see how his cancer's going. In the midst of this, Anita's in floods of tears (it's her period), Twinkle can't spell minestrone, and nobody's put out the gravy. New Human Resources person Philippa makes her presence felt, bugging everyone to try some group activities. Scottish country dancing anyone?
Top-rated
Thu,
19 Nov, 1998
S1.E2Royals
There is excitement in the canteen when news of a royal visit to the factory comes through. Nobody's very sure who's coming - Princess Anne doesn't do factories, Prince Edward does theatres - but they're all getting into a flap. When it turns out it's someone called the Duke of Danby, nobody has heard of him, save for Stan, who met him at Catterick years ago. Everyone throws themselves into role play and preparations: Twinkle has to be warned not to say they serve ""arseholes on toast"" and Anita is worried about her nipples popping up. Tony is adamant that the royals aren't speaking to the girls - God help the Duke if he does. When they eventually turn up, Twinkle's struck dumb, Anita says the wrong thing and Stan's devastated that the Duke doesn't remember him. Meanwhile, all the Duke wants is a bit of sex with poor Bren.
Maxine Peake
Twinkle
Thelma Barlow
Dolly Bellfield
Anne Reid
Jean
Shobna Gulati
Anita
Duncan Preston
Stan Meadowcroft
Victoria Wood
Brenda
Celia Imrie
Philippa Moorcroft
Andrew Dunn
Tony Martin
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Review
Featured review
Set in the canteen of a factory in Manchester, these two BBC series follow the day-to-day antics of it's workers. Writer and star Victoria Wood has assembled a formidable array of character actors to portray an eclectic mix of characters to ensure that there are a plethora of daft scenarios to explore across the sixteen episodes. Everyone works for the cancer-suffering "Tony" (Andrew Dunn) who has a bit of a crush on supervisor "Brenda" (Wood). Then there are best pals "Dolly" (Thelma Barlow) and "Jean" (Anne Reid); dander-wielding handyman "Stan" (Duncan Preston) and then the two youngsters - the glass half empty "Twinkle" (Maxine Peake) and the not-so-bright "Anita" (Shobna Gulati). Each episode tends to give one of those their moment in the sun, but it's the collegiate nature of the comedy that really works here. There are loads of barbed remarks, the men hopelessly outnumbered, outgunned and outwitted by these women who think nothing of discussing their most intimate problems across the shepherd's pie. The dialogue is distinctly grown up, with plenty of references to pelvic floors, buns of lard and even vulcanised rubber. Julie Walters rekindles her successful relationship with Wood as her caravan-living mother "Petula" as does Celia Imrie as the hapless but well meaning HR officer "Philippa" and both add enormously to the observationally witty richness of this drama that uses the team and the setting as a perfect conduit for some stories that probably touch most of us. It's the dynamic between Barlow and Reid that works best with me - especially when they are taking hips and germicidal hand cream, but just about everyone has the ammunition to make you smile more often than not. If I am honest, I preferred the first season where the humour was grittier and more entertaining. The second series turned in on itself a little with too much emphasis on their romances, but taken together this is great example of a well written and professionally executed sitcom series that mixes some expert comedy timing, some stereotypical ribbing and generally lots of fun amongst appliances that spit fat.
Geronimo196721 Nov, 2024
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