Dinnerladies | |
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Also known as | dinnerladies |
Genre | Sitcom |
Created by | Victoria Wood |
Written by | Victoria Wood |
Directed by | Geoff Posner |
Starring | |
Theme music composer | Victoria Wood |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 2 |
No. of episodes | 16 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producers |
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Producers |
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Production location | BBC Television Centre |
Camera setup | Multiple-camera setup |
Running time | 27–29 minutes |
Production companies |
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Original release | |
Network | BBC One |
Release | 12 November 1998 – 27 January 2000 |
Dinnerladies (stylised as dinnerladies) is a British television sitcom created, written and co-produced by Victoria Wood. Two series were broadcast on BBC One from 1998 to 2000, with sixteen episodes in total. The programme is repeated on Gold, [2] and Drama. The complete series was released on DVD in November 2004. [3]
The series is set almost entirely in the canteen of HWD Components, a fictional factory in Manchester, featuring the caterers and regular customers as the main characters. It depicts the lives and social and romantic interactions of the staff, and is centred around the main character of Brenda Furlong, played by Wood.
The beginning of the first series introduces the characters, a group of mostly female and middle-aged canteen workers at a factory in Manchester. The main character is the kind and dependable Brenda "Bren" Furlong, whose relationship with sarcastic and exhausted canteen manager Tony Martin (Andrew Dunn) develops through the show. [4]
The characters feature the prim and prudish Dolly Bellfield (Thelma Barlow) and her waspish friend Jean (Anne Reid), and the younger and snarky Twinkle (Maxine Peake), who is always late, and the scatter-brained but mild-mannered Anita (Shobna Gulati). [5]
Stan Meadowcroft (Duncan Preston) is an opinionated and easily provoked, but well-meaning, maintenance man who is responsible for cleaning the factory and fixing equipment. The new cheery but disorganised human resources manager Philippa Moorcroft (Celia Imrie) is from the South and does not initially fit in well with the rest of the staff; she moved to Manchester because of her relationship with senior staff member Mr Michael (Christopher Greet). [5]
Actress Julie Walters also appears in nine episodes [lower-alpha 1] as Bren's down-and-out, delusional and manipulative mother who lives in a caravan behind a petrol station. She abandoned Bren at an orphanage, and often turns up to ask for favours.
In the first series, Bren and Tony's relationship begins to develop, and she supports him as he undergoes chemotherapy. Philippa tries to organise team-building activities, the factory receives a royal visit, Bren's mother causes a scandal in the factory, the team bring their mothers to work, HWD Components merges with a Japanese company and Tony is temporarily replaced by Nicola Bodeux due to his treatment. Bodeux resigns after causing the canteen staff to strike, leading Bren to take charge on an interim basis amidst a crisis for the company. [6] [7]
Throughout the second series, Bren and Tony's relationship develops further; the canteen takes on a work experience girl named Sigourney (Joanne Froggatt), Jean goes to stay with her sister after she is put in a foul mood by her unfaithful husband, a prisoner escapes from a local prison and Bren's fear of needles is mistaken for pregnancy. Jane (Sue Devaney) organises a holiday to Marbella, on which Bren and Tony want to go together. After a mix up, Bren manages to get a place, but she ends up giving the money to her mother instead. Their colleagues bet on when Bren and Tony will "get it on", and they finally get together after Tony puts on a surprise birthday party for Bren, who was born on Christmas Eve.
Later in the series, Philippa cannot attend the Millennium meal she organises, and Anita has a baby; after leaving it anonymously for Bren to care for, she takes it back and goes on parental leave; she is replaced temporarily by Christine (Kay Adshead), who is disliked by the rest of the dinner ladies.
As the closure of the canteen looms, the staff plan to move on with their lives. Bren goes on a game show, but loses her chance to win after she cannot attend due to her mother's death. It is revealed that her mother left her a large amount of money, which Bren and Tony use to move to Scotland. [8] [9]
The ensemble cast occasionally featured guest actors from many of the country's best known stars of comedy and straight drama on TV, film, radio, and stage, including Joanne Froggatt ( Downton Abbey , Liar , Angela Black ), Tina Malone ( Brookside , Shameless ), Dora Bryan OBE ( A Taste of Honey , Absolutely Fabulous , Last of the Summer Wine ), Lynda Baron ( Open All Hours , Coronation Street , EastEnders ), Elspet Gray (The Whitehall Farces, Fawlty Towers , Black Adder , Four Weddings and a Funeral , Solo ), Janette Tough (The Krankies, French and Saunders ), Simon Williams ( Upstairs, Downstairs ; Holby City , EastEnders ), Kenny Doughty ( Coronation Street , Vera ), Eric Sykes CBE, an icon of 5 decades of British radio and TV sitcom, [10] and actress in over 100 films, comedian, presenter and writer Dame Thora Hird DBE ( In Loving Memory , Meet the Wife , Praise Be! , Last of the Summer Wine , a household name, a British national institution, [11] and one of the "Grandes Dames" of the British entertainment industry. [12]
"I do get very lonely and I nearly jacked it in [...] I thought it was very bad and I couldn't write comedy any more."
The series was written entirely by Victoria Wood, with no additional contributors or script editor. Wood approached writing by allowing plots to develop from interactions between characters, rather than fitting characters into pre-determined storylines. [14]
She wrote the whole six-episode first series in one month; however, she found the second series much harder to write, and even though it had only four more episodes, it took her six months. Wood has attributed this to pressure to do everything herself and loneliness, and has said that she even considered giving up because she thought her scripts were of low quality. [14]
Wood deliberately ended the programme after two series, and the final episode of the second was designed to conclude it. She has said that she "[doesn't] normally do anything twice", but felt that a second series was necessary to do the show justice, and that she knew where to take the show after seeing it air and understanding "what people [have] taken from it". She mentioned the short run of Fawlty Towers when explaining why she planned not to continue the series further. [13] However, in a televised BBC TV documentary about the history of situation comedy at the corporation, Wood complained that the series had been axed by the BBC, despite it being what she described as "a show they couldn't kill".
Involving only one set throughout its run (with the exception of quiz show and hospital sets which are both seen on a television screen in the last two episodes), dinnerladies was entirely filmed at the London BBC Television Centre in front of a live studio audience, [13] [15] employing a multiple-camera setup. [16] Other locations such as characters' homes and other parts of the factory are only referred to in conversation.
The set was intended to be as realistic as possible, and even featured a functioning catering toaster from which the studio audience were served toast during filming. [17]
Punchlines were generally delivered at a fast pace with dialogue usually only pausing to allow audience laughter to settle. Each episode was filmed twice in front of two separate audiences, once on a Friday and again on a Saturday. This gave cast members two attempts to perfect a scene and, if necessary, the opportunity to correct mistakes without having to repeat a joke to the same audience. [13] This also gave Wood the opportunity to make script changes that she felt might improve each episode. [13]
The series' director and producer was Geoff Posner, and the executive producers were Philip McIntyre and David Tyler; [18] the programme was co-produced by Victoria Wood's production company Good Fun and Posner's Pozzitive Television.
Wood reprised her character Bren for the BBC's Shaggy Dog Story in 1999.
The show's theme music was composed by Victoria Wood. It is usually played without lyrics, but at the end of the episodes "Minnellium" and "Toast", vocals which were also written and performed by Wood were included.
Humour is mostly derived from the conversation and banter between characters, regarding their lives and popular culture, most commonly film and television: dialogue often features humorous misunderstandings, malapropisms and sexual innuendos. The series also features various surreal situations, often involving Bren's mother.
There is also a counterpoint of sadder themes, including deaths in the families of two of the main characters, a painful divorce, one of the characters living with cancer, one character having an unplanned pregnancy, and the underlying heartache in Bren's childhood. Bren and Tony's relationship seems to be eternally thwarted either by themselves or random circumstance.
dinnerladies was generally well-received, and was praised by critic Tom Paulin. [14] [ dead link ]
The viewing figures for series 1 peaked with its premiere at 12.24 million viewers, and series 2 peaked with "Minnellium", which aired on 30 December 1999 and reached 15.33 million viewers. [19] [20]
Series | Timeslot | Eps | First aired | Last aired | Rank | Avg. viewers (millions) | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Date | Viewers (millions) | Date | Viewers (millions) | |||||
1 | Thursday 9:30 pm Thursday 9:35 pm (ep 4) | 6 | 12 November 1998 | 12.24 [19] | 17 December 1998 | 9.43 [19] | 11 | 10.02 |
2 | Thursday 9:30 pm | 10 | 25 November 1999 | 13.86 [19] | 27 January 2000 | 13.02 [19] | 7 | 12.49 |
The first series won the 1999 Rose d'Or Press Award [21] and "Best New TV Comedy" at the 1999 British Comedy Awards, [22] and the second won "Best TV Comedy" in 2000. [23] The show has also been nominated for the British Academy Television Award for "Best Comedy (Programme or Series)" and the "Situation Comedy Award" in 1998 and 1999 respectively. [24] It came 28th in the BBC's Britain's Best Sitcom poll in 2004. [25]
A play based on the series premiered in London in April 2009. The play was based on three episodes of the second series of the TV show, and concentrated on the romance between Bren and Tony. [26] It was directed by David Graham, who also adapted Victoria Wood's original TV scripts for the stage. Gulati and Dunn reprised their original roles from the TV series. [27] The show toured the UK during 2009.
A second show called Dinnerladies: Second Helpings toured in 2011 with a new script, [28] once again featuring Dunn, joined by original series cast member Sue Devaney. Shobna Gulati left to return to the soap opera Coronation Street . [29]
Title | VHS | DVD (Region 2) | DVD (Region 4) | |
---|---|---|---|---|
First (Universal) | Re-issue (Universal Playback) | |||
Series 1: Monday/Scandal/Royals | 29 November 1999 | No release | No release | No release |
Series 1: Moods/Party/Nightshift | 29 November 1999 | No release | No release | No release |
The Complete Second Series | 17 November 2003 | 17 November 2003 | 27 August 2007 | No release |
The Complete First Series | 15 November 2004 | 15 November 2004 | 30 April 2007 | No release |
The Complete Collection | No release | 15 November 2004 | 13 November 2006 24 May 2010 (slim) | 6 November 2013 1 April 2015 [30] |
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