Behaving Badly – Nostalgia Central

1 9 8 9 (UK)
4 x 60 minute episodes

Bridget (Dame Judi Dench) is a mousey, middle-aged middle-class woman who finds herself discarded by her husband, Mark (Ronald Pickup), after 20 years of apparently trouble-free marriage.

He goes off to marry a younger woman, successful flame-haired journalist Rebecca (Frances Barber), and Bridget meekly moves out of their Hampstead home and into a small flat that Mark has purchased for her.

After five dreary years of smiling brightly, taking night classes in pottery and generally behaving splendidly – with Mark’s fiery Jewish mother, Frieda (Gwen Watford), constantly pestering her – Bridget decides she is fed up with being a cheerful doormat and becomes decidedly misbehaved.

She stops living by other people’s expectations: she breaks rules, takes risks, lives by her own instincts, and indulges in the intoxicating delights of “behaving badly”.

When Mark and Rebecca return home to Hampstead from a French minibreak, they discover to their astonishment that Bridget has moved back in and won’t budge (much to the delight of Mark’s mother).

When their yuppie daughter, Phyllida (Francesca Folan), also moves into the Hampstead house to escape from an overcrowded Battersea flatshare, Bridget takes her place in Battersea, sharing with bisexual Giles (Douglas Hodge), straight Jonathan (Guy Scantlebury), Serafina (Joely Richardson), a teacher on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and Giles’ crotchety grandfather, Herbert (Maurice Denham).

She enjoys her unofficial role as mother and caretaker, finds herself increasingly attracted to the considerably younger Giles, and decides to move with him to San Diego (where he was born) to start a new life together.

The four-part Channel 4 series was adapted from a novel by Catherine Heath.

Bridget Mayor
Judi Dench
Mark Mayor
Ronald Pickup
Rebecca Mayor
Frances Barber
Frieda Mayor
Gwen Watford
Phyllida Mayor
Francesca Folan
Giles
Douglas Hodge
Serafina
Joely Richardson
Trudy
Antonia Pemberton
Jonathan
Guy Scantlebury
Daniel
Hugh Quarshie
Herbert
Maurice Denham
Mrs Brooker
Isabelle Lucas
Mrs Jean Debbin
Marcia Warren
Father Gough
Patrick Godfrey

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