Dinnerladies (stylised in lowercase as dinnerladies) is a British sitcom created, written and co-produced by Victoria Wood. Two series were broadcast on BBC One from 1998 to 2000, with 16 episodes in total. The programme is repeated on Gold, and the complete series was released on DVD in November 2004.
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Synopsis
The series is set 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 Brenda Furlong (Wood).
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Awards
The first series won the 1999 Rose d'Or Press Award and "Best New TV Comedy" at the 1999 British Comedy Awards, and the second won "Best TV Comedy" in 2000. 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. It came 28th in the BBC's Britain's Best Sitcom poll in 2004.
Plot summary
At the beginning of the first series, we are introduced to the main characters, a group of mostly female and middle-aged canteen workers in Northern England: the main character is the kind and dependable Brenda 'Bren' Furlong (played by Victoria Wood), whose relationship with sarcastic and exhausted canteen manager Tony Martin (Andrew Dunn), develops through the show.
The prim and prudish Dolly Bellfield (Thelma Barlow) and her waspish friend Jean (Anne Reid) are also featured, as well as the younger pair of the snarky Twinkle (Maxine Peake), who is always late, and the ditzy but mild-mannered Anita (Shobna Gulati).
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 doesn't fit in well with the rest of the staff; she moved to Manchester because of her relationship with senior member of staff Mr Michael (Christopher Greet).
Julie Walters also appears in nine episodes as Bren's disadvantaged, 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 due to his treatment.
Throughout the second series, Bren and Tony's relationship develops further; the canteen takes on a work experience girl, Jean goes to stay with her sister after she is put in a foul mood by her unfaithful husband, a murderer 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 mixup, 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 can't 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 maternity leave; she is replaced temporarily by Christine (Kay Adshead), who is disliked by the rest of the dinnerladies.
As the staff plan to move on with their lives, Bren goes on the game show Totally Trivial, but loses her chance to win after she can't attend due to her mother's death. It is revealed that her mother left her a large amount of cash, and Bren and Tony use the money to move to Scotland.
Characters
Main characters
- Victoria Wood as Brenda "Bren" Furlong (born 24 December 1957)
- Andrew Dunn as Tony Martin
- Thelma Barlow as Dolly Bellfield (born 8 April)
- Anne Reid as Jean
- Maxine Peake as Twinkle
- Shobna Gulati as Anita (born 15 September 1975)
- Duncan Preston as Stan Meadowcroft
- Celia Imrie as Philippa Moorcroft
- Julie Walters as Petula Gordino
Recurring characters
- Sue Devaney as Jane
- Andrew Livingston (series 1) and Adrian Hood (series 2) as Norman
- Sue Cleaver as Glenda
- Christopher Greet as Mr Michael
- Kate Robbins as Babs
- Peter Lorenzelli as Keith
- Bernard Wrigley as Bob
- Jack Smethurst as Bob Bellfield
- Steve Huison as Steve Greengrass
Guest stars
Single episode or occasional characters were played by guest actors, including Tina Malone, Eric Sykes, Dame Thora Hird, Dora Bryan, Lynda Baron, Elspet Gray, Janette Tough (from The Krankies) and Kenny Doughty.
Themes
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 becoming a single parent, and the heartache in Bren and Tony's relationship.
Production
Writing
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.
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.
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. 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".
Filming
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 BBC Television Centre in front of a live studio audience, employing a multiple-camera setup. 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.
Jokes 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.
The series' director and producer was Geoff Posner, and the executive producers were Philip McIntyre and David Tyler; the programme was co-produced by Victoria Wood's production company Good News and Posner's Pozzitive Television.
Music
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.
When Victoria Wood was a guest on Parkinson, she performed the programme's theme song with a grand piano.
Reception
Dinnerladies was generally well-received, and was praised by critic Tom Paulin. The viewing figures for series 1 peaked with its premiere at 12.24 million viewers, and series 2 peaked with "Minnellium", which aired on 31 December 1999 and reached 15.33 million viewers.
Theatre
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. 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. The show toured the UK during 2009.
A second show called Dinnerladies: Second Helpings toured in 2011 with a new script, once again featuring Dunn, joined by original series cast member Sue Devaney. Shobna Gulati left to return to the soap opera Coronation Street.
Home media
The entire series of Dinnerladies on VHS and DVD via BBC Worldwide and Universal Playback distribution.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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