Our take
The show's most ambitious special takes the misery abroad: ninety minutes of Portuguese sunshine that curdle into a farce of lost film, imaginary prison cells and a missing friend feared dead. Peter Cook's seedy paparazzo is a gift, and the stiff villa door is classic Renwick misdirection. It sags a little at feature length, but the payoff is darker and funnier than anyone expects.
What happens
Victor and Margaret are off to the Portuguese sun with Mrs Warboys, who is recently divorced and hoping to strike up a romance with her widowed pen pal, Alfonso. Meanwhile Martin Trout, a muck-raking Fleet Street photographer, has just returned from the same region with red-hot photographs of a senior figure in a very compromising position. He collides with the Meldrew party at Victoria station as they leave, misplaces his film, and becomes convinced they have it, so he gives chase all the way back to the Algarve. In Portugal the three struggle to find their rented villa, Victor's rusty Portuguese lands Jean in an embarrassing misunderstanding, and they seem to end up locked in a police cell for days, only to discover the 'cell' is a room in their decrepit villa and the door was merely stiff. Then Jean goes missing and is feared dead, in much the same way as Alfonso's first wife. Victor enlists the help of a neighbouring British family on holiday, who get caught up in more trouble. After hours of confusion the party is reunited, but when Jean realises that Alfonso's wife's death was faked, their situation becomes far more menacing.
Can the kids watch it?
Rated PG by the BBFC on its 1994 video release; with a faked death, some innuendo and a menacing finale, it is best for 12 and over.
Cast and crew
Starring
- Richard Wilson as Victor Meldrew
- Annette Crosbie as Margaret Meldrew
- Doreen Mantle as Mrs Warboys
Guest stars
- Peter Cook as Martin Trout
- Joan Sims as Lady on Plane
- Edward de Souza as Afonso
- Louis Mahoney as Humphrey
- Eamonn Walker as Hugo
- Louise Duprey as Shirley
- Craig Ferguson as Glaswegian
- Lidia Franco as Maria
- João Lagarto as Cabbie
Writer
- David Renwick
Director
- Susan Belbin