Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays episode 9
In which Douglas is scuppered by Lee-Ann's 'chronic incompetence' when his mum visits
I had misgivings about episode 9 (series 2 episode 3 if you prefer). The series is about Lee-Ann and her older sister Gina. Gina trying to nudge (steamroll) Lee-Ann into more ‘productive’ ways of using her Fridays now that they’re both on four-day-weeks. Lee-Ann gently taking the mickey out of Gina’s attempts to leave their working-class origins behind and fully embrace the class that her education and marriage have taken her to. The friendship — not that either of them would call it that — with Lee-Ann’s downstairs neighbour Douglas is an integral part of it, but not the central part. Could I manage a whole episode where Gina is mentioned but doesn’t turn up, and the story is entirely about Lee-Ann and Douglas?
Every so often my sister Gina has to swap her day off so she's at work on a Friday, meaning she's out of my hair. Not that she calls it a 'day off', that's what layabouts like me have; she has a 'non-working-day'.
Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays Series 2 Episode 3
Not only that, but Douglas’s mum is coming to visit and we all know how dodgy it can be to introduce an outside character into a sitcom. But, Douglas spends his time trying to get Lee-Ann to do something that is more useful to him than her planned local history research in the library, and the mismatch of class plays its part too. Maybe it would be ok.
Douglas said I didn't count as 'normal' in his mum's world. In fact he wasn't sure I counted as normal in anybody's world
Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays Series 2 Episode 3
This was a very easy episode in which to stray out of character. Douglas says X and the obvious reaction is Y. But that’s not — or shouldn’t be — the obvious reaction from Lee-Ann. I had to keep bringing myself back to her priorities and her preoccupations, and rewriting passages appropriately. Jokes I cut but were still festering in the back of my mind ended up presenting themselves for use elsewhere in the script in slightly altered form.
My other half asked if this was deliberately a Valentine episode since it has a relationship theme, but it was originally intended for March so there was no Valentine-ism intended. It’s just that I’d written a fair chunk of it back in November when I was trying to get ahead of myself for this series, and it ended up being easier to finish this one rather than write the planned February episode (now coming in March) from scratch in January.
Behind the scenes
In case it’s of interest, I will note that we always referred to crumpets as pikelets when I was a kid, but Lee-Ann’s puzzlement notwithstanding1, I think the two are slightly different things. Like my Nana calling pan-fried sliced potato ‘scallops’ when that normally means battered deep-fried sliced potato. We often had ‘four o’clock tea’ too, which meant at least a cup of Earl Grey, and preferably something like bread and butter, buttered crumpets or muffins, an iced finger bun halved and buttered (no, really), basically something bread-related, with butter. Once in a blue moon I revive this afternoon tradition — I can definitely recommend it.
Gina is the sort of person who has her bags packed a week in advance of every holiday, with outfits neatly grouped and a travel iron tucked away somewhere…I once forgot to pack any trousers and spent the entire week in the jeans I'd travelled in.
Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays Series 2 Episode 3
Sister Number One is the sort of person who packs a suitcase a week in advance, and carries a travel iron2. I’m not quite as bad as Lee-Ann — I do love a good list — but I once went to stay with friend T having packed a choice of over-the-knee striped socks to go with a particular dress, and left the dress in the wardrobe at home.
Shifting alliances and ganging-up on siblings is something I have first-hand experience of with Big Brother and Sisters Number One and Two, though being the baby I’ve rarely been on the receiving end. The phrase ‘engage brain before opening mouth’ is one that Big Brother uses often, and I felt that Douglas was reaching just the right level of exasperation to borrow it.
Lee-Ann’s bedtime reading may have been a copy of this, which I picked up in an Oxfam bookshop at some point:
And if you want to know what tithe maps are, you can have a look at the Bradford and Leeds ones. Basically they tell you who owns a plot of land, at some particular survey date.
I had to wait for an overexcited neighbourhood dog to quieten down before I could start recording this, but it must have woken the cats up. Usually I try and record mid-late morning when they’re almost guaranteed to be having their extended post-breakfast snooze but this episode was recorded late on a Sunday afternoon.
First Bramble investigated the microphone, cables etc, but she did it with silence and stealth, and the only reason you would know if you listened to the raw recording is because I said hello to her. Then Parkin — better known as the voice of Lord Salisbury — appeared. She thudded onto the desk and stared at me, then tried to catch the moving waveform on the screen. After I’d stopped laughing and started reading again, she began to ad lib, burbling away merrily until I shooed her out of the room:
I’ll leave you with one last quote from the episode, when Lee-Ann and Douglas are bickering in the library:
Douglas asked if Dr Shah's medical training could furnish him with a way to render vocal chords inactive. Preferably something quick, painless and temporary, but to be honest he wasn't fussy about it being temporary. Or painless, at this point.
Lee-Ann’s Spare Fridays Series 2 Episode 3
So if you’d like to hear about Douglas having his patience pushed to breaking point and probably beyond, you can listen in your browser without logging into anything at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jysaville/episodes/Episode-9-Partners-e2frd0k, or at Apple podcasts or Spotify.
Can I take this opportunity to say that although Lee-Ann refers to a manglewurzel as a type of turnip in episode 6, I’m fairly sure they’re related to beetroot. They’re not turnips anyway, just as Lee-Ann is not me — see also her views on poets...
I would like to reiterate that although individual elements may sometimes be inspired by them, neither of my sisters is at all like Gina.