Behaving Badly is a 1989 British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 television serial

Miniseries

A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...

 directed by David Tucker. The teleplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 by Catherine Heath

Catherine Heath

Catherine Heath was a British novelist.Born Catherine Hirsch in Hendon, Middlesex, the daughter of Dutch immigrants, she was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford, where she studied English under Helen Gardner. In 1948, she married Denis Heath; they were divorced in 1980...

 and Moira Williams is based on Heath's novel of the same name. It was initially broadcast by Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

. The series was released on DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 in 2005.

The plot focuses on Bridget Mayor, a middle-aged housewife and part-time teacher who is forced to re-evaluate her life when her husband of twenty years abandons her for a younger woman.

Episode summaries

• The Tale of the Turbot (Originally broadcast on February 20, 1989)

Five years after her divorce, Bridget is living in a small flat purchased for her by her ex-husband Mark and seeking to improve her life by participating in a variety of evening adult education programs, including a pottery class. At the request of her local clergy

Clergy

Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....

man, she attends services at a predominantly black

Black people

The term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...

 parish in Croydon

Croydon

Croydon is a town in South London, England, located within the London Borough of Croydon to which it gives its name. It is situated south of Charing Cross...

, where she is unsettled by young pastor Daniel, who regards her as an intruder. She unintentionally departs with a Bible borrowed from one of the congregants. Frieda, her aging, demanding, and sharp-tongued ex-mother-in-law who detests her son's second wife Rebecca and makes every effort to destroy their marriage, is left alone when the couple take a weekend holiday in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. When they return, they discover Bridget not only has moved back into the house she once shared with Paul, but is determined to stay indefinitely.

• Home Fires (Originally broadcast on February 27, 1989)

Mark desperately tries to find someone who can convince Bridget to return to her own home, while at the same time she and Rebecca begin to bond. Bridget and Paul's daughter Phyllida sees a photograph of Daniel on the church newsletter tucked into the Bible her mother took and, finding his looks appealing, decides to return it to him. At first he resists her obvious flirting but soon finds himself attracted to her as well, although he is conflicted in his feelings, certain his community would disapprove of a relationship with a white woman.

• Seize the Day (Originally broadcast on March 6, 1989)

Phyllida, who shares a flat with bisexual Giles, straight Jonathan, and Serafina, a teacher on the verge of a nervous breakdown, finds her home life disrupted when Giles' crotchety grandfather Herbert is unceremoniously dumped on their doorstep. Although estranged from her father and his wife, Phyllida opts to move in with them to escape the overcrowded conditions, whereupon Bridget takes her daughter's place in the Battersea

Battersea

Battersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is an inner-city district of South London, situated on the south side of the River Thames, 2.9 miles south-west of Charing Cross. Battersea spans from Fairfield in the west to Queenstown in the east...

 flat. She finds herself enjoying her unofficial role of mother and caretaker.

• The Horse May Talk (Originally broadcast on March 13, 1989)

Bridget finds herself increasingly attracted to the considerably younger Giles, who proposes they move to San Diego, where he was born, and start a new life there together. He wavers in his decision when he realizes he can't leave his grandfather, but that obstacle is removed when the elderly man dies from an overdose of sleeping pills fed to him by an exasperated Serafina, who is fed up with his chronic complaining and constant demands. Bridget and Giles board a British Airways

British Airways

British Airways is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom, based in Waterside, near its main hub at London Heathrow Airport. British Airways is the largest airline in the UK based on fleet size, international flights and international destinations...

 flight; she notices him cruising

Cruising for sex

Cruising for sex, or cruising is the act of walking or driving about a locality in search of a sex partner, usually of the anonymous, casual, one-time variety...

 another male passenger, and as the plane takes off she is left wondering how successful this new relationship will be.

Cast

• Judi Dench
  Judi Dench
  Dame Judith Olivia "Judi" Dench, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English film, stage and television actress.Dench made her professional debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company. Over the following few years she played in several of William Shakespeare's plays in such roles as Ophelia in Hamlet, Juliet in Romeo...
  
   ..... Bridget Mayor
• Ronald Pickup
  Ronald Pickup
  -Life and career:Pickup was born in Chester, England, the son of Daisy and Eric Pickup, who was a lecturer. Pickup was educated at The King's School, Chester, trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and became an Associate Member of RADA.His television work began with an episode...
  
   ..... Mark Mayor
• Francesca Folan ..... Phyllida
• Frances Barber
  Frances Barber
  Frances Barber is an Olivier Award-nominated English actress with a long and distinguished stage career. She has also appeared in numerous television productions...
  
   ..... Rebecca
• Douglas Hodge
  Douglas Hodge
  Douglas Hodge is an English actor, director, and musician who trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.Hodge is a council member of the National Youth Theatre for whom, in 1989, he co-wrote Pacha Mama's Blessing about the Amazon rain forests staged at the Almeida...
  
   ..... Giles
• Maurice Denham
  Maurice Denham
  Maurice Denham OBE was an English character actor who appeared in over 100 television programmes and films throughout his long career.-Life and career:...
  
   ..... Herbert
• Hugh Quarshie
  Hugh Quarshie
  - Early and Personal Life :Quarshie is of mixed Ghanaian, English and Dutch ancestry and was born in Accra, Ghana, to Emma Wilhelmina and Richard Quarshie, and emigrated with his family to the United Kingdom when he was aged three...
  
   ..... Daniel
• Gwen Watford
  Gwen Watford
  Gwendoline "Gwen" Watford was an English film, stage, and television actress. She married actor Richard Bebb in 1952....
  
   ..... Frieda
• Joely Richardson
  Joely Richardson
  Joely Kim Richardson is an English actress, most known recently for her role as Queen Catherine Parr in the Showtime television show The Tudors and Julia McNamara in the television drama Nip/Tuck...
  
   ..... Serafina
• Guy Scantlebury ..... Jonathan

Awards and nominations

Judi Dench was nominated for the BAFTA TV Award

British Academy Television Awards

The British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . They have been awarded annually since 1954, and are analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States.-Background:...

for Best Actress.

External links

• Behaving Badly at the Internet Movie Database
• Behaving Badly at MemorableTV.com