By Jan Etherington
Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam play a couple who have been married ‘for ever’. Children of the Sixties, they’re still free spirits, drawn together by their passion for music and each other. Their warm and witty conversations dance around everyday chores and appointments as well as dealing with problems within long-held friendships, and tackling their own frustrations with each other. But underlying it all is their enduring love for each other and their desire to keep the passion alive.
Conversations from a Long Marriage (Series 1)
Episode 1 of 4: Why Didn't You Ask Me to Dance?
This week they’re invited to a party with old friends but return home with a burning question: why didn’t you ask me to dance?
Episode 2 of 4: Sally's Your Friend
This week their together time is severely hampered by their broken-hearted house guest and her dog. Just how long are they going to stay?
Episode 3 of 4: Lean on Me
Joanna’s nursing skills are found wanting after Roger’s knee op.
Episode 4 of 4: Let's Spend the Night Together
On a long car journey, they reminisce about their first meeting and a long-held secret is revealed.
Conversations from a Long Marriage (Series 2)
Episode 1 - Just the Way You Are: Roger gives Joanna a masterclass in dishwasher stacking while Joanna instructs him on how to wave goodbye to departing guests. As the turbulent year turns, Joanna makes some New Year Resolutions - for Roger - and suggests their marriage needs a re-boot’ . ‘Out the door?’ is his response.
Episode 2 - It's Just Work
In Episode two, Joanna gets distracted by a work project, which happens to be with a man who just happens to be much younger and rather more exciting than Roger. When Roger complains about being pushed out of her life, he’s told, in no uncertain terms, 'it’s just work’. But is it?
Episode 3 - Heartbreak Hotel
Roger is best man at their friend’s second marriage, in a country hotel, and Joanna makes excessive demands of room service.
Episode 4 - If You Go Away
Joanna has a health scare and tells Roger that she’s frightened they’ll both die before HS2 is completed and ‘I don’t want to be in a world if we are not in it.’ He struggles to respond with a sensible answer. Then they both receive very bad news.
Episode 5 - Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Roger is late home from a pub lunch and Joanna finds out he had a ‘chance encounter’ on the train home with a former student and didn’t tell her.
In spite of his protests that it was innocent, Joanna warns the woman off – but then confesses she has been strongly attracted to another man.
Episode 6 - I've Been Loving You Too Long to Stop Now
Joanna complains they’re ‘in a rut’, so Roger plans a spontaneous day out but is thwarted at every turn. Undeterred, he cooks her a ‘date night’ supper and they talk about their long marriage.
Conversations from a Long Marriage (Series3)
Episode 1 of 6: Birthday Blues
It’s a big birthday for Roger. But he doesn’t want a party and he doesn’t like his present - an electric bike - which he believes is for ‘old geezers’. However, when he starts a healthy diet, whitens his teeth and she catches him using her face cream, Joanna wonders if it is just a big birthday life crisis – or could it be an affair?
Episode 2 of 6: Heroes and Villains
Roger is obsessed with his new power hose and is cleaning up the neighbourhood. But their peace is shattered when noisy new neighbours move in.
Episode 3 of 6: Travelling Light
Joanna plans a mountain trek but doesn’t think Roger’s knee is up to it. She reveals she’s asked the advice of the adventurer Rix Roden, which infuriates Roger, who suspects an attraction between them. Joanna heads off up the mountain, leaving Roger home alone. But perhaps not lonely?
Episode 4 of 6: Don't Throw Your Love Away
Roger`s caught talking in his sleep - and attempts to appease Joanna backfire, so she walks out. But when Joanna babysits for friends, she has to ask for Roger’s help and is surprised to find he’s a ‘baby whisperer’.
Episode 5 of 6: Losing the Way
They drop in on some old friends they haven't seen for years. And while Joanna and Roger feel the same as they always have, their friends seem to have changed beyond recognition. He's moved from technicolour to tweed, and she's never even heard of Stormzy.
Episode 6 of 6: Please Don't Ever Change
Joanna feels it's time they move house - somewhere with fewer stairs, that Roger might find more manageable, since his knee op. She calls it free-upping rather than downsizing. But an unexpected twist of fate means, to her horror, that it's, suddenly, Joanna who can’t make the stairs.
Produced and directed by Claire Jones.
Production co-ordinator Beverly Tagg
A BBC Studios production
Replies
Thanks, Willliam! Looks very good!!