I’ve just read Moley’s spoilers on Alan’s website. They don’t fill me with eager anticipation. Max having an extra-marital fling with the ink isn’t yet dry on his marriage certificate to Jacqui. Repetitive storyline? Well, yes, but then maybe TPTB at Brookie want to see the backside of Stephen Pinder leaving Mersey TV for the last time. Oh yes, and he’s going to have an affair with a Patricia clone, none other than the wife of the hunky Dr Parr. And her name is Gaby. Gaby. As in Gabrielle Glaister, who used to play Patricia. Now that’s the most creative thing about that storyline.
The Brookside bods MUST listen to their faithful viewers. They must. They admitted doing so in the overwhelming demand on the viewers’ part, that Jacqui and Max become a couple. Well, we didn’t mean a brief fling or a one-night stand. We meant marriage, Jacqui living at Chateau Farnham, being a mum to Harry and Emma - yes, filling the shoes of Patricia and Susannah (but not breaking the heels on the stairs) and being successful at it.
This is Brookside’s essential problem. It doesn’t know where or when to stop. It picks up on a successful storyline and it repeats it in variations until it’s all-too-recogniseable and it becomes boring. Jimmy and drooks. Jimmy the addict. Jimmy the dealer. Jimmy the counsellor. Jimmy the teacher. Jimmy the straight. Jimmy the mental case. Jimmy on the rooftop. Jimmy the manic depressive. Jimmy the schizo. Jimmy the obsessive. Jimmy the Sage of the Close. Susannah the nympho. She sleeps with Max. She sleeps with Greg. She sleeps with Max again. Now Mick. Now Darren. Mick and Josie. Mick and the hairdresser. Mick and Elaine. Mick and posh bird. Mick and Vonnie. Get the picture?
Ex hubris. TOO MUCH. STOP. NOW. It’s the same with Dimily and provocation. Here’s Tim’s pecs. Here’s Em’s tits. Here’s her cleavage. Now a shot of her thighs. Now Tim’s bum. Now they talk about sex. Now it’s sex again.
C’mon Brookside. We’re not stupid, or are you TRULY catering for the text-spell ladolescent set? I do wonder.
By the way, you needn’t worry about Dr Parr either. I gather he’s soon at it like a rabbit with Nisha. Repetitive or what?
Another day on Brookside Close dawns. We’re treated to the sight of female feet, clad in slippers and a dressing gown, pattering across the Close, carrying an overnight bag. A key is inserted in the front door of Chateau Farnham, and Rachel the Dim, wearing a stylish and expensive dressing gown lets herself in.
Dawn has broken in Jacqui’s old flat as well. There we see Dimily huddled in a sleeping bag, surrounded by the detritus of the previous evening’s celebrations, as well as a hefty amount of stolen booze. It’s morning. Em jumps up. Sight of nude legs, jumping up and down. She has to go potty, but there’s no bathroom at Jacqui’s old flat - because Tim’s moved it to Jimily House. She’s late for work and she’s gotta go toilet. She rushes to get dressed.
Tim straggles into a sitting position in the sleeping bag, muttering that he has to get Plank around to the flat, which he seems to have appropriated, in order to get a proper lock on the door.
As Emily dresses, Tim suddenly remembers something he saw the previous day. By the way, he says, guess who he saw yesterday at, of all places, The Black Bull? None other than Raymundo with some bird. Tim says Ray looked well shifty too.
Emily is intrigued. If that’s the case, she reckons, Ray’s kept well quiet about this. Wonder if her Nan suspects?
Tim repeats, leeringly, that Ray and the woman looked ‘well cosy’.
Dire and Marty are in the sitcom kitchen, discussing their favourite topic of late - Antony. Antony, Marty has decided, is returning to school on Monday. Dire is anxious that he spend his last day at home, doing some revising, under the brilliant tutelage of his older brother, Plank. (Woodwork is not on Antony’s curriculum).
Plank enters the kitchen just as Dire volunteers his services to tutor Antony, whilst Plank begs off. Dire remarks to Marty that Plank can’t be any worse tutor than Brigid - which just compounds Dire’s own ignorance.
Marty, however, wants to take Ant out for the day, on a shopping spree of sorts, but big Dire doesn’t want him wandering the streets of Liverpool like a scally. She takes time to note that Plank’s room smells like a brewery, which makes everyone wonder just how houseproud Dire is.
The young Antichrist enters at this moment to find himself the topic of discussion and, grumbling, leaves the room.
The rubber doll has managed to make it as far as the bungalow, without pissing or shitting herself, only to bang on the door and awaken that industrious example of the perfect student, her sister Nikki. Nikki’s plight makes us all want to march to Number 10 and insist, nay DEMAND, that our taxes be raised twofold, in order to finance the lackadaisical and selfish habits of the plethora of university students that Nikki represents. Leeches all.
Emily makes a dash for the loo, proving that she can talk and shit at the same time, by simultaneously asking Nikki about Jessie’s whereabouts.
Nikki says Jessie’s gone to work. Well, demands Emily from the confines of the loo and sitting on the only throne she’ll ever occupy, where’s Ray? And immediately after that, where, exactly did Ray get to yesterday afternoon?
Nikki is clearly baffled, so Emily, emerging from the loo, explains. Tim saw Ray the previous afternoon with a strange woman having a drink at The Black Bull.
Funny, says Nikki, two days ago, she returned to find Ray talking to a strange woman on the doorstep. Ray said at the time that the woman was a Jehovah’s Witness, and when Nikki mentioned the incident to Jerome, Jerome had told her she was imagining things.
There must be something going on, reasons Emily. Why would Ray go out of his way to meet someone in a place like The Black Bull, when he could have easily gone to Bev’s Bar?
Come on, says Nikki, have you seen the state of Bev’s? Besides, it’s not open.
Well, what about The Swan? Asks Emily. She wants it out with Ray.
No, says Nikki. That tactic, if he were having an affair, would only tip him off and make him hide the truth.
Well, says Madam, with determination, she wanted to tell her Nan, but Nikki warns her to keep her mouth shut. (As if).
Next-door, those scroungers par excellence, Mr and Mrs Whinge, AKA Mike and Rachel, are enjoying a holiday without ever having left The Close. The two are lounging and mooching about the Farnham household, both dressed in Max and Jacqui’s hooded dressing gowns. Mike must be on a few days’ leave from work, or is he into his old ways of pulling sickies already? It wouldn’t surprise me.
Rachel enters the lounge, having just come from upstairs where she’s been phaffing about with Beth. Mike lounges lazily on the Farnham sofa. He comments to Rachel that the pair of them could do very nicely by becoming professional house-sitters.
Squatters, more likely, replies Rachel, that’s wha’ she feels l-eye-ke. Suddenly the earth moves. Rachel remembers something. Oooooh, she says, she fergot ter oonploog de-humidif-eye-eh in owse ter dr-eye owt caaa-pets! (Which begs the question: If the Dixon household is without electricity as a result of the leak, how the hell did she manage to plug an electrical applicance in that worked? Well, Rachel IS stupid).
Don’t worry, Mike assures her, he nipped over and did the deed. (This would have been funnier and more in character with the silly cow if Mike had reminded her that there was no electricity in the house).
As the radio plays in the background, the two deadbeats loll on the sofa and pass the time by commenting on the Farnhams’ dressing gowns and wondering what Max and Jacqui talk about, so limited are their own pathetic imaginations. Mike wonders what the couple does for a laugh.
Rachel doesn’t understand.
Mike explains. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘when they get their kit off.’ Mike wonders what his sister possibly sees in Max. Besides his age, Max is hardly the handsomest bloke in the world. (Mike must think highly of himself. Max is probably one of the better looking blokes on the show).
Rachel then proves how incredibly ignorant she is by intimating that Jacqui’s happiness must surely depend on the size of Max’s penis.
This intrigues Mike, who wants to know if Jacqui’s ever told Rachel as such. Rachel tries to be coy, by saying that girls talk about these things as much as lads, although I can’t for one moment imagine the upwardly mobile Jacqui Farnham discussing such a thing with her underclass-bound, mentally-challenged sister-in-law. Laughing, the lazy couple settle back to watch some daytime telly.
Emily has, by now, made it back to Jimily House, only to be verbally pounced upon by Jimmy. Where the hell were she and Dim the previous evening? What did they mean by staying out all night?
They were celebrating Dim’s successful heist, Emily replies, shortly.
Well, sniffs Jimmy, a message wouldn’t have gone amiss.
It was a brilliant heist, assures Emily, it really gave them both a buzz. (Isn’t it incredible how crime seems to sexually arouse this slut in the making? I am counting the days until TPTB see it in their wisdom to bounce her down the steps of Mersey TV and onto the dole queue).
Jimmy asks the whereabouts of the swag. Oh, Emily replies, confidently, Dim’s got it stashed safe and sound.
Jimmy then hurries her off to her job at the salon, telling her that all he needs now is for her to be late.
Suddenly, Emily retches. She admits she drank too much last night and it’s all she can do to leave without puking. (Well, it’s all we can do to watch her without puking).
When she leaves the house, Jimmy experimentally sniffs the air. He sniffs again. Taking a canister of air spray, he sprays the air and sniffs. Then he approaches a vase of flowers on the kitchen counter and sniffs them, enjoying the sensation. His odd behaviour is returning. (Yawn).
Mike and Rachel are still lolling on the sofa, enjoying all the mod cons of the Farnham home. Mike remarks that he could easily get a taste for this luxury, as they snuggle deeper into the Farnham sofa to watch television.
Suddenly, they hear the sound of a key in the door and a lock turning. Rachel sits up suddenly. Ooooh, she squeals, like a sow on heat, wha’s tha’ noise?
Suddenly, Max and Jacqui, chattering happily, enter the lounge as the children bound upstairs. All talking ceases, however, when they spy Mike and Rachel, comfortably at home and dressed in their clothes.
(A question: Rachel is about four inches taller and about two stone heavier than Jacqui. Max is about six inches taller than Max. Yet both the Farnhams’ bathrobes fit them perfectly. Shouldn’t Rachel look as though she were melted and poured into Jacqui’s (which should end about mid-calf) and shouldn’t the sleeves of Max’s robe end around Mike’s elbows?)
Oooh, begins Rachel, she thought Jacqui’n Max weren’t coomin’ back oontil ten o’clock -
Ten o’clock in the morning, deadpans Jacqui, as Max is still in shock.
Sammy sits on reception at the Health Club, making yet another personal phone call. She’s in touch with a private school, identifying herself as ‘Mrs Rogers’. (Sorry, Richard’s surname hasn’t ever been revealed to us. But, since the couple weren’t legally married, shouldn’t Sammy still be ‘Mrs Daniels’? And shouldn’t Louise’s surname be Daniels?) She reminds the bursar of the school that she had arranged to bring Louise along for a visit and wonders if the school could fax her directions. Oh yes, and could the bursar confirm when the school fees should be paid?
Mr and Mrs Whinge, looking suitably chastened, stand before the Farnhams, wittering an explanation as to why they appear to have settled into Chateau Farnham in the owners’ absence. They tell the story of the burst pipe and the loss of electricity.
Ray reckons there’s a fair few things to do to rectify the situation there, Mike begins. Ray reckons that they’ll need to call a plumber and an electrician (which Mike is hoping Jacqui will finance, of course).
Rachel assumes her whiney feel-sorry-for-me voice, pleading with Jacqui that they’ll only stay fer one n-eye-ght.
At that moment, Jacqui is distracted by a sound from the children upstairs, and she and Rachel move towards the stairway, as Jacqui absently tells the couple that they can stay as long as they want. (Bad move, that, Jacqui).
Uneasily, Mike attempts to move past Max, who’s eyeing the bathrobe Mike is wearing. Ashamed of his presumption, Mike mutters an apology about the robe. Max lightly remarks that the robe ‘suits’ Mike.
Dim, meanwhile, awaits Plank in Jacqui’s old flat. Plank arrives, only to be told by Mr Big, AKA Dim, that he’s late. Plank tells Dim that he’s brought the new lock to be fitted on the door, as well as bringing a drill to fix it and to draw the attention of everyone who lives there. After all, he IS a caretaker’s son.
Dim asks Plank what he’s going to do with his share of the profits from the booze they’ll sell, and Dim doesn’t want Plank to say that he’s going to plough it all into his business plans. He’s been too busy to think, replies Plank, refusing to admit that he’s incapable of thinking. Besides, he has a few debts to clear.
Well, Dim brags, he knows how he’s going to spend his share. He’s going to by a flash suit and he’s going to join Jacqui Farnham’s Health Club, a Gold Card membership no less. (Poor white trash. And here’s the rise of the new Barry Grant and half a million other viewers simultaneously rise from their seats and switch channels).
Nikki and the Mekon, meanwhile, await Jessie’s return to the bungalow, whilst Ray, unknowing of what is about to befall him, works in the back garden. As the girls spy Jessie coming onto the Close, the rubber doll wonders if perhaps they shouldn’t have confronted Ray first. But it’s too late, because Jess opens the door.
She’s exhausted from work, she says, and all she is thinking about is having a nice, hot bath. Nikki, however, tactfully insists that Jess have a word with the two of them. Jessie is bemused.
Nikki takes matters in hand, asking Jessie if she and Ray went to the bingo club the previous afternoon.
No, Jess replies, clearly puzzled. She was working.
Well, then, pursues Nikki, could Ray have gone on his own.
No, assures Jessie. Ray hasn’t been back to the bingo since the night he had his big win and that trouble started with Brigid. Anyway, she knew where Ray was yesterday afternoon.
Nikki and ET in drag exchange looks.
He was mending Charlie West’s patio door, says Jessie.
Again, Nikki and Emily exchange looks, before Nikki speaks. He wasn’t mending Charlie West’s door, she tells Jessie. Nikki pauses before continuing, then blurts out, ‘He was at The Black Bull with another woman.’
Jessie almost laughs out loud in disbelief. Ray? Why, no, they must be mistaken.
Emily insists that he was seen there with another woman, then, in order to stop her annoying sister screeching to the heavens, Nikki intervenes again. Admit it, she says to her grandmother. Hasn’t Ray been acting funny since the bingo? And just a couple of days ago, Nikki returned home to find him talking to a strange woman on the doorstep. He made excuses, saying she was a Jehovah’s Witness.
Jessie is still sceptical. She thinks Nikki’s exaggerating a lot, based on her previous bad experience with Jerome.
That’s what Jerome said, says Nikki, as Emily insists that they ask Ray. Waiting for no one, Madame approaches the back door and screeches a command for Ray to come in.
Nikki tries desperately to stop her, wanting to believe the best and not wanting to hurt her grandmother. Let’s not make a mountain out of a molehill, she says. Maybe the woman was a Jehovah;’s Witness. Maybe Ray found God.
‘In a pub in Manor Park?’ Remarks Jessie, as Ray enters the room, wearing protective goggles.
He starts to take them off, but is warned by Emily that he’d better keep them on, as he might need them. (Some viewers found this line funny. I didn’t).
Jessie orders the girls to leave the pair of them alone, and after they leave, she confronts Ray. She informs him that he has humiliated her in front of her granddaughters. How could he carry on like that behind her back with another woman?
Ray sits down on the nearest seat, despondently, holding his head in his hands. He knew something like this would happen, he moans. People always believe the worst. He implores Jessie that he didn’t want her to find out this way.
‘I should hope not,’ says Jessie, piously. ‘Who is she?’
‘She’s my daughter,’ confesses Ray, miserably.
Jimmy, stands in the middle of his back garden, sniffing the air, curiously. Dire Murray steps outside and asks Jimmy if he’s seen Ant. Jimmy ignores the question, instead expostulating about a mixture of smells. All smells clash, he informs a bewildered Dire. It’s as if they’re all competing for attention. At that momoent, Dim and Plank appear.
‘Ah, the wanderer returns!’ Exclaims Jimmy.
The trio go inside and Jimmy asks the lads if the booze has been secured. All done, they assure him. So what’s the next step in the master plan? Jim asks.
A day off for them both, says Dim.
Ray is now reduced to begging Jessie for compassion. Compassion? She spits the word. Well, it IS hard to not to feel sorry for someone who was abandoned even before she was born.
If Jess only knew the guilt he felt, Ray moans. She has to understand. Ray had to make a choice, and so he did. He went back to his wife.
And is she supposed to be impressed with that? Jessie asks, sarcastically.
At that moment the doorbell rings.
Nikki approaches the bungalow to find the culprit who rang the bell. It’s Jimmy. He greets Nikki and asks if the Hiltons might have some spare cleaning stuff. Nikki remarks about Jimmy doing an early spring clean, but she is distracted by the sounds of shouting coming from inside the bungalow.
Jimmy is nonplussed. He doesn’t want any of those fragrance sprays, he says. That way, you’re only replacing one set of smells with another. They’re all left in the air, he explains. That’s why he came over to the Hiltons’, he says, thinking Raymundo might have some sort of cleaning mixture to rid his place of these smells. But, he continues, indicating the sounds of raised voices coming from the other side of the front door, he can’t seem to get anyone’s attention.
Best leave them on their own, Nikki says, a mite uncomfortably, and she asks him how he’s faring off his meds.
Well, Jimmy admits, he’s serious about wanting to sort out his own life, without medication. And it seemed to be working. Everything is sharper now. Why, each morning, he’s ready to JUMP out of bed. He feels alive. It’s like being on detox, but without the pain.
Nikki excuses herself, unable to avoid going into the battle zone, by saying that she has some notes she has to finish, and enters the house.
The barney continues. Jessie’s really banging a verbal gong around poor Ray’s head, and she’s fearsome. All that malarkey that Ray gave her when Reenie first died and he was hanging around, making her believe that he was lonely, that poor Reenie was some sort of harridan who made his life a misery. It was all a sham, wasn’t it? Jess sneers. When all the time it was Ray who was making his poor wife grovel.
Grovel? Defends Ray. Why, Reenie made him grovel every day of his life after that! She never let him forget it. That one peccadillo became her weapon with which to beat him.
All this stuff and nonsense, repeats Jessie, about Reenie being a horrible, old dragon in a loveless marriage, when all the time the poor woman was heartbroken.
Well, Ray was heartbroken too, he maintains. Did Jessie know how Ray felt when Reenie found out that, because of her botched abortion, she would never be able to have children. Why, she let him know distinctly that it was his fault.
Only because he had done the dirty on her, counters Jess, viciously.
Whose side is Jessie on? Wails Ray, plaintively.
Over at Sitcom House, Marty and Ant have reappeared, much to Dire’s relief, because she can’t get it through her bleached, thick skull that Antony is TWELVE and not TWELVE months. (One wonders if she still keeps him in nappies at night).
She greets them in characteristic Dire fashion. ‘What time do you call this?’ She screeches. ‘And where have you been?’
Marty announces that he and Ant have been doing a bit of shopping and tells Ant to show his mother what he’s bought with his Christmas money.
Ant holds up a Liverpool shirt, emblazoned on the back with the name of the Neanderthal-looking thick-as-pigshit scally who used to date Ellison (but whom she dropped because she couldn’t stand the fact that he got more attention when out than she did): GERRARD. And not only that, in his other hand, Ant holds up a pair of boxing gloves.
Over at Chateau Farnham, Rachel stands uneasily in the kitchen as Max enters. She tells him, as a means of small-talk, that the kids are playing and Mike is in bed, sleeping prior to his night shift. She’s made coffee and Max pours a cup as Jacqui enters. Max tastes the coffee and exclaims how good it is to taste good, British coffee - weak and watery.
Rachel asks how the holiday went and Jacqui tells her how shattered they all were. And the kids never left her side for one moment, not even to go to ski club. The first few days, she said, it was great having them cling to her, but near the end, both she and Max were willfully wishing that Harry and Emma would go to ski club. Anyway, she was going by the Health Club later to see how Sol fared with things in her absence.
Rachel suddenly feels the need to tug her underclass forelock and offers to do Jacqui’s ironing (that being the favourite Brookside household occupation) whist she’s out, reminding Jacqui, in Uriah Heepish fashion that she and M-eye-ke’ll be owt from oonder feet by to-morr-eh mawwwnin’.
Jacqui tells her not to worry, that she and Mike were welcome to stay as long as they wanted.
When Rachel’s gone, Max puts his arms around his wife and asks suddenly if Jacqui really meant that about the younger Dixons staying as long as they want.
Of course not, says Jacqui, Rachel’s not like that. She’ll know to leave tomorrow. (Oh, yeah? Rachel’s married to Mike, remember, and just as big a scrounger as he is).
Max remarks how uneasy Rachel seems around him. She talks to him as if he were a schoolteacher of hers.
(Well, she does still call Ron ‘Mr Dixon’.)
Plank, Dim and Jimmy are still in the Corkhill kitchen discussing the stolen ale. Stealing the stuff was the easy part, Jimmy says, with knowledge. The hard part is going to be shifting it. They have to find someone somewhere who’ll buy the stuff, and get rid of their proof of crime. The robbing was the easy part, says Jim. The shifting is going to be easy.
Maybe so, says Dim, but right now he fancies a kick-around outside.
Funny enough, Marty’s just suggested that to Ant. How about learning some footie skills. Dire springs to the lad’s defence. Can’t Marty see that Ant’s not interested in any of that? And boxing gloves! What was Marty thinking of?
Building the lad’s confidence, retorts Marty. Making him get involved with things lads his age are interested in and making friends.
As the two go outside and start their kick-around, they are joined by Dim and Plank. The ball is kicked in the vicinity of the Farnham house, just as Max is putting something in the boot of the car. The ball hits Max, who, uncharacteristically, joins in the game.
See? Says Marty to his watching, hatchet-faced wife. Football building bridges.
Inside Chateau Farnham, Jacqui tells Mike and Rachel in the kitchen that she’s off to the Health Club. Rachel announces that she’s making tea for them all that evening, and after Jacqui leaves, Rachel asks Mike to taste the sauce she’s cooking.
That’s just typical, grumbles an ungrateful Mike, Maxie’s outside trying to play football, Madam’s gone to her club, and they’re left to mind the kids and cook the tea. They’ve become the Filipinos of Brookside Close. (Well, whose fault is that, lame-brain?). Mike looks out the window longingly at the impromptu game. Rachel finally tells him to go outside and join in with the rest, which now includes Jimmy.
In the bungalow, however, all is not so jolly. Jessie has taken to sitting in a darkened room, weeping silently. Ray enters and abruptly turns on the light. Seeing that his wife has a tear-streaked face, he thoughtfully hands her a clean, folded handkerchief.
Jessie pushes the offer away brusquely with her hand, telling him shortly that she had stopped crying.
Ray admits that he can’t understand why Jessie is so upset by his confession. This all happened a long time ago, after all. It doesn’t affect them or their marriage, Ray says, trying to persuade and encourage Jessie. He sits down beside her and attempts to explain further. He was never REALLY that smitten with Sylvia, he confesses, it was just that he let his heart rule his head at the time and got carried away.
It was just that Reenie was so damned unaffectionate, he continues, and that’s really paying Sylvia no compliment. Why, Jess should be relieved that all that’s in the past. He’s never cheated on her, nor would he want to.
Jessie speaks, saying truthfully that what spites her the most is the thought that Ray could just walk away from his responsibilities and his child.
‘I was a young man,’ wails Ray, pitiably. ‘Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive me? You were quick enough to forgive Brigid when she was out of order because of the bingo money.’
‘Brigid never sloped around, bringing women to my house when I was out,’ retorts Jess. ‘Brigid never kept a secret affair and the results of that affair from me for thirty years.’
Jess is disgusted. She never once in her life ever thought Ray capable of having an affair. But then, an affair is like an ending, really - it’s the other woman or the wife. This, this thing with Helen, is a beginning. Ray knew Helen’s mother and now he has to get to know Helen, his daughter. It made Jessie feel as though she were little more than a spare part.
Again, Ray protests that all those things happened ages ago.
But Sylvia will always be a perfect vision in Ray’s mind, Jessie reminds him. Ray was, in reality, torn between Jessie, a real woman, and a dream. Well, Sylvia, the dream woman, had won. Her daughter had come back to haunt Ray. And what was Jessie? A consolation prize?
Jacqui enters the Health Club reception area to find it devoid of the receptionist. After standing for a few moments, she slaps the counter a couple of times and finally shouts, ‘Shop!’
Sammy appears from the back, much to Jacqui’s consternation and horror. ‘What are you doing here?’ She demands, when she finally finds her voice.
Sammy gloats and tells Jacqui that she’s working there now. She has been for the past two weeks. Sol hired her. He’s a lovely fella, she cooes.
‘He’s a dead fella,’ vows Jacqui, ominously and storms out.
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002