BRATS
Well, we’ve had the Brookside Babes and the Brookside Boys. Now we’ve got a new category for fans to love. Enter the Brookside Brats. First, there’s Antony Murray, who’s gaining our sympathy at the moment for his tragic reaction to being bullied by Imelda - but I hasten to add that he’s only JUST getting our sympathy. The vast majority of Brookside viewers, those of us who have a reasonable intellect, left watching the show, are fast growing bored with this endless inability of the Merseyside police - or anyone for that matter - to discover the body of a 12 year-old girl in a shallow pond in a heavily traversed wooded area near to a residential neighbourhood.
But Ant qualifies as a brat. Why? Because when he’s not being bullied and traumatised, he is a right little, priggish, religious bigot. He came onto the show spouting hatred and accusing anyone who didn’t hold his rigid religious views as ‘heretics’ and his ignorant parents pointed their fingers and thought it cute that he wanted to be Pope. Antony Murray as Pope would set Catholicism back to the Middle Ages. He behaved abysmally toward his sister during the time she had to have an abortion and was fed in this attitude by his hypocritical stepmother.
Then there’s Louise. Before she was Louise, Louise spent the whole of last year, as Josh Mach I, Bev’s child. She simply must have, because she looks like Josh in drag. Louise hates her mother, because she’s a drunk and a scouser made good by marriage. She likes the high life, and because she does, she’s stamping her minuscule foot and demanding to be despatched forthwith to London, to live with the man who WASN’T her stepfather, but ‘married’ her mother and has a penchant for younger women ... and younger and younger and younger.
In fact, she demands this of her mother because IT’S WHAT LOUISE WANTS. And if it’s what Louise wants, then that’s got to be good for Louise. And who better to judge what’s good for ten-year-old Louise than ten-year-old Louise?
Get the picture? Right, let’s move on.
Thirdly, we have Josh Mach II. Josh Mach I looked like Louise with short hair and had the appearance of having been fathered by Lance Powell. Josh Mach II looks like he sprang, fully grown and with a Number 1 haircut, from the loins of Gobby Moffatt. No one can control Josh, and now that she has to PAY for childminders, Bev’s suddenly become very particular about the people with whom she leaves Josh. His grandfather can’t stand the little blighter, but puts up with him in an effort to get into his mother’s knickers, when he’s not ironing and sniffing them. His father would really rather not know ANY of his children and, like Bev, would really hope that rich Auntie Jacqui would assume financial control over them.
Ron says Josh Mach II reminds him of Mike at that age. I shudder to think.
And finally, we have the REAL Brookside Brats, found on the Official Forum - lez, StephENNIE and kirsty. Kirsty is harmless enough, but she gets a bit ugly when she tries to sound clever, and it comes out as homophobia. The other two are just plain ugly. They regularly try to start flame wars, get personal about anyone who catches them in their pathetic attempts to try to sound older than they are and are generally unpleasant, spoiled little brats.
But then ... That’s Brookside’s target audience, isn’t it?
The hour-long special, which again proved only to be two individual episodes tacked together, opens with Ron Dixon, ensconced in Bev’s flat, bare-chested (let’s hope no one was having a snack) and doing the ironing.
Outside The Parade, a taxi pulls up and Sammy descends. Her sulky daughter, Louise, holds back, defiantly sitting in the back seat of the cab. Sammy pays off the driver, and orders Louise out of the cab. Louise, in a strop, sullenly descends.
Josh and Bev enter her flat, Bev having collected the boy from school, as he’s still wearing his uniform. He immediately sets up a wail about wanting to play football. Bev replies that she has too many things to do to be able to take the kid to the park, but Ron offers to have a kick-around with Josh later on.
Josh begins to whine about having played football ALL the time in Brazil. (Of course, you did, Josh. After all, isn’t that what everyone does in Brazil? Oh, and the samba. Don’t they spend all day dancing the samba in the street to Astrud Gilberto records and then bugger off to play football, with Pele of course, in the evening?)
Bev ignores the kid’s moaning and informs Ron that she stopped by to see Jacqui earlier in order to try to sort out some proper work hours; but Jacqui was no help, she says. In fact, Jacqui had a cob on about the fact that the laundry seemed to be piling up at the Health Club and The Shelf.
Ron is surprised that Jacqui hasn’t sorted that problem out yet.
Not only that, tattles Bev, Jacqui even made all these hints and allegations about Bev using Ron as a glorified housekeeper and unpaid babysitter. She makes sure she tells Ron that Jacqui referred to him as an au pair.
Ron asserts that he’s glad to help out, and Bev admits that she feels guilty. After all, Ron DID fork out for a big shop for her.
Ron is happy here, he confirms. Besides, it was much too crowded back at Number 8, But Bev protests that Ron doesn’t have to do the ironing. Ron asserts that it relaxes him, and Bev jokes that it’s a pity he can’t offer his laundry services to Jacqui.
As the phone rings, Ron turns a face to the camera and widens his eyes in the caricature picture of a person who suddenly has an idea. All that’s missing is a lightbulb, suspended in mid-air, lighting up over his head and the sound of a dinging bell.
But the only bell dinging is the phone. It’s a call from Mrs Brown, Bev’s minder, to tell her that she can’t sit for Josh anymore. Back to Square One for Bev.
Louise sits stubbornly on the bench on the verge of The Parade, her suitcase on the pavement beside her. Sammy appears by her side, arms akimbo and asking Louise if she intends to stay on the park bench all night.
Louise the Ratchild, turns her ferrety, little face upward to Sammy and hisses that Sammy’s kidnapped her. Sammy’s taken her away from her home and school against her will.
Sammy IS impressed - not, and raises her eyebrows in mock concern. Sammy’s Louise’s mother, she reminds her, and as such, she knows what’s best for Louise. Louise asserts that she doesn’t want to be there in Liverpool with Sammy.
Sammy informs Louise coldly that Richard isn’t her real dad, and therefore, wasn’t entitled to have custody of Louise.
Louise shouts back that Richard is the only dad she’s ever known and she couldn’t help it if he wasn’t her real father.
Sammy tries another tack, encouraging Louise to view this as the start of a new life as mother and daughter, but Louise won’t budge, when Sammy asks her to come upstairs to the flat.
At the Walk-In Clinic, Nisha shoos a complaining patient away from the reception desk, as Katie remarks tactlessly and loudly that old people are always complaining. Dr Parr overhears and enquires sarcastically if Katie has so much medical training that she knows this. (No, Doc, she’s just a miserable bitch, who thinks no one has problems but her).
Katie replies that most of the elderly patients seen by the clinic, only want attention. (Yeah, Katie, like you’ve wanted for the past year).
Dr Parr is preparing to examine one of his favourite patients, an 82 year-old woman named Mrs Tucker, who always brings him home-made mince pies when she has an appointment. He and Nisha joke about this as the doctor tells Nisha to prepare Mrs Tucker for an ECG.
Suddenly Gabby the Grin appears at the desk, as she’s not grinning (and why should she, as she’s only come to see her husband?), she’s virtually unrecognisable. In fact, she looks rather sloppy and plain. She’s there to inform Dr Parr that she won’t be home for dinner as she’ll be out on the town entertaining some Australian contingent of some sort.
Katie and Nisha joke about Dr Parr having to have the whole mince pie that Mrs Tucker made for him for his dinner. Dr Parr laughs this off and tells Gaby the Grin that he’ll probably occupy himself with paperwork until her return, but Gaby the Grin, before leaving, orders him to get some shelves put up in the flat.
Nisha tells Dr Parr that his favourite patient is ready in the examining room.
Sammy gazes out the window in the flat at Louise still sitting, slump-shouldered and sullen on the bench below.
Back at Bev’s flat, Bev pokes her head around the door to tell Ron that she’s about to do a dark wash if he’s got anything to go in the machine; then, glancing across the room, she notices Josh’s football resting on the table and promptly orders him to remove it.
Josh, in reply, throws a proper hissy fit, reminiscent of an extremely spoiled child. (Josh’s behavioural problems aren’t down to the fact that he’s got no male role model - he’s had several: Dave Burns, Lance Powell, Fred. But rather, his problems are those of an extremely indulged and spoiled child who has known no discipline, whatsoever - and that, folks, is down to BEV). Josh starts wishing aloud that they were back in Brazil, where he had a friend called Rudy, with whom he could miraculously communicate. When Rudy and Josh weren’t dancing a samba in the street along with everyone else in Rio, it seems they were playing football - with Pele and Renaldo (the footballer, not Ron) of course.
Bev explains to Ron that her latest childminder has quit on her, blatantly saying that she refuses to look after Josh. She did, however, recommend an After School Club to Bev, but this facility would drain another twenty quid from Bev’s wages. (Hang on a minute! Just what does Bev expect here? FREE child care? Won’t happen. Not here, anyway. Pay attention - THIS is why she’s currying favour with Ron.)
Ron remarks that a fair bit of his clothes were still over at the Dixons’, and he was returning to collect them. Bev offers to go with him and gazing admiringly at the pile of ironing Ron’s completed, she compliments him on his domestic skills, wondering why Great Grannies ever folded with him at the helm. He should resurrect that enterprise, she says.
Well, Ron admits, he was knocked back by the bank, and now he has to assess his future.
Instead of seeing patients, Dr Parr is still pfaffing about in the reception area, when Nisha emerges from Mrs Tucker’s examination room, stating that she doesn’t like the look of the woman at all. Parr follows her into the area and suddenly we are treated to Liverpool’s version of Doug Ross and Carol Hathaway or Luka Kovic and Abby Lockhart. Parr instantly assesses that Mrs Tucker is suffering from acute tachycardia, and Nisha shouts out that the woman’s blood pressure is 105/80. Nisha takes some blood gases and hands them to Katie to send to the lab (and why is Katie, a mere receptionist, there at all?). Nisha tells Katie that she needs some results quickly, but Katie whines that the lab takes ages. Suddenly Nisha calls out to Dr Parr. Mrs Tucker is flat-lining; she’s in cardiac arrest. As Dr Parr fires up the defib machine to apply electro-cardiac resuscitation, Nisha shouts at Katie to call an ambulance. (Gee, wasn’t that exciting? All we needed was a bit of wobbly camera action, Mark Greene, Carter and Dr Benton dashing in and Kerry Weaver stumping around with her crutch).
Sammy glances out the window in the flat again, and she’s shocked to see the bench on which Louise was sitting, is empty. But she needn’t worry, because Louise enters the flat at precisely that moment. Sammy reaches into her bag she’s been unpacking and takes out a parcel. Handing it to Louise, she tells the child that she’s bought Louise her favourite biscuits.
Louise is not impressed. In another classic, disdaining attitude of an extremely spoiled child, she shrugs her shoulder and assumes a disinterested mien.
Sammy is affronted. Aren’t these Louise’s favourites?
Not anymore, the snotty little rat-faced bitch replies. Richard alway buys her fresh homemade biscuits from a bakery on the corner of the street where he lives at weekends.
Undaunted, Sammy promises Louise that they would find the same sort of shop here. Louise curls her lip distastefully. HERE, she points out, they would probably only be cheap and nasty. Then she begins a whine that SHOULD have ended with Sammy landing the flat of her hand across Louise’s face - but it didn’t because this is Brookside, produced by Phil Redmond and, therefore, politically correct.
Louise HATES it here with Sammy, she moans. Sammy is ALWAYS short of money.
This isn’t about money, Sammy counters. It’s about love. She wants Louise to know that she missed her immensely when the girl was away. In fact, she hardly slept at all for worrying about her.
Louise raises her delicate rat-like eyebrows in mock surprise. Oh? Then Sammy must have been out of vodka.
(God, I would have knocked that kid for six, did she say something like that to me!)
Despite repeated efforts at resuscitation, Mrs Tucker is still crashing. Dr Parr, prompted by Nisha at every turn, increases his efforts to save the woman’s life. Katie slopes into view to tell the medical pair that the ambulance was attending a car crash nearby and as late. Dr Parr abandons the crash cart electro-cardial device and starts heart massage. (Crikey, if Dr Ross or Dr Kovac were there, they would have cracked open her chest).
Ron, with Bev and Josh in tow, has arrived at Number 8, to be met by Mike and Rachel. Josh immediately sets up a wail to play football in the garden, and Rachel takes him and Beth outside. Bev follows.
Left alone together, Mike tackles Ron about his return to Bev’s flat. Mike warns Ron to beware of Bev trying to take advantage of him for Josh’s sake, but Ron poo-poos the suggestion.
Mike pursues it. Look at Ron. Why, even now he was in a rush to move back into Bev’s flat.
Bev had been goodness incarnate to him, Ron informs Mike. She’d mothered him and she was looking after his diet.
All the same, Mike warns, Ron wants to ensure that Bev doesn’t merely use him as a surrogate childminder and babysitter.
Ron assumes a smug look and replies that he reckons he’ll be used by Bev for a different purpose.
‘What? Sex?’ Says Mike. ‘Not again!’
Ron counters with the remark that he’s always known what women wanted.
Meanwhile, at the clinic, Mrs Tucker isn’t responding at all to the treatment ministered to her. Nisha points this out, as Dr Parr, clearly upset, continues to administer heart massage. Nisha shouts that the patient is making no progress; but still Parr continues. Nisha points out that it’s been fifteen minutes since Mrs Tucker flat-lined. Even if they got her to a hospital, she would be suffering from cerebral hypoxia. She’d be put on a life support machine and would live three weeks at the most. This is to no avail. Nisha calls out to the doctor that the woman is dead. Parr continues, as Doug Ross would do. Nisha reminds him again that there’s nothing more he could do. Parr doggedly continues, as Dr Kovac would do. Nisha now INSISTS that Mrs Tucker is not responding. She’s dead, but she’s not officially dead until the doctor says she is. It’s Parr’s decision, Nisha informs him. Parr, with resignation, officially calls time of death, as Dr Greene or Dr Benton would do. (Brookside’s getting clever. It’s now imitating Channel 4’s programmes in tribute to them. What next? Lance doing an impromptu talk show a la Graham Norton in The Shelf?)
Back in the land of situation comedy - at Sitcom House, as a matter of fact - Adele and her slow-talking friend Laura meet in Adele’s bedroom. They’re trying out some fake tan lotion that Laura has bought, so they wouldn’t arrive in Ayia Napa looking all cheesey and white. (They’d arrive looking cheesey and brown). Adele reads the label like a good girl and tells Laura that the instructions say that they should use some sort of skin preparation beforehand.
Laura, in her infinite wisdom, reckons that their skin is OK. Besides, she failed to buy any of the product’s skin preparation lotion. They would be fine.
Katie enters the exam room to inform Dr Parr and Nisha that the ambulance had arrived. Dr Parr raises his head and asks Katie to pull Mrs Tucker’s records to find out who was he next-of-kin. Dr Parr looks at the corpse and apologises tearfully.
As Adele and Laura apply the fake tan, Laura questions Adele about her love life. Is this Matty still Number One, she asks.
Well, Adele muses, she might be on the pull for someone else. Trouble is, that Matty always smells of dead chickens. Suddenly, as Adele applies the lotion, she notices that the bottle is empty. There’s shock all around as Laura confesses that she only bought one bottle of the lotion. They’ve run out and each girl has half a tan.
Dr Parr stands in anguish in the now-empty examination room. Nisha stands behind him as he’s filled with self-recrimination at losing a patient. He should have done more, he says, accusingly. There’s this drug that he could have tried. He knew about its effects, but he didn’t think quickly enough to use it. He accuses himself of being out of touch and too slow to respond in an emergency situation.
Nisha disagrees, but Parr says that it was really she who ran the show in the exam room. After all, it was Nisha who was calling out things for him to do.
Well, Nisha says with false modesty, she DID work in A & E for four years. But she condescends to be complimentary about Dr Parr’s efforts.
He was crap, Parr admits, cruelly. A junior house officer would have known more.
That’s not true, Nisha protests. When was the last time he had to deal with a bona fide cardiac arrest. Parr admits that it had never happened to him.
Nisha tells him that the two of them were both rusty and, under the circumstances, they did well. Anyway, they were dealing with an 82 year-old woman, with chronic bronchitis. Dr Parr worked on the patient as though she were someone in her thirties an dhe did brilliantly. Nisha tells Dr Parr he should go home. Katie, standing in the doorway, is shocked that someone else had the effrontery to die on the day of the anniversary of the sainted Clint’s death.
Ron and Bev are preparing to depart from Number 8. Glancing about the lounge, Ron ruefully remarks that it seems that the Dixon house wasn’t his anymore. At least Ron owns the house, replies Bev. She, herself, hates renting. Anyway, has Ron thought anymore about swopping with Jacqui and Max? She asks.
Ron reminds Bev that the Farnham house isn’t without tragedy, itself.
Mike enters the room from upstairs and tells Ron that he’s managed to gather the last of Ron’s clothing in the bin bag he’s carrying. As Bev and Josh go out the front door, Ron admonishes Mike to get some rest. Mike tells Ron that he’s off tonight (and therefore, could have babysat his son).
Ron remarks that he hopes to ‘get off’ tonight as well, and Mike shushes his father by saying that Ron’s like a dog with two wotsits. He ends the conversation by telling Ron that he gives his latest relationship with Bev two weeks.
Back at NNT, Katie regales Sammy with tales about Mrs Tucker’s death. Katie can’t believe she witnessed something like that. Why, she was shocked at the colour of the corpse and all.
Sammy wonders why Katie doesn’t pack that job in and go for something brighter, rather than illness and death.
Suddenly, to Katie’s surprise, Louise appears. Katie asks the child what she’s doing in Liverpool and Louise, giving Sammy a withering look, informs Katie that Sammy kidnapped her. Kidnapping is a serious offence, isn’t it? Louise digs.
It’s bad enough, Katie replies, staring at Sammy in disbelief. She asks her sister what she meant by bringing Louise back here.
Louise belongs with her mother, Sammy affirms.
Louise sets up a caterwaul about wanting to return to boarding school and that Sammy is being unfair. She turns to Katie for support, demanding that Katie agree that Sammy’s unfair.
Back at Sitcom House, Adele reads the instructions on the fake tan bottle with increasing panic. The instructions say that the girls should have applied moisturiser and should have exfoliated first. They stare at each other in horror at their blotched, unevenly coloured skin.
What are they going to do? Wails Laura.
They’ll have to get another bottle, Adele says. And she orders Laura to go out and get one. Laura refuses, asking why Adele didn’t go. Adele, in a panic, says she has to be at work in an hour’s time. Laura can nip out, quickly.
As Ron, Bev and Josh return to Bev’s flat, Josh sets up a moan again when Bev informs him that he can start his new After School Club soon. Josh doesn’t want to go to the Club, he informs her. He hates it in Liverpool. He’d rather be in Brazil. He had a good time in Brazil. Even the football matches were better. (What a cliche!)
He could stay up late in Brazil; he could bounce his football in Brazil.
Bev tells him that he’s driving her nuts constantly going on about Brazil, and Josh shouts back at her.
Bev defends herself by saying that she’s doing her best to try to make a nice home for Josh; and he should be thankful he’s got an After School Club to go to. He might have a laugh. Josh apologises to her, and as a treat, Bev tells Josh he can go outside and play with his football in the corridor, as long as he was careful not to hit any of the lights.
When the spoiled, little urchin goes outside, Ron compliments Bev on how well she handled that situation. Bev suggests that she fix Ron a special meal that evening as a way of saying thank you for his support.
Down the corridor, Sammy is still arguing with Louise. Louise is adamant tha she doesn’t want to live there with Sammy. Sammy replies that she’s better equipped to make choices about Louise’s future, being her mother.
Louise witheringly replies that she’s seen Sammy drunk enough times to know that LOUISE was better equipped to make choices about her life than Sammy. (Why do Brookside allow this? Someone, preferably Nisha, should inform this incredibly po-faced child that her mother has a problem and needs all manner of help and support, not ridicule and disdain from the likes of her. WHERE is Sammy’s mother as support?)
What’s the difference between being stuck her and in boarding school? Louise wails. Sammy says that when Louise is at boarding school, she never sees the child, but Louise points out that Sammy’s always at work.
Louise states bluntly that she wants to live with Richard. It’s what makes her happy and that’s what Sammy should be concerned about.
Sammy replies that she’ll do what SHE thinks is best for Louise and SHE’LL decide without being told.
Dr Parr can play a guitar. For a moment, I thought he would sing, but, as he sits in his flat strumming, he’s disturbed by the sound of a ball thudding against the wall outside. He opens the door of his flat, to find Josh boisterously playing an imaginary game of football in the hall. The doctor royally ticks him off and grabbing the kid roughly by the arm, frogmarches him to Bev’s door.
He knocks and is met at the door by Ron and Bev. He immediately launches into a tirade about how badly behaved Josh is, being allowed to run riot in the hall of the flats and causing mayhem.
There’s no need to get a cob on, Ron says.
At that moment, Gaby the Grin sashays along the hall. Seeing Dr Parr at loggerheads with the neighbours, she rushes to the scene and asks what’s going on.
‘The lad was having a kickaround in the hall,’ Ron says, ‘until His Nibs here kicked off instead.’ Turning back to the doctor, Ron points out that Josh was only a nipper, and he didn’t want to fall out with good neighbours.
Gaby the Grin ushers her husband back to their flat. Dr Parr is not amused. That sort of thing shouldn’t be happening, he maintains. Anyway, he’s surprised to see Gaby the Grin. He thought she was going to be out late.
Yes, well, she explains, the clinic called her and told her how stressed out Dr Parr was and she came home to help him through the crisis. AND like a good doctor’s wife, she’s brought First Aid. She holds up two bags - pizza and wine.
Dr Parr sits down, distraught. He lost a patient, he tells her, distractedly. He was at fault. He simply wasn’t sharp enough. He felt responsible for the death of someone he cared about and who cared about him. This was the first time this had happened to him, and he knows he should keep a discreet, professional distance; but he crossed the line becaue Mrs Tucker loved life so much.
In an uncharacteristically cliche-ridden and mushy piece of claptrap, Brookside has Gary Parr’s character say that Mrs Tucker would insist that she only see Dr Parr when she attended the clinic. If he weren’t there, she simply went away. In fact, she would always say that he was the only one who kept her ticking over.
Gaby the Grin approaches her husband and the two enjoy a massive snog, as Parr begins to unbutton her blouse. It looks as though the couple are about to embark on another one of Brookside’s voyages of discovery, especially as it appears that they are another loving and passionate couple.
But suddenly, this sort of action stops. Dr Parr cries out in anguish that he’s a failure, and he begins to cry.
Second half hour..........
YOUR SONG
(With apologies to Elton John)
It’s a little bit smutty.
This Brookside programme
The setting’s unreal and
The actors are hams
Dire Murray is screaming
She wants a baby
Ron Dikko is Horny
And Bev says, ‘maybe’
Anyway, the thing is,
Who will remember
What Brookside’s all about
Come December?
THE GOD-DAMNED OFFICIAL FORUM WILL BE DOMINATED BY LEZ THE TROLL, SHOUTING OUT ‘WHO REMEMBERS!!!!!!!!!!!’
Anyway, on to Part Deux, which was the lesser part of Part Un.
Gary Parr is in the shower, crying. Maybe this is why the director didn’t show us his probably luscious bum; or maybe it’s because Ben Hull is too much of a professional to know and to make the amateur film graduate directing Brookside see sense and ditch the bum shot. I can hear him now: ‘No, really, Bob/Jim/Andy/Adrian, it’s NOT necessary. I can carry it, man. It needs emotion, pathos. No, really, man, it’s OK. I can do it. Hang on a minute, mate ... We do this scene MY way, or I walk!’
Anyway, Dr Parr is weeping in the shower, his tears mingling artistically with the water pouring down over his face.
His wife, meanwhile, is rummaging maniacally around their bedroom, her blouse open to her waist to reveal a white bra, which - surprisingly - isn’t a Wonderbra. Here’s another woman to join the Society of Irreparable Flat-Chests, Mersey TV Branch, current charter members, Misses Fletcher, Burke and Collins. Gaby has GRAPES, lads; and there’s no WAY she can EVER have a cleavage. So, she’ll be condemned forever to borrowing tee-shirts from Louise Rogers-Daniels-????? next door. Although TPTB are desperately trying to hoist Alex’s Fletcher’s chest somewhat. Time for another Brookie actress to go for implants, methinks. CAN’T have Max Farnham’s current wife without BaZOOMS.
Suddenly, Gaby the Grin finds what she’s looking for on top of the wardrobe. It’s an oblong box and she pulls out a gaudy costume of sorts, smiling wickedly.
Dr Parr comes out of the shower, towel tied manfully around his manhood and calls out to his absent wife. From the bedroom, Gaby the Grin says she’s not ready and orders him to take the pizza out of the oven. In the background, we are made ominously aware of some music that sounds like it should belong in a 70’s porn flick.
Next-door at Bev’s, Ron’s still ironing. How could ONE person like Bev have so much ironing? He puts the finishing press on a sleek but tacky little black ruffled skirt and hangs it up, practically salivating. Then he holds up a pair of Bev’s thong undies. For a moment, it looks as though Ron might actually sniff them. (Surely, Brookside wouldn’t be so crass? No, wait a moment).
Meanwhile, back at the ranch - er, Doctor’s flat, Gaby the Grin appears at the door to the marital bedroom, dressed like a saloon girl from The Old West. Interesting to note that the archtypal saloon girl, or ‘sporting woman’ as she was termed, was a euphemism for a slut.
She sidles over to her husband in an exaggerated sexy walk, snuggles up to him and engages in a massive snog. Cooing in a low-pitched voice, she reminds him that she knows a fair bit about medical training too - that TLC and aftercare are very important, she adds, suggestively. She sucks his face in an effort to embark with him on an emotional journey of discovery into their sexual past (how’s that for meaningless spin?), whispering that ‘there are ways’ to deal with Dr Parr’s current situation. (Can anyone else but me imagine Gaby the Grin as the sexy Nazi spy in ‘Allo, Allo, cooing, ‘’Zere are vays of mekking yoo talk, Rene’?)
Dr Parr, however, noble man that he is, is having nothing of her brand of comfort and pushes her away.
Gaby the Grin goes into sulk drive, pouting and accusing her husband of being unreasonable. For Christ’s sake, she knows what his stressful day has been like ... And that’s exactly why she’s here now and not out baby-sitting some Aussies.
Dr Parr, noble man that he is, takes immediate offence at her remark and
her reason for being. Is that what all this pizza, wine and fancy dress is in
aid of? He asks, irritated at the thought. A way of babysitting? Is a
life that trivial that it can be forgotten with a bit of sexual game-playing?
Gaby the Grin assures him that she’s on his side. God knows, she was doing her best to put up with the situation, even condescending to live in this pokey, little flat.
Dr Parr remarks that it isn’t his fault that they have to live in this flat.
Gaby snaps that it isn’t her fault that Dr Parr smacked a man named Rob Dexter in the mouth.
Dr Parr retorts that his wife was encouraging the man in her actions.
Rob Dexter’s wife was suffering from breast cancer, explains Gaby the Grin, almost stamping her petite foot. SHE was merely offering the poor man some comfort. He was upset.
Dr Parr accuses her of rewriting history ... Again. (Like Katie, eh?)
Oh, exclaims Gaby the Grin, in mock exasperation. Perhaps Gary would have liked Rob Dexter to have taken him to court for assault. Why, she could envisage the headline now: Consultant’s Son in Sex Scandal. Gary was lucky Rob Dexter elected to settle out of court.
There she goes again, Dr Parr retorts, making oblique comparisons of him with his more successful father. The eminent consultant and his crazy son!
Or how about ‘Jealous Doc Whacks Cancer Spouse’? Teases Gaby the Grin, cruelly. (Boy, with friends like this woman, a body wouldn’t need enemies!) THAT’S what got them to this point in life here and for the future.
Dr Parr replies bleakly that their living in the flat was only temporary.
Nikki enters the lounge of Hotel Corkhill and is pleasantly surprised. The place is absolutely pristine. One could eat off the floor. She’s impressed, as Jimmy stands in the foreground, continuously spraying air freshener around the room.
Nikki notices this, and, reminded of his previous obsession with smells, she asks him if he’s remembered to take his meds - as if forgetting to take one dosage will turn him from Dr Jekyll into Mr Hyde again. (Oh, by the way, lez, StephENNie and kirsty, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde were two sides of one character in a book of the same name written by a man named Robert Louis Stevenson, who lived long ago in the Nineteenth Century - that’s the 1800’s. Oh, but that’s too old for you to care about. You like Austin Powers!)
Jimmy replies that he has, indeed, taken his medication, and chides Nikki for thinking he’s obsessively driven. Jimmy had simply invited a guest around for a drink, a female guest and he wanted the house to be nice for her. He wanted this place to be a place where any woman would enjoy entering (a deliberate double entendre). And what better way to achieve that, than to sustain a fresh and fragrant odour for a fresh and fragrant Happy Smiling Helen. Then she would be happier, and her smile would be broader, and her head would bob continuously up and down in delight.
Nikki points out that she doesn’t think Jimmy’s way of impressing Happy Smiling Helen will work. First of all, she says, he doesn’t know the woman well enough.
Spreading his hands wide to indicate the pristine room, Jimmy tells Nikki that the whole object of this evening was to prove to Helen that he had nothing to hide.
But everyone and every house has a scent, Nikki reasons.
Look, Jimmy tries to explain. He’s had an illness - an illness like pneumonia or cancer - but one no one likes to mention MANIC DEPRESSION. (But the Sage is wrong here. Pneumonia and many forms of cancer can be cured, and the victim can go on to live a normal life. Manic depression stays with a person for the duration). This cleaning lark was Jim’s way of showing Happy Smiling Helen that he was normal - a house any woman would be proud of.
But it’s too - too antiseptic, too impersonal, rationalises Dr Nikki. A house should look lived in.
Jimmy asks if Nikki means he should have left his smelly socks lying around.
No, she replies, but some books and magazines on display would be nice. Show Happy Smiling Helen the kind of things Jim likes to read. (Read? Jimmy?)
Dr Nikki, who fancies herself a cross between Dr Ruth Westheimer and Dr Laura (both female Frasiers on actual syndicated U S radio) advises Jimmy that it’s actually FUN getting to know a person slowly. That way one can accept the other’s faults and know where the other person comes from both socially and psychologically.
But Jimmy stubbornly maintains that he wants Happy Smiling Helen to know all about his illness and how hard he’s worked to overcome it.
Dr Nikki thinks that’s just peachy-keen great.
(Does this sound like a normal man to you? No? Me neither).
Let’s go back to Ron and Bev. Bev stands admiring the absolute pile of ironing Ron’s accomplished. Why, he’s even managed to iron all the ruffles in her little, ra-ra skirt. And he’s EVEN ironed her knickers! Awwwwwwww! How sweet! Show me a man who’ll iron a woman’s knickers and I’ll show you a man who wants to get inside them.
All this is too much for Bev. She’s overcome, and to show her gratitude, she’s going to get Josh out of the way with some fish fingers and then prepare a special meal for Renaldo (Ron Dikko, that is, not the footballer). She remembers how much Ron liked her special vegetarian meatballs, and she’s going to get all dressed up, fix the meal, open a bottle of plonk and the two could spend a cozy evening in front of the telly.
As she swans slowly out of the room, Ron raises her black, lacy thong up to examine it. One can almost FEEL the repugnant rise of Ron’s male member within his trousers. The thought is quite sickening. Bev calls out from the bedroom that she’ll make a start on the MEATBALLS if Ron will go buy some plonk.
From the look on Ron’s face, it’s clear he’s mistaken ‘plonk’ for ‘bonk’.
Next door at the flat of Brookside’s answer to Marcus Welby MD, Dr Parr is on the phone with Daddy Parr. Dr Parr looks like a chastened child as he takes his fathers unwanted and unrequested advice in how to cope with the death of Mrs Tucker.
As he ends the call, he turns accusingly to Gaby the Grin and asked why she took it upon herself to call his father and tattle about his crisis at the Clinic that afternoon.
Gaby replies in a rather bored tone of voice that it seemed like a good idea at the time, what with Dr Parr Snr’s experience in dealing in matters of that sort.
Gary Parr firmly informs his wife that he’s pretty apt to be an ordinary GP all his professional life - no more, no less. The fact that his father considers him an underachiever is a source of bother to the young man; so he’s not likely to seek the advice of an eminent consultant now.
Gaby’s bored with the whole ordeal. Cossetting a wounded ego, unless it’s her own, doesn’t come easy to her. Gary had a bad day, that’s all. It happens to everyone, she says, and it will probably happen to him again in his career. Shit happens and it’ll happen again. Get over it. Move on. (Great bedside manner, this one).
Dr Parr, needless to say, is not impressed by the callowness of the advice. That’s Gaby’s suggestion, he huffs. How typical of her to consider a hefty dose of pizza, plonk and porn a panacea for something as serious as the loss of a patient’s life. Grow up, he snaps.
Gaby the Grin shrugs nonchalantly, pointing out that her husband chose to be a doctor.
Dr Parr retorts that he didn’t have a choice; he went into the traditional family profession.
Gaby’s getting impatient. She wants to know if her husband wants to stand there with a towel around his waist all night and whinge or get laid? (What a wonderful choice of words before the watershed hour when there are CHILDREN watching. But KIRSTY likes such things.)
Adele and Laura have sloped over to the Garage, where Adele is due to start work. Worriedly, they examine each other’s blotchy, orange tan. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be at all, Adele mutters. The bottle said a person would go to bed one night after using this and wake up the next morning as though he’d been on the beach.
Laura glances apprehensively around the garage. Is Leanne due to work? She asks Adele.
Adele nods miserably. And she’s SURE to have a go at Adele about this as well.
At that moment, Jimmy enters the garage, looking for posh magazines. Suddenly, he stops and stares fixedly at Adele’s face. What’s she done to it? He asks, curiously.
Adele and Laura try to exchange casual glances and Adele replies that they’ve done nothing to their faces.
Only they look as though they might GLOW in the dark, Jimmy remarks, mischievously.
Adele comes clean and admits that the girls were trying out fake tanning lotion.
Well, laughs Jimmy, they were certainly luminous. As he turns to leave, he quips, ‘See ya ... Not that I could miss ya.’
The two girls look at each other in desperation.
Across The Parade, at NNT, Katie and Sammy are still debating Louise’s future. Katie reminds Sammy that one of the good points about letting Louise return to Richard is that the child would be able to return to her old school, where she was happy. If she remained in Liverpool, Katie says, there would be no way Sammy could have afforded to pay her school fees.
But, Sammy continues to argue, Richard’s NOT the Ratchild’s real dad, and Sammy insists that she needs Katie’s help and support in this as her sister.
Poor, pitiful Katie’s in a dilemma. She’s being tugged by sister and niece so much, that she hasn’t had time to devote herself to mourning the Sainted Clint on the anniversary of his death. She tells Sammy that she can’t support both her and Louise. She feels like piggie in the middle (she should be used to that feeling, since she enjoyed the bedding of both the Musgrove brothers as well as both the Moffatts). It’s time for Sammy to sort this situation out.
Dr Parr, in humble contrition for such a noble man, and dressed now, to boot, enters the inner sanctum that is the marital bedroom, to find Gaby the Grin, still dressed as the sporting woman, and ensconced upon an untidy bed. He climbs onto the bed, apologises for his previous attitude and the couple embark on an emotional journey, known to us lesser mortals as a massive snog.
Gaby, coming up for air, wants to know when Mrs Tucker started making Gary mince pies. When she found out that he didn’t like apple crumble, Parr replies. Mrs Tucker was a good person, he says, as the couple discuss the patient. Parr says she was 82 years old, and suddenly begins to lower his head and look up his wife’s dress. (Phew! For one brief moment there, I thought Brookside were going to take us on an emotional discovery of exploring sexuality within marriage by graphically showing us some oral sex).
But maybe Ben Hull vetoed that idea. He raises his head and tells Gaby that he’s grateful she came home.
The two settle back on the bed to enjoy the video they’ve got. But when Dr Parr turns on the remote, the sound is deafening.
It can even be heard next-door at Bev’s flat, where Ron bangs insistently on the wall at the disturbance. Hearing the commotion, Bev pops her head around the door, only to be told by Ron that the clamour was coming from ‘that doctor’s place next door’. Probably him getting even because they’d put a flea in his ear about Josh.
In an effort to calm him down (but inducing the opposite effect), Bev steps fully into view, revealing that she’s wearing the skimpy, little black ra-ra skirt that Ron’s so lovingly ironed. Never mind the doc, Bev cooes, placidly. Ron’s not to let something like loud music spoil a nice evening. By the way, she says, she’s fixed his favourite - those vegetarian meatballs he used to like so much.
And, says Ron, holding up a wine bottle, he’d bought the wine to compliment the meal, and speaking of compliments, Ron effuses over Bev’s appearance, especially in the little skirt, which so enhances her natural beauty (this from the mouth of Ron Dikko, I kid you not!!!)
Bev preens and blushes like a bride. Well, the skirt’s appearance is down to Ron, she gushes. Ron had just ironed EVERYTHING so beautifully. But enough of that, Bev says. She’d best be taking the meal out of the oven, to give the meatballs a chance to cool down.
As he turns away from her to face the camera, Ron mutters, ‘Not much chance of that,’ and he resumes his enterprise of banging on the wall in hopes of quelling the doctor’s loud television.
In retaliation, Dr Parr bangs back on the wall.
Quick shot back to Bev’s flat, as Bev calls Ron to the dinner table from banging on the wall. We see Bev lean fully over to place the casserole dish on the table. Of course, we get a lingering shot of her cleavage, and the camera darts to Ron’s face, with his eyes becoming as big as saucers. (Don’t you just half expect Kenneth Williams to crawl out of the woodwork wittering, ‘Oo-er, Missus!’?)
Finally, the Parrs, educated people that they are, have masterd the volume control on the remote. Gary resumes sitting beside Gaby on the bed. But Gaby’s got a niggle to pick. Eyeing her husband suspiciously, Gaby accuses him of thinking that she attracts the wrong sort of person.
The doctor retorts that Rob Dexter wasn’t the wrong sort of person; he was just the husband of a critically ill patient who happened to get too unnervingly close to the doctor’s wife.
No, Gaby tries to persuade him. She DOES attract the wrong sort of person. (And now we’re about to get the history of Gaby Parr, rewritten to appease her husband and allay any suspicions he might have, concerning her fidelity. The truth is, folks, Gaby Parr is a slut. She makes the tail end of Susannah look like a nun, she’s such a slut. We get the impression that Dr Parr is a bit of a baby and not very good in bed, despite his pretty boy looks. Like Mark Greene on ER, he was probably a virgin when he married her, and the novelty soon wore off for her. She gets involved with other men to spice up a boring marital life, and when they become close enough for her husband to become sniffy, then she cries wolf and says she’s being molested).
All these problems started, she explains, when she was a student at the University of Leeds. It seems a young professor became obsessed with her - so much so, that he followed her all the way back to her parents’ home in Guildford (that takes some doing! Have you ever tried to drive in Guildford?). He started stalking her until she and her family alerted the police.
When the police raided his flat, they found his wall covered in pictures of female students, most of whom, happened to be Gabby. She SUPPOSES she merely sends out the wrong sort of signals to these men.
Well, were is this professor now? Asks the doc.
Gaby shrugs. Last she heard, he was teaching in Zambia. (Cue dangerous music ... THIS MEANS HE’LL SHOW UP ON THE PARADE NEXT WEEK. OMIGOD!!!)
Dr Parr, mulling on his wife’s remark about sending out the wrong signals, admits that at least she’s shown a bit of self-awareness there. He confesses that he always thought that she put herself about a bit on social occasions.
Gaby, hearing this, becomes highly offended. So he DOES blame her for all these problems she’s had with men being attracted to her! She rises haughtily from the bed and flounces off. (No flounce coaching needed there!)
A few minutes later, we see Gaby, now dressed in normal clothing again, putting the saloon girl costume back in it’s oblong box. Dr Parr enters the bedroom and watches her; as she reaches to put the box back atop the wardrobe, Dr Parr reminisces about the Country and Western ball he and Gaby attended, which entailed the rental of the costume. In the end, she remarks, they had to buy the costume off the rental company.
Without ever saying directly what happened to cause this, Gaby sarcastically alludes to this as being because the Ball was another occasion in which she ‘put herself about’.
Dr Parr responds by accusing her of re-opening another old wound, but she defends this remark as evidence of her quest for self-awareness.
Gaby the Grin retorts that a man lost his job and THEY lost their house because Gary Parr thinks SHE puts it about.
(We get the impression that this is old ground for this couple).
Meanwhile, back at Hotel Corkhill, the guest of honour, Happy Smiling Helen has arrived, happy and smiling and with head bobbing to and fro.
Jimmy motions her to go through to the lounge.
And Sammy and Katie still discuss Sammy’s dilemma with Louise. Ah, well! At least it avoids the viewers having to spend an hour hearing Katie moan and cry over the rotting corpse of Clint. Sammy STILL doesn’t know what’s best for Louise - why should she? She’s only Louise’s mother. It would be nice, she says, if Louise would tell her she loved her. Why, observes Sammy, welling with the sort of self-pity that would make any Rogers family member swell with pride, Richard was the last person to tell her he loved her, and he stopped.
Poor, pitiful Katie whines that the sainted and rotting Clint was the last person to say he loved her. (Well, Clint WAS more than a bit dopey, wasn’t he? I mean, didn’t you always get the feeling that he was about to erupt into a big, dumb Deputy Dawg chuckle - A-HUAH, A-HUAH - I even thought he just slightly fell short of calling Gobby ‘Muskie’!)
Jimmy and Helen sit on the Hotel Corkhill sofa, facing each other. Helen clutches a glass of wine, whilst Jimmy struggles for words. He’s been rehearsing this all day, he begins.
Happy Smiling Helen immediately looks concerned, but doesn’t stop bobbing her head. Ooh, it isn’t something terrible that Jimmy wants to tell her, is it? She wonders. He doesn’t have cancer or anything?
Well, no, it’s not cancer, it’s - oh, what the hell, he says, throwing caution to the wind. Why doesn’t he just tell her? His problems began a year ago, he begins, with the break-up of his marriage. (NO! NO! THIS IS WRONG AND AND EVIDENCE OF BAD CONTINUITY. WHEN DID JIMMY’S REAL MENTAL PROBLEMS BEGIN? SEPTEMBER 2OOO WITH HIS EPISODE ON THE SCHOOL ROOF, AND BEFORE THAT WITH HIS DEPRESSION AND HIS OBSESSION WITH THE MILLENNIUM ARCH. SORT IT OUT.)
Before that, Jimmy attests, he’d always been healthy. But right about the time of his marital break-up, he says, he went a bit out of control. He cracked up, he elaborates. He’s a manic depressive. There. He’d said it at last.
Ron and Bev have enjoyed their meal and Ron relaxes on Bev’s settee, sitting back, glutted and satiated with food and wine. Bev suggests a brandy and Ron suggests that they have their brandy on the settee.
As Bev perches next to Ron, suddenly noises are heard emanating from the doctor’s flat next door. Ron is frustrated by the continuous racket. Bev dismisses the noise, reckoning the doc is only trying to wind them up over Josh. Ron puts his ear against the wall to discern the noise, commenting that he reckons that the doctor puts his stethoscope against his side of the wall to eavesdrop on Bev.
The noise comes from the television, which Gaby sits in bed watching, the volume turned bang-up.
Sammy, down the hall, has finally decided to have a talk with Louise. Since she’s last spoken to Katie, she’s managed to speak to Richard, she tells Louise. And the two of them have decided that it’s probably best that Louise go back to her school. Louise is elated. The spoiled, little rat-faced madam has got exactly what she set out to achieve. She sincerely promises that she’ll make an effort to see Sammy as much as possible. Just because she was away from her mother, didn’t mean she didn’t love her.
Bev and Ron are relaxing cosily on the couch, as Ron, in an exaggerated manner, cuddles his head against Bev’s shoulder, his eyes strategically pointing down at her cleavage. Bev muses about how love can survive people being oceans apart. No matter how far apart a couple in love are, they’re still near.
Ron replies that he’d rather be close to Bev than anyone else in the world. He takes her in his arms and kisses her, and for a moment, Bev responds. Then she pulls gently away, complaining that Ron might ruin all the good work he put into beautifully ironing her clothes.
AND her underwear, Ron reminds her.
Bev tells Ron that she’d best give him some time to cool down, while she goes and changes into something more comfortable.
What a good idea, Ron leers, lasciviously.
Happy Smiling Helen listens to Jimmy explain his illness without ever stopping smiling or bobbing her head. At the end of his explanation, she reveals that she hasn’t really been listening at all. Everyone’s depressed from time to time, she asserts. Does Jimmy eat a lot of chocolate when he’s depressed?
It’s not chocolate that alleviates Jim’s depression, he begins, uneasily. He needs real medication.
Happy Smiling Helen isn’t happy or smiling now. Anti-depressants? She says, warily. Does Jimmy mean the type where you pop a pill and are O K again?
It’s more than that, Jimmy continues. He has to talk regularly to people who look after him. Doctors and psychiatric nurses.
So ... It’s ongoing? Asks Helen, reticently.
Jimmy nods. But it’s really just a chemical imbalance - hence, the need for the medication. Once you rectify the imbalance, a body’s all right.
Helen asks delicately how Jimmy found himself under the care of a doctor.
Jimmy replies that he did a crazy thing - but he was ill at the time, he adds, hastily.
‘But you’re not ill now?’ Asks Helen, uncertainly.
As long as he keeps to the medication, Jimmy promises, he’s fine. Normal.
Helen asks what ‘crazy things’ Jimmy did.
Well, he begins, he constructed this arch outside his house. He understood why he did it now. It was a monument to himself AND to the city. But that’s the thing about mental illness, he begins to rant. People ignore the victims and treat them like demons.
Helen wants to know about this monument.
He did it, Jim explains, because his self-esteem was low at the time. It was really a graphic cry for help - or so his shrink said, anyway.
But that was long ago, says Helen, hoping Jimmy will confirm that.
Not really, Jimmy replies lackadaisically confident in Helen’s trust. He’s had a relapse more recently - when his daughter moved to Newcastle. He neglected himself, stopped taking the meds and flipped. He ended up being locked in the extension of his own home. Then he decided to go to Newcastle - only he decided to get there on foot and by walking through the Mersey Tunnel. Got picked up by the bizzies. Did Helen want a refill on the wine?
Helen gratefully agrees, and Jimmy ferries her glass into the kitchen and out of eyeshot of Helen, but he continues to regale her with information about his disease, thinking she’s warming to him.
Of course all that behaviour, he shouts, was due to the fact that he wasn’t taking his medication ... Yadda yadda. He returns to the lounge with the fresh wine, to find Helen gone for dust and the front door open.
The doctor is trying to relax with his guitar, but he’s distracted by the television noises emanating from the bedroom. He enters to find his wife studiously ignoring him and pretending to watch the over-loud telly.
This is displacement, Gaby informs him, coldly, a way of taking her mind off their argument.
Dr Parr turns the set off.
Gaby springs to her knees on the bed. And what does the good doctor want now? She sneers, sarcastically. Perhaps he’s entered the marital bedroom to claim his conjugal rights? Well, which way does he want her? After all, she does put herself about. And without a moment’s notice, we’re treated to a re-enactment of the famous delicatessan scene from When Harry Met Sally. She vocally simulates an exaggerated version of an orgasm.
Next door, Ron Dixon avidly listens to the sounds, his ear pressed against the wall. Aware of something rising in his nether regions, the horny old man, hunches his back and crabs away.
Over at the garage, Laura has returned with a sure-fire remedy for the tanning fiasco. Gravy browner. Adele sniffs it. It stinks. But it’s water-proof, says Laura. Adele quips that it won’t bathe off, it will rot off.
With Matt Monroe warbling in the background, Bev returns to the lounge of her flat, casually dressed to find ... a buck-naked Ron Dikko standing in front of her, showing his bum to the viewers. (NOT a pretty sight). Viewed from the front, we can also almost see Ron’s pubes. Yuck. Bev laughs aloud and makes a lewd remark about his ghoolies.
Ron withers and shrivels, to say the least.
Maurice Bessman and Andy Lynch wrote this. I’m assuming Bessman wrote
the first half-hour. It was better. The bit about Adele was SO not funny.
Summary © 2002 Marion Watts
Brookside and all related materials are © Mersey Television 1982-2002