Age-gap discourse x 1980-90s Britcoms

The crossover moment you've been waiting for

Regular readers will know that I am on a Britbox break, in order not to spend spend spend and in order to send a very subtle message to Britbox Canada that unless they reinstitute Fawlty Towers and Absolutely Fabulous and Benidorm and missing Christmas-special eps of various shows then this is simply not on, as the Brits say. I am taking this areligious Lent as a time to rewatch or watch non-Britbox materials. This meant a stint with A Fine Romance but I cannot, it is like a bad version of As Time Goes By and As Time Goes By is like a bad version of As Time Goes By and I have my limits. But I also need to fall asleep to the sound of something along these lines, and Benidorm is too lively, Escape to the Country too ad-filled, same with Frasier.

So I have now met (re-met? it seems just familiar enough that I probably did watch this as a kid) the various law firm staff and clients in a greater London practice. Somehow the only one I remember is Hillary, the ditsy secretary. Is this because I found her the relatable one when I was 8? Because of Hillary Clinton, maybe, or because the actress looks a tiny tiny bit like a girl named Hilary at my elementary school. The brain knows to retain only the useful information.

The gist of the show is like it says on the box: an older man and a younger woman. He is so old. She, so young. Is this a problem? For them? For everyone else?

Here is where I need to give a caveat about what it is I have and have not watched. I’ve ‘watched’ while listening only to much of it and falling asleep through some of it a substantial part of Season 1. I have only sat down and watched-watched the first episode. This is a first-impressions post, a placeholder for once I have watched more of it (ideally all, but we shall see what’s available).

The gist appears to be that this older man is not out to snag a younger woman but simply falls in love with a woman far younger than he is. She’s an old soul (of course), who likes the same musicals he does (see, some specificity). She’s also a school gym teacher, which must have had very different connotations in 1990ish Britain than it did in 1990ish NYC girls school or indeed in any other context I’m familiar with. It’s treated as code for, she’s got a rockin’ bod. Which I suppose she does!

And other people? They just don’t understand. They judge. They think it’s “dirty old man” and “bimbo” when it’s just two consenting adults. This is a sound place to land, and the banter is more clever than usual for snoozefest programming, so, so far, so good.

And the show had the decency to cast an array of conventionally attractive men, I guess to offset Mr. December, to emphasize just how shabbily late-middle-aged he is. There’s the law firm sleaze, the male gym teacher, and the lawyer’s law-student son. And not one of these men murdered an insurance CEO! Crush away, guilt-free.

The confusing yet weirdly delightful thing about a show from a million years ago is that the she who is so young is in these frumpy brown button-y and long-sleeved get-ups and just generally styled in a way that makes her seem not 26 as she’s meant to be but more in the 36 realm—younger than the early-50s romantic interest but not enough so that a show could be made about the age gap itself, at least not in those pre-enlightened times. You didn’t have Gen Z TikToking its objections to age gaps of more than 6 months in 1991, among 1991’s many advantages.

Where I’m less sure: Miss Flood. One of the office secretaries is a, what’s the expression? Middle Class Woman of a Certain Age. Not actually middle class, I don’t think? I don’t know what you Brits mean when you say this. Is it what a legal secretary is, or not? Damned if I know. There’s an amazing moment in the first episode where Miss May (as in, not December, she has an actual name but who cares for now) and her sister, a greengrocer, think they stand accused of being bored middle-class housewives, and the greengrocer sister is like, “middle-class?”

Or is she Childless Cat Lady? No cat has yet been mentioned, but it is on some level assumed.

Anyway, Miss Flood is that which men don’t want. Invisible and old, lacking in sex appeal, smitten with Mr. December, her longtime boss, who would never give her a second glance because she’s an old. (She’s probably a bit younger than he is.) That, and he’s a widower, and most of his time working with her, he was married. She wears her hair in something bowl-cut-adjacent, but not in the hipster sense. Her entire role is being un-hot, which I find depressing, although I’ve spoiler’d myself into learning she is eventually permitted a man.

And Frances White, the actress who plays Miss Flood, appears to be the most successful these days of the cast, judging by what I just read on Wikipedia: “She plays Granny Pig in the children's animated series Peppa Pig (2004–present).” This so far outshines any previous research finding that I am on the cusp of voluntarily post-kids’-bedtime subjecting myself to Peppa.