Agony (TV series)

Agony
Genre Sitcom
Created by Len Richmond
Anna Raeburn
Starring Maureen Lipman
Simon Williams
Maria Charles
Peter Blake
Country of origin United Kingdom
Language(s) English
No. of episodes 20
Production
Running time 30 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel ITV
Original run 11 March 1979 (1979-03-11) – 1 March 1981 (1981-03-01)

Agony is a British sitcom that aired on ITV from 1979 to 1981. Starring Maureen Lipman, it was written by Len Richmond, Anna Raeburn, Stan Hey and Andrew Nickolds. It was made for the ITV network by LWT. In 2004, it came 92nd in Britain's Best Sitcom.

Agony was the first British sitcom to portray a gay couple as non-camp, witty, intelligent and happy people.

Contents

Cast

Plot

Jane Lucas is an agony aunt, who is highly successful in her career working at radio call-in show (for Happening Radio 242) in London and for magazine Person, but whose personal life is a shambles. Her Jewish mother, Bea, interferes in all aspects of her life and her psychiatrist Christian husband Laurence is unreliable, all the people she works with are tireless self-promoters including the libidinous journalist Vincent Fish. Other characters included the editor of Person magazine Diana, secretary Val Dunn, radio colleague Andy and her gay neighbours Rob and Michael.

Episodes

Series One (1979)

  1. "Help" (11 March 1979)
  2. "An Unmarried Couple" (18 March 1979)
  3. "Conjugal Wrongs" (25 March 1979)
  4. "Wedlock, Deadlock" (8 April 1979)
  5. "Forever and Never" (15 April 1979)
  6. "Too Much Agony, Too Little Ecstasy" (29 April 1979)

Series Two (1980)

  1. "Back to Reality" (13 April 1980)
  2. "Working Girls" (20 April 1980)
  3. "Coming Out... and Going In Again?" (27 April 1980)
  4. "Television Can Damage Your Health" (4 May 1980)
  5. "Problem Parents" (11 May 1980)
  6. "Second Time Around" (18 May 1980)
  7. "A Woman Alone" (25 May 1980)

Series Three (1981)

  1. "From Here to Maternity" (18 January 1981)
  2. "Arrivals and Departures" (25 January 1981)
  3. "Hospital Romances" (1 February 1981)
  4. "Communications Breakdown" (8 February 1981)
  5. "Holy Wars" (15 February 1981)
  6. "Lucas v Lucas" (22 February 1981)
  7. "Rings Off Their Fingers" (1 March 1981)

Agony Again

Main article: Agony Again

Agony was revived in 1995, this time on the BBC as Agony Again. In addition, Agony was remade for American television under the name The Lucie Arnaz Show, with Len Richmond as the writer. This ran for six episodes on CBS in 1985 and starred Lucie Arnaz.

DVD releases

All three series of Agony including A 3-Disc set of the complete series have been released on DVD in the UK (Region 2) by Network.

DVD Release date
The Complete Series 1 5 November 2007
The Complete Series 2 25 April 2008
The Complete Series 3 17 August 2009
The Complete Series 1 to 3 Box set 5 October 2009

References

External links