‘Writing jokes for Albert Bridges,’ said Bill, and he got a laugh, but then he felt bad, so he said, ‘Only joking,’ and he got another one.
‘I’ve never been happy in the way that I’ve been happy in this room, and in the studios,’ said Sophie. ‘I’ve never laughed so much, or learned so much, and everything I know about my job is because of the people here. Even you, Clive. And I’m worried that I’ll spend the rest of my working life looking for an experience like this one, where everything clicks and everyone pushes you to do the best you can, better than anything you think you’re capable of.’
There was a thoughtful, respectful silence.
‘Is that it, then?’ said Clive. ‘Mind if I slope off?’
And this time they let him go.
The last script required both Barbara and Jim to cry; Clive was horrified by the stage direction when he first read it, but he seemed to have an easy access to tears. Nobody teased him about it afterwards. The last words of the last script were ‘Take care, love,’ delivered by Barbara in a broad Lancashire accent that hadn’t been heard since the beginning of the first series. She was holding Jim as she delivered the line, and she had to hold him for a long time, because they wanted to run the closing credits over the embrace. Sophie found herself weeping properly then, and she had to bury her face in Clive’s jacket. She tried to convince herself that she was upset about breaking up with Clive, but it wasn’t that. It was always about the work. She’d never been in love with Clive, but she’d been in love with the show since the very first day.
When the audience had left, Sophie went back to the studio and sat down on the sofa in Barbara’s lounge, while the crew were striking the set. She felt self-conscious, as if she were playing the part of an actress whose popular TV show is ending and wants to do something sentimental to demonstrate that the show has meant something to her. She had to do something different, though. She couldn’t simply have changed, removed her make-up and gone to the Chinese restaurant.
Dennis came to find her.
‘Are you ready for something to eat?’
‘Yes. In a sec. Sit down for a moment.’
There wasn’t much left of the set apart from the sofa, and she could see that Dennis was being made uneasy by the trouble they were causing, but she felt the crew could give her this much. She’d never caused any trouble before.
‘I can’t help feeling we let Barbara down,’ said Dennis.
‘How?’
‘She wasn’t asking for much, was she? And we took it away from her. The divorce is a failure for the whole country.’
‘Steady on, Dennis,’ said Sophie, and laughed, but he didn’t seem to be joking.
TELEVISION REVIEW:
BARBARA (AND JIM)
You may have stopped watching Barbara (and Jim) a year or two back, despite the likeability of its two central performances and the sharpness of its scripts; freshness is, regrettably, not a quality that can be retained, by definition. What was once both pertinent and laudably impertinent became familiar and sometimes even a little polite compared to the very best of contemporary television comedy – there are only so many overflowing baths one can watch before one ends up feeling that the show has gone a little soggy. Till Death Us Do Part in particular, so far ahead of the field when it comes to daring, rawness and confrontation, has made all its competitors seem a little staid.
And yet last night, its swansong, Barbara (and Jim) reminded us of why we fell in love with it in the first place – ironically, given the subject matter of the final programme. Barbara and Jim are no more; sadly, they decided to go their separate ways. They did so in a mature, touching and responsible way, by simply agreeing that they no longer loved each other and that they should part, rather than stay together for the good of their child. There was, as you can imagine, very little room for humour, and though the studio audience laughed gamely at the couple of bones they were thrown, this was not a comedy programme. It was, however, a thoughtful and surprisingly touching portrait of a modern relationship gone wrong. The Church and certain fuddy-duddy politicians may huff and puff about how this sad turn of events will do nothing for the catastrophic divorce rate: an amicable parting, after all, simply makes separation appear attractive. But the writers are to be commended for addressing the problem head-on, and suggesting solutions that many couples will, regrettably, need to consider at some point in the future.