We will miss Barbara and Jim. We will especially miss Barbara, played by the delightful and – despite the ruinous effects of motherhood – still shapely Sophie Straw. Let us hope a television producer somewhere knows what to do with her. In the meantime, we should raise a glass to the series. Like most of us when we are having fun, it slightly outstayed its welcome. But the BBC, and the country, would have been poorer without it. For a little while, it had something to say about the way we live now. And last night, as its candle was being snuffed out, it found its voice again.
The Times, 17 November 1967
EVERYONE LOVES SOPHIE
21
And still it was not the end of the divorces and the separations.
The week after the last-ever Barbara (and Jim) had been aired, Dennis asked Tony and Bill to call in and see him at the BBC. They sat down in his office and made small talk about the good old days, and they had just been served coffee when Sophie came in, flustered and apologetic.
‘I’m sorry I’m late. It’s not because I’m not keen,’ she said. ‘I am keen. Really keen.’
‘I haven’t said anything yet,’ said Dennis.
‘Oh,’ said Sophie. ‘Well. I’ll just sit down and shut up.’
Dennis smiled at her indulgently.
‘Just Barbara,’ said Dennis, and looked at them expectantly.
They didn’t know what he was talking about, so they stared back.
‘I don’t think they understand,’ said Sophie.
‘I’m not sure it’s a failure of comprehension,’ said Bill. ‘I think it’s more a failure of communication. Dennis has provided us with the name of a character in an old comedy series and put the word “just” in front of it. I don’t think Bertrand Russell would have understood.’
‘Sorry,’ said Dennis. ‘Sophie and I would like you to write a new series entitled Just Barbara, which follows our girl as she deals with life as a divorcee.’
‘Oh,’ said Tony. ‘That’s interesting.’
‘Do you really think so?’ said Bill.
‘Yes,’ said Tony.
He thought any offer of work was interesting. They were struggling with Reds Under the Bed, and the Anthony Newley thing was going nowhere fast: they had recently been told that he wanted to turn it into an X-rated musical. And Bill turned down new offers every week, apparently without even a moment’s consideration for Tony’s situation.
‘What are the problems, Bill, as you see them?’ said Dennis. ‘Let’s kick them around. I’m sure we can sort it out.’
‘Well,’ said Bill. ‘The first one is, it’s a terrible idea.’
‘Oh,’ said Dennis. ‘We were rather pleased with it. What’s wrong with it?’
‘Doesn’t go anywhere.’
‘It can go anywhere you want it to go.’
‘It’s got no legs. Or wheels. You won’t get it out of the garage.’
‘Why not?’
‘There’s the bloody baby, for a start. Every bloody episode you’ve got to explain where it is.’
‘Perhaps he could be with Jim. He said he was going to help out.’
‘He meant take it for a walk sometimes, not invite it to stay for the weekend. And is she going to work? Or is she knocking round the house all day? And how many boyfriends can a divorced mother of one have in a television comedy before someone calls the police on her? No. It’s not for me.’
‘Just no?’
‘Just no,’ said Bill, and that appeared to be that.
‘Thanks, mate,’ said Tony when they got outside. He was angry.
‘Do you really want to write a series called Just Barbara?’ said Bill.
‘I just want to write,’ said Tony. ‘I’m a writer. It’s my living.’
‘ “Just Barbara”,’ said Bill, in a whiny, simpering voice.
‘Well, anything sounds stupid if you say it like that. “Hancock’s Half Hour”. “Look Back in Anger”. “The Gospel According to St Matthew”. It’s just a character. One woman.’
‘One woman who can’t do this and can’t do that because we’ve visited every corner of her personality fifteen times over the last few years. Is that what you want to spend your life doing?’ said Bill. ‘Really? You don’t want to do something fresh and different and interesting?’
‘Yes, but …’
‘There aren’t any buts,’ said Bill. ‘That’s the whole point of being a writer, isn’t it? If I wanted buts, I’d go and work in a fucking but factory.’
‘Bully for you. In my life there are fucking buts everywhere.’
‘You’re living the wrong life, then.’
‘Oh, I’ll just change it, shall I?’
It was the wrong response. He didn’t want to change his life. His buts were June and baby Roger, and he was happy with both of them.
‘This is all because of that bleeding book, isn’t it?’ said Tony.
It still hadn’t been published, but it had already changed Bill’s life. Braun and Braun had asked him for another one, and the literary editors were asking for reviews and columns and anything they could think of to get him into their pages.
‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘Of course it is. It turns out I can do something else. I don’t have to write for grannies in bloody Melton Mowbray.’
‘You’ve become one of that lot,’ said Tony.
‘Which “lot”?’
‘One of the Vernon Whitfields of this world. You think you have to write a book to be clever.’
‘Oh,’ said Bill. ‘Now he finds the fire in his belly. Where was all your revolutionary fervour when you came up with “The New Bathroom”?’
They had reached the tube station.