Episode Summaries
Scroll down
to read what happens in: Clowning Around (1.9); Star Attraction
(2.1); Time And Efficiency (2.3); Fire Alarm (2.5); Loot
(2.11); Takeover (2.13); Extortion (3.4); The Curse Of Karen
(3.5); Driving Miss Wesley (3.6); Poetry And Music (3.7).
Clowning Around, the 9th episode of
Series 1
It is Friday. TJ has
just put up a notice offering children’s parties at Spatz. As the group discuss
their dates, it transpires that
JO: Have you ever had a girlfriend, Stanley?
DEXTER: Does the Pope have a skateboard?
Karen arrives and,
seeing the party notice, heads up to grill TJ for using his initiative. She is
livid when she hears that Head Office loved TJ’s idea, and approved it.
KAREN: This time you have gone too far ... I don’t want hordes of
rampaging savages stampeding through my restaurant, thank you very much.
TJ: It’s a kiddies’ party, not a Viking stag night.
The group discover
that
A girl called Henny
(played by Jade Magri) drags her
mother Pippa (played by Clare Byam Shaw)
into Spatz and orders a party for the coming Wednesday (
HENNY: I want ice cream, and I want balloons and a big chocolate
birthday cake, and not one of those horrible frozen ones that mother always
buys.
PIPPA: [Nervous laugh] Do you have any children of your own?
TJ: [Wide-eyed, nervous laugh] No.
HENNY: You’re LUCKY!
After work, Vince
persuades
VINCE:
TJ and Karen audition
magicians for the party. Next up is Marvin the Magnificent (played by Chris Langham), who is awfully nervous and
faltering.
TJ: So you’re...
MARVIN: Marvin the Magnificent! A smile, a song and a trick up my
sleeve. [He shakes TJ’s hand and something falls onto the floor.] Well, it was
up my sleeve but now it’s rolled under your desk.
At one point, Marvin
puts a carrot into TJ’s mouth.
MARVIN: I ... will now whittle this ordinary carrot into a scale model
of the
TJ: [Removing carrot] I’m over here!
KAREN: PUT THAT BACK IN YOUR MOUTH!
Marvin’s act is a disaster.
Karen promptly hires him, in a jealous attempt to screw up TJ’s idea.
In the changing room,
the group discuss
Guests are arriving
for the party. The birthday girl is annoyed that the magician is late, and
collaring ‘Strickland’, threatens to denigrate Spatz if she is let down.
In the changing room,
the group put on clown costumes and make-up for the party.
Karen takes a phone
call from Marvin, who has had an accident with a sword and is stuck in
hospital. As Karen delightedly heads off to tell the children, TJ notices Marvin’s
equipment in the office.
As Karen is about to
break the news, TJ comes down the stairs, in costume as ‘The Amazing Spatzini’.
The magic show begins,
and TJ falters.
HENNY: Strickland! For £50 I want better tricks that this!
The tricks begin to work,
and the guests are impressed. The final trick is the
KAREN: Strickland, nothing is going to make me get in that box.
TJ: If you don’t, I’ll phone Head Office and tell them you sabotaged
the party.
KAREN: Alright, I’m in the box.
Karen gets in the box.
TJ: Who will be the first to plunge this razor-sharp sword through
the box? [All the staff shout out ‘ME!’ and plead with TJ.] I think it had
better be me.
The trick is a
success; TJ almost leaves Karen in the box! Henny praises TJ for the party.
After the guests have
gone, Vince unveils
ELEKTRA: [To
The end.
Star Attraction, the 1st episode of
Series 2
Builders and
scaffolding cover the outside of the betting shop opposite Spatz. The mall is full
of people who have been to Blimpy’s to get novelty cardboard ‘Eat At Blimpy’s’
hats; Spatz is empty.
Finally, a Girl
(played by Victoria Shalet) and her
Mother (played by Jo Unwin) come into
Spatz, and the staff rush to serve them. But it turns out that they have only
come, by mistake, for the Girl to get a Blimpy’s hat. They leave.
GIRL: Trust you to bring me to the wrong restaurant. Ucch, parents:
who’d have them?
Karen arrives for
work, and is disgusted as the builders cheer and whistle at her.
BUILDER’S VOICE: Come on, give us a smile!
KAREN: You wanna see me smile? Jump.
The Mother and Girl
pass Karen with a Blimpy’s hat, which Karen angrily confiscates. She heads for
the office, where TJ is admiring his cherished new boots.
KAREN’S VOICE: Strickland!
TJ: Woah, they’re playing my song! [Takes foot off desk and goes
back to work as Karen enters]
Karen complains about
Blimpy’s hat promotion.
KAREN: It’s cheap, nasty, vulgar, it’s a tasteless gimmick, pandering
to the gullible masses. God, I wish I’d thought of it!
She is determined to
trump it with a crowd-pleaser of her own. She also finds a moment to insult
TJ’s boots.
A feisty Scottish girl
in a Celtic Football Club scarf comes to Spatz, lobbing a brick at the
lecherous builders on the way. But she isn’t a customer - she’s the new
employee, Freddy.
FREDDY: Fiona Reddy, F. Reddy, a.k.a. Freddy.
Dexter guides Freddy to
the staff room to show her her locker, but she’s more interested in hearing
about
KAREN: Strickland, you’re a jerk! Get out of my office!
TJ: This is my office!
KAREN: Well get out of your office.
TJ: [meekly] Yes, Ma’am. [Runs off]
With no one to serve,
the staff read magazines at the counter: Debbie reads Time Out; Vince
reads Viz;
TJ sits outside his
office, trying to think up ideas to fill Spatz with customers, while
Dexter is panicking,
trying to get a phonecall through to Gary Lineker, without success. He
discovers from Debbie’s magazine that
The next morning: the
mall and restaurant are peppered with posters advertising Gary Lineker’s visit.
Dexter arrives at Spatz dishevelled, with plasters and bruises. He was crushed
by the fans at Wembley, but got close to
DAVE: Before you bite my head off... [Removes hard hat] ...I’d hate
you to break your teeth.
Freddy upbraids Dave,
telling him to go away. He reveals that he isn’t like the other chauvinist
builders because: he’s not trying to chat Freddy and Debbie up, he’s just
trying to order food; he deplores the builders’ harassment of women; he can’t
whistle. He takes his custom to Blimpy’s, leaving the girls looking sheepish.
Dexter returns
triumphantly, having torn down all the Gary Lineker posters in the mall, so
that no one comes to his non-appearance on Friday. But his plan is foiled when
Friday: Spatz is
packed with people, and neither Dexter’s cool nor Gary Lineker is anywhere to
be seen. Dexter tells Karen, who is eagerly selling T-shirts to the masses,
that
Then, TJ walks in the
front door, with Gary Lineker! He is
soon signing autographs.
That evening: Karen
has made £3000, but is irked when TJ takes it to cover
DEBBIE: My boyfriend Derek asked if you could autograph this photo for
him please.
Freddy asks
Karen thanks TJ for
saving the day, and asks how he did it. TJ reveals that he met
The end.
Time And Efficiency, the 3rd
episode of Series 2
Morning. Through the
front window of Spatz, Vince, Stanley, Debbie and Dexter are watching Freddy
and Dave Evans the builder (played by Rhys Ifans, last seen 2 episodes earlier in Star
Attraction) kissing in a phone box. She reveals to the others that he’d
asked her out the previous night, after dropping his adjustable spanner off
scaffolding and onto her head - fate, Freddy says. Karen arrives and orders the
staff back to work.
In the office, TJ is
on the desk, putting the peak on a paper cup pyramid; but when Karen screams
his name, he fumbles and knocks the pyramid down. As usual, she is irritated by
him.
KAREN: Haven’t you ever heard of anti-dazzle toothpaste?
She tells TJ that Mr.
Pashby, a time and efficiency expert, is coming to Spatz. He will get it
running at maximum efficiency, which could mean unemployment for TJ. When Karen
asks him what he made of the print-out she sent him, he shows her an origami
swan. She stuffs it in his mouth, and comments how much darker the room is. Watch this scene (1:55) on
YouTube.
Downstairs: Mr. Pashby
(played by Alex Bartlette) arrives,
encountering a queue. He also finds Freddy and Stanley playing noughts and
crosses on the grill with burgers and chips. Debbie makes customers wait while
she takes a phonecall from Derek.
Mr. Pashby is due at
9:15, and that’s when he enters the office, to the second. He easily stacks the
armful of cups that TJ had picked up.
Downstairs: Freddy is
reading Dave’s palm. What she thinks is his lifeline is in fact a scar he got
opening a tin. Dave’s boss calls him back to work, and as he goes he tells
Freddy that he’ll be at the London Medical College from the following week
onwards. After Dave has left, Freddy begins to worry that having a brainbox for
a boyfriend will lead to a gulf between them, and to her getting dumped.
Crying, she runs through to the store area with Debbie in pursuit. Both of them
push past Mr. Pashby, who’s there getting a tour from TJ. Then Vince and Dexter
enter the area, squabbling.
Mr. Pashby storms into
the restaurant area, where he notes un-cleared tables. Freddy charges back into
the restaurant area, climbing over the counter and a table as she flees in
distress. Dexter and Vince arrive, chucking burger buns at each other, much to
Stanley’s delight. Pashby is appalled at TJ’s lack of authority.
TJ: HOLD IIIT! Hold it! I can be tough. Alright. Could you, kinda
just, y’know, help out and go back to work please, ‘cause it’d ... be really
nice.
MR. PASHBY: Incredible!
TJ: Was I too hard on ‘em?
There is a 2:28 clip of this
part of the episode on YouTube.
Pashby reports to
Karen in the office. He has identified ‘Dinosaur
Syndrome: a lumbering great carcass controlled by a walnut-sized brain.’
Vince creeps upstairs and listens at the office door with a milkshake cup.
Karen tells Pashby to suggest whatever changes he likes, and he informs her
that his report will arrive the next morning at 8:15am. Opening the door to
leave, Pashby finds Vince. He confesses to eavesdropping, but Karen won’t
believe him, so he tells her he was using the cup to push his ears back, as
he’d been told that they stick out. She believes this.
The next morning,
Vince and Dexter sneak into Spatz via the back gate and the fire door. At 8:15,
an envelope is put through the front door of the restaurant. Vince and Dexter
open it, and discover what Pashby’s report recommends: shorter breaks, longer
hours, training sessions, wage cuts and staff reductions. What will they do? Vince
scrunches up the report, shoves it in Dexter’s mouth (he ends up swallowing
it), and goes up to the office. Once there, he begins dictating a new version
of the report for Dexter to type.
Later: Freddy is
reading a huge book on the counter. Dave comes in and Freddy talks to him in
complex medical terminology. She tells him that she is studying to be a
neurosurgeon, and that Spatz is her holiday job. Dave is shocked. Freddy has
bought tickets for their next date: a lecture on hip-bone replacement at the
Albert Hall that night.
Karen enters the
office and gets the Paris file from the filing cabinet. She’s flying there in
40 minutes’ time, and will be back at 5 o’clock. She has no time to read what
she thinks is Mr. Pashby’s report, but says she trusts him implicitly, and
tells TJ to follow his instructions to the letter.
After Karen has left,
TJ goes downstairs and shares the report with the staff. Its recommendations
include the installation of pinball machines. TJ gives them the report, and
Debbie suspects Vince of being involved.
Later that day: Karen
returns to find the report’s instructions have been carried out. Someone in a
rabbit costume (Stanley?) is handing out balloons outside the restaurant. In
the eating area is a Medusa pinball machine and Debbie standing by a Wheel of
Fortune. Karen heads for the office, but it’s become a snooker hall. Outside the office, people are playing table
football. Karen ventures into the store area, which is now ‘DEXTERS DISCO’: DJ
Dex, behind decks, dedicates a song to Karen. By now rather distressed, she
stumbles into the back yard, where TJ is sat at his desk. Reading the report in
disbelief, Karen tells TJ to phone Mr. Pashby. The rabbit goes by, leading
children to ‘the magic mountain’, and Karen
cries.
The next day: Freddy
meets Dave over by the scaffolding, which is at the betting shop opposite
Spatz. She is upset that he stood her up at the Albert Hall. He suggests that
they break up, as dating a trainee neurosurgeon makes him feel stupid.
DAVE: Yes, I am going to medical college. To put scaffolding up on
the roof.
Freddy is delighted,
hugging and kissing Dave. Then she is called back to the restaurant.
Spatz is temporarily
closed for a staff meeting. All the staff are standing in a line, with TJ,
Karen and Mr. Pashby there too. Karen says that she will personally suspend the
writer of the fake report... over the deep fat fryer. Lard, quips TJ, is far
more cost-effective. Pashby delivers his real report. Foremost among his
complaints is overstaffing. He announces that ‘somebody
has to go.’ Karen uses eeny-meeny-miny-moe to pick Stanley to be sacked.
Pashby explains that he meant her: a colleague from his firm’s Champs Élysées
branch followed her around Paris, discovering that her so-called business trip consisted
in reality of her buying clothes, taking a horse-drawn carriage ride, lunching
on snails and champagne, and feeding pigeons on the Eiffel Tower. For setting
such an awful example to her staff, Pashby says that Karen must go. Her
response is to fire Pashby. Watch
a 3:04 clip of this scene on YouTube. Then she tears up his report, for
which she receives a round of applause from the others.
The end.
Fire Alarm, the 5th episode of
Series 2
The staff look on as
TJ and his girlfriend Julie (played by Catherine
Russell) cuddle in the restaurant area. When they complain to him
about having to do extra work between them to cover Vince’s week-long absence,
TJ reveals that he has found a stand-in: Julie. Men in orange overalls are at
work in the restaurant, fitting a fire alarm system.
In TJ’s office, the
head fitter from Flames Fire Alarms (Johnnie, played by Kenny Ireland) is organising a test of the
system. The alarm bell makes it difficult for TJ to conduct ‘important
business’ on the phone: he’s booking two tickets for that night’s performance
of Aspects Of Love.
JOHNNIE: I love a good musical myself.
TJ: Yeah, so do I. Unfortunately we couldn’t get into one, so we
have to go to Aspects Of Love instead.
JOHNNIE: Oh, you can’t beat Andrew Lloyd Webber.
TJ: A lot of people would like to try.
Karen arrives and the
fitter leaves. She asks TJ about his date and Julie, whom Karen remembers as ‘the one who always cries at the end of The Flintstones
when Dino gets locked out’ and ‘so wet I’ve
seen salmon leaping up her dress.’
Later, Karen catches
Julie arguing with a customer, for expecting but not requesting fries with his
Maxi. Telling ‘Dextrose’ to take over, Karen
takes Julie aside.
KAREN: Smooching with the manager won’t buy you any favours around
here, so don’t push your luck, sweetheart, OK?
Karen then orders
Julie to mop the toilet floor, and finds it greatly satisfying.
After work, everyone
except Karen has convened in the staff room for a fire drill. TJ advises Julie
to ‘rise above’ Karen’s ‘machine gun’ tongue. He then explains a bit about
fire evacuation procedures, but it turns into a discussion about who played the
architect in The Towering Inferno. (It was Paul Newman.) TJ hands out
fire regulation leaflets.
The next day. Karen
finds a scruffy old woman (Mildred, played by Denise
Coffey) drooling hungrily at the front window of Spatz, and deals
with her in customary sarcastic fashion. Karen then insults Julie (who ‘rises
above it’) and sends her out to clear up the litter which Mildred is throwing
out from the bin outside Spatz.
KAREN: I take it you do know how to pick up litter, don’t you?
JULIE: I’ll pick it up as I go along.
Then the fire alarm
goes off. Dexter is especially panicky, and an elderly lady has to carry him
outside! Stanley rescues the fish tank. Karen is reluctant to leave the
restaurant.
KAREN: I can’t believe this is happening!
TJ: Stop gawping and get out in the mall.
KAREN: Don’t you dare talk to me like that!
TJ: Do you want to be burned alive?
KAREN: I’m in the mall. [Goes outside.]
Everyone makes it
outside, but Karen notices one thing missing: the fire.
Johnnie is back in the
office. He notes that false alarms sometimes happen with new systems, and asks TJ
what he thought of Aspects Of Love. TJ says that he preferred the fire alarm.
And then comes one of the most astounding lines in the entire series:
JOHNNIE: You didn’t like it? I loved it. Alright, I agree it’s
sub-Sondheim, and it doesn’t have the epic sweep of Les Mis, but it does
contain a certain emotional intensity that grows to a Puccini-esque-style
catharsis. Don’t you think?
Karen’s not
interested, and evicts him from the office.
KAREN: You’re losing your grip, Strickland. This place is going to the
dogs.
JULIE: [Knocking on the office door and opening it] Excuse me.
KAREN: See what I mean?
Julie has come for the
store cupboard key. TJ tells her that he’s booked them a table at the Bella
Romantica that night. Karen gears up to insult Julie, but the fire alarm goes
off again. Stanley saves the fishes once again. Dexter uses a traffic cone as a
megaphone, to assist in the evacuation. Julie stops Karen from ushering
customers back inside, telling her that the restaurant must be checked first.
Karen is furious with Julie.
KAREN: If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you!
Johnnie is in the
office yet again, fixing the ‘gremlin in the works’.
Karen’s patience is low.
JOHNNIE: It’s like I always say, you’ve got expect a few teething
troubles with a new baby.
KAREN: And who better to shut the baby up than a great big fat dummy?
... Get out!
TJ: Don’t worry about it, she had her Sherman tank clamped this
morning.
Karen asks for the VAT
returns to be done that night, but TJ refuses due to his date. Attempting to
guilt-trip him, Karen says she’ll stay late to do the returns, and complains
that TJ’s priorities have changed since Julie’s arrival. TJ praises Julie as
considerate, as Karen looks out the window and spots Mildred outside...
...After finding the
Spatz Manual in TJ’s desk, Karen sneaks downstairs (where she sees Julie at the
counter) and through the back door, and beckons Mildred over. Karen tells her
that Spatz is giving away free food, and suggests that she go up to the girl at
the counter with the soppy face, and tell the girl that she’s homeless and
penniless, not forgetting to look pathetic. Karen sneaks back inside and spies
on Mildred and Julie’s exchange. As predicted, Mildred is given a free meal.
MILDRED: When you die you’ll go to heaven.
KAREN: [Coming over] Which could be sooner than you think! ... Spatz
Manual, page 31, paragraph 3: [reads] ‘Gross misconduct resulting in instant
dismissal.’ Subsection 2: ‘Staff members shall under no circumstances
deliberately give away food without obtaining full payment, or without the
appropriate authority. Summary dismissal is effective immediately and is
non-negotiable.’
JULIE: You can’t fire me, because I resign!
TJ comes down to find
out what’s happened, and Karen confiscates Mildred’s food.
That night: Karen is
alone, working late in the office. Deciding she needs food, she goes
downstairs. She jams a bap in the toaster, then puts a tray on top. The phone
rings, and Karen rushes upstairs to answer it, arriving a moment too late. As
she settles back into the chair, the toaster catches fire and sets off the
alarm. Deciding it’s another false alarm, Karen switches it off, and has soon
fallen asleep in the chair.
TJ and Julie walk past
Spatz on their way to his car, after their date. Thinking that Karen’s left the
lights on, TJ heads to his car for the restaurant keys. Discovering that the
front door is unlocked, Julie enters and finds Karen asleep. But heading back
downstairs, she is almost hit by fire and smoke. She goes to wake Karen, who
fears that Julie has come to attack her over the sacking.
KAREN: Don’t hurt me, I’m easily bribed!
When Julie tells Karen
about the fire, Karen starts screaming, so Julie slaps her and orders her to get
the fish! Meanwhile, TJ sees the fire and phones the fire brigade from a
payphone in the mall; which, we learn, is ‘Manor
Park Shopping Centre, NW2’. Julie and Karen (and the fishes) get out the
restaurant safely, and TJ encourages Karen to thank Julie.
The next day: firemen
leave the burnt-out preparation area with the charred toaster, while Karen
stands by in a mortified, humiliated silence. Freddy pretends that what
happened had been detailed in the previous day’s newspaper horoscope. TJ sends
the staff home on full pay while the mess is sorted out, and points out to
Karen that there is an upside: the fire alarm (which is heard ringing off-key)
still works!
The end.
Loot, the 11th episode of
Series 2
Monday morning. TJ is
praising the friendliness of English people, but is threatened by a customer
whom he tries to greet.
Vince hasn’t arrived
for work yet, and TJ asks Dexter if he has seen Vince. A customer (played by Danny John Jules) overhears details of this ‘missing
person situation’, and races to a phone in the mall to change into... Captain
Electric!
CAPTAIN ELECTRIC: Who found Princess Zelda
when she went missing on the planet Razafras? Captain Electric! And who located
the last crystals of Krakuvius? Captain Electric! And who tracked down the
elusive Tharg of Putumble?
DEXTER: Captain Electric.
CAPTAIN ELECTRIC: No, my next door neighbour,
Mr. Tribby, I had a dental appointment that day.
Captain Electric
rushes off on a mission to Vince.
Vince arrives late,
and is caught by TJ. He extricates himself by offering TJ a gift - from a large
box containing filofaxes in plain brown envelopes - to celebrate ‘Plonker Monday... from the Old English ‘merriplonk’,
meaning a fine fellow or friend.’ TJ is touched.
TJ goes into his
office, to find Karen sifting around in his fishtank (the fish are called
Bognor and Regis), whilst wearing huge black-rimmed spectacles.
TJ: Woah, Buddy Holly lives! ... Why Miss Hansson, you’re
beautiful.
Karen has dropped one of
her contact lenses. TJ heads off make a deposit at the bank, but meets the bank
manager, Peter Jonathan (played by Duncan
Preston), on the stairs. Mr. Jonathan is livid at the amount of
litter Spatz is generating in the mall, including a burger box that he found
jammed into his cash dispenser. He goes to talk to Karen, who, after removing
her glasses out of embarrassment, is sightless and disorientated.
The customer who was
rude to TJ earlier returns to apologise, and TJ praises him as ‘a five-star plonker’; he receives a punch in the
eye. Freddy offers to take the plain brown envelope containing £3000 to the
bank for TJ.
In the back room,
Vince tries to sell Stanley one of his filofaxes, but Debbie reveals that they
are printed in Chinese. Vince, guilty and distracted about what has happened to
TJ, bumps into Freddy, and they drop their envelopes. Freddy rushes off to the
bank.
Mr. Jonathan has
concluded his meeting with Karen, and ensured a solution to the litter problem,
but hasn’t convinced Karen to go out with him. Dexter arrives to tell Karen
about TJ, and is picked for litter patrol.
Later as he cleans the
mall, Dexter is greeted by Captain Electric, who has found Vince. Freddy
returns, catatonic, and walks through Spatz ignoring everyone.
STANLEY: I was just gonna go out and get my uncle’s bloodhound to come
looking for you. Then I remembered; I haven’t got an uncle.
In the back room,
Freddy reveals to Vince that she has lost the money.
FREDDY: I’m going back to Glasgow. The long way, via Mozambique.
Vince talks Freddy out
of leaving, and into looking for the money. Moments after Mr. Jonathan praises
Dexter for cleaning up the mall and goes into Spatz, Freddy and Vince throw all
the rubbish back out, searching for the money.
Karen finds her contact
lens in the fish tank, and bids her glasses farewell by stamping on them. But
the lens turns out to be a fragment of shell; and Karen must wear her smashed
spectacles. At this point, Mr. Jonathan arrives to thank Karen for the improved
litter situation, but is turned down for a date again. As he leaves Spatz, he
sees litter everywhere again, grabs a rubbish bag, and marches angrily back
inside.
TJ has found Karen’s
lens.
KAREN: Oh, TJ I could kiss you! [TJ puckers up, but gets a Post-It
Note on his mouth.]
Mr. Jonathan comes
into the office, and empties rubbish - ‘Yours I
believe!’ all over the desk - and over Karen’s lens.
Freddy and Vince
haven’t found the missing money; Captain Electric offers to help. Debbie and
Stanley come over to receive an explanation, and learn what has happened.
CAPTAIN ELECTRIC: The hunt is on! Captain
Electric to the rescue! Shazam! [rushes off]
Vince says that the
gang must help Freddy replace the money; they empty their pockets, and together
have £9.26 and a Venusian 50 pence piece (that Captain Electric had given Vince
in exchange for a filofax).
STANLEY: All we need is another £2990.74 and we’re laughing.
Stanley has a plan:
they buy £9.26-worth of shares at the mall’s new underwear store, Undieworld, and
then buy loads of underwear so that the shares shoot up in value. But Freddy
has seen a money lender’s ad in a newspaper among the rubbish.
The money lender,
Danny Bunce (played by Anthony O’Donnell),
meets Freddy at a table in Spatz. He gives her a form - composed entirely of
small print - to sign, and then the money - £3000 in a plain brown envelope. As
he goes to the counter to buy a meal, Vince takes Freddy aside and warns Freddy
about Bunce - he’s a loanshark, and Vince explains why he’s called Danny by
singing the theme from Jaws (‘Dan Dan Dan
Dan Dan Dan...’). Meanwhile, Dexter clears Bunce’s table. Vince checks
the form’s small print, and discovers that Freddy will have to pay £9000
interest on her £3000 loan. They go over to Bunce to ask him to relent, and he
recognise Vince as ‘Frank Power’s boy’, but
he won’t. Freddy returns to the table; the money is gone.
Dexter takes the
latest bag of rubbish to the bin in the back yard, and finds Captain Electric
inside!
DEXTER: I’ve told you before, right, this is not a space rocket, it’s a
BIN!
CAPTAIN ELECTRIC: Yes, it’s a-bin to Mars,
it’s a-bin to Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto... [Dexter stuffs the rubbish on top of
him and shuts the lid]
The gang discuss the
new money loss, and echo shock. Dexter mentions clearing Bunce’s table; they
rush to the back yard, and begin emptying the bin.
TJ comes downstairs
with Karen, who can now see; but she sees customers filing out, and no staff.
The gang find nothing
in the bin but rubbish.
FREDDY: If it’s not in the bin where is it?
STANLEY: The same place as the other £3000. Lost.
Dexter tells Freddy
that she must confess all to TJ. They head back inside, and Freddy is about to,
when two people come into the restaurant:
MR. JONATHAN: Does anyone here recognise this character?
ALL: Yes, it’s Captain Electric!
Captain Electric has
an envelope containing £3000, which he had tried to pay into the Spatz account.
He gives it to Freddy, who gives it to TJ, who gives it to Mr. Jonathan.
Captain Electric asks, as a reward for finding the money in his ‘spaceship’,
for another of Vince’s ‘Andromedan filofaxes’,
and Vince directs him to the back room to collect one. Mr. Jonathan is denied a
date with Karen once again. When the staff all try to explain the day’s events
at once, Karen and TJ give up on seeking an explanation and go back upstairs.
In the back room,
Captain Electric takes an envelope out of Vince’s box, sniffs it, and takes out
£3000! He rushes it back out to Freddy, and she hands it to Danny Bunce, who is
eating at his table.
BUNCE: What about my interest?
VINCE: £3000, for 5 minutes, at 33% interest, that’s, erm, 1 Venusian
50 pence piece. Keep the change! [He throws the coin across to Freddy, as
Captain Electric re-enters the restaurant in his customer guise!]
The end.
Takeover, the 13th and last
episode of Series 2
In the staff room,
Freddy is checking herself in the mirror, which is behind the door. Stanley
enters hurriedly and tells the others that he saw Derek Pewley on his way in. Vince
arrives and says the same. Debbie is livid to hear that the man who left her
for Joyce Fisher is back in town, and storms out. Freddy, who is very
superstitious, frets about the mirror, which broke when Stanley barged through
the door.
FREDDY: 7 years of doom, 84 months of misery, 364 weeks of woe, 12555
days of disaster … It all begins. 66320 hours of awfulness, 3679200 minutes of
mayhem!
Dexter lends Freddy a
calculator, so that she can work out how long it is in seconds.
Karen is back from the
Fast Food Federation Annual General Meeting in Barcelona. In a cheerful mood,
she orders TJ up to his office. Freddy is worried.
KAREN: You a gambling man, Strickland?
TJ: You bet!
Karen unscrews TJ’s
name plate from the office door. She reveals that on the last day of the
conference, Spatz owner Louis Frapelli played poker against rival fast food
magnate Roland Blimpy, and lost $20000, his Porsche, and Spatz. TJ is out of a
job.
Having found out the
bad news along with the others, Freddy warns that it is ‘Dame Fortune sticking the boot in’. She is pleased to have
found a horseshoe in Stanley’s locker. Debbie is not so superstitious. Then she
finds Derek (played by David Harewood) standing at the counter. Very upset at
seeing the man who jilted her, Debbie storms off. Derek asks Freddy to pass on
his apologies, love and flowers to Debbie. Meanwhile, Karen is leaving.
KAREN: I’d like to say it’s been a pleasure. But why lie? … So goodbye,
restaurant. [To the staff] Goodbye, Munchkins. [To TJ] Goodbye, Straw Man. You
I’ll miss most of all. [Witch’s cackle]
Karen passes Blimpy’s
manager Ivor Willis (played by Paul Grunert) in the doorway. Accompanied by workmen,
he has come to turn Spatz into a Blimpy’s.
IVOR: From today, things are going to be very different round here.
Strickland, office, now!
TJ: Not that different.
Ivor loves his new
office. When he offers TJ a job, the former manager declines and resigns. But
Ivor gladly reminds him that, according to his contract, he cannot leave
without giving a month’s notice.
In the next scene, the
restaurant has been totally redecorated, and is now a Blimpy’s. All the staff
are in green and white Blimpy’s uniforms, except Debbie, who’s been made Ivor’s
‘private secretary’ and is dressed smartly.
She comes downstairs on her way to pick up chocolate éclairs for Ivor, and
complains to TJ, who tries to be philosophical about life’s ups and downs. As
Debbie leaves, a man with a top hat and cane (played by James Saxon) enters and
asks to see the manager. Dexter calls him ‘Bessie
Bunter in drag’, but he introduces himself as Roland Blimpy.
Debbie returns,
hounded by Derek, who explains that he didn’t dump her on their wedding day.
Joyce Fisher had asked him for a lift to Gretna Green, and thinking that it was
‘somewhere in North London’, Derek obliged.
After a long drive, they stopped for petrol, and Joyce ran off with a truck
driver bound for Yugoslavia. Debbie berates Derek for being such a pushover (‘a walking advert for carpets’), and tells him to
make his own decisions, before sending him staggering off with an éclair in the
face.
TJ talks to the others
about Roland Blimpy’s gambling obsession. Vince hits on the idea of winning
Spatz back in the same way it was lost, and TJ reveals himself to be skilled with
a deck of cards.
TJ: Can I play poker? Is Ivor Willis a lump of lard? You ain’t seen
nothing yet!
Roland comes
downstairs with Ivor. While Debbie distracts Ivor by telling him that there’s a
phone call for him in the office, TJ introduces himself to Roland, while the
others gather round and praise TJ’s poker abilities. Roland expresses his own
lifelong passion for poker, and TJ invites him to play a hand. But Roland
reveals that his wife has forced him to give up poker – he gambled away several
of her possessions – and refuses to play. As he departs for the betting shop,
Derek enters with a box of chocolates.
In the office, Ivor
gives Debbie a huge cake order to get – not to sell in the restaurant, but for
him to eat. He then flirts with Debbie, tries to kiss her, and blocks her way
when she refuses. Hearing Debbie scream, Derek rushes upstairs and beats up
Ivor (with the staff watching).
DEREK: You try that again, mister, and you’re a… you’re a… well you
know what I mean, don’t you?
Debbie kisses Derek,
and the pair make up.
It’s Blimpy’s opening
day. Ivor has the staff lined up, and reminds them that they’re Blimpettes now.
Ivor’s order of two crates of éclairs arrives, and he claims it would be a ‘piece of cake’ for him to eat them all. The
disgusted staff speak out against Ivor’s swaggering and bragging, and tell him
that TJ is the better man. Ivor bets that TJ can’t eat as much as he can. The
staff disagree. Ivor takes this as a challenge, and TJ accepts ‘for the honour of Spatz’. Ivor and TJ sit down
with the éclairs, and the contest begins. The staff cheer TJ on.
As the public watch
through the front window, Roland arrives, and Vince tells him what’s going on.
Roland tells Ivor that if TJ beats him, he will beat him. 33 all.
In the heat of the moment, Vince draws Roland into a wager: if TJ wins, he gets
Spatz back; if Ivor wins, Roland gets TJ’s flat, stereo, hockey stick and
cowboy boots. 99 all. TJ grabs an éclair from Ivor’s hand and eats it to
win. Ivor falls over, the staff cheer, and Roland snaps his cane in annoyance.
In the next scene, the
restaurant is a Spatz again. The staff, back in their old uniforms, dance and
sing. It turns out that TJ was high school pancake-eating champion. Freddy,
seeing that everything is going better than ever, is no longer superstitious.
TJ throws her horseshoe away… and it hits a returning Karen in the face.
Grabbing TJ by the throat, she orders him to the office.
The end.
Extortion, the 4th episode of
Series 3
In the staff room,
Karen is briefing the staff on a new promotion. For the whole of September,
every customer must be served with a ‘Spatz Super
Smile ... measuring no less than 10.2cm’, or the customer gets a meal
paid for from the server’s wages.
Later, in the restaurant,
the staff are serving with fixed grins, surrounded by posters advertising the
promotion. One customer (played by Andrew Jarvis)thinks the smiles are mocking his bald
head, and he pulls of his wig before storming out. Karen arrives, and Debbie tells
her that 39 customers have been turned away in the past half-an-hour, but Karen
puts this down to it being ‘early days’.
Then TJ arrives, back from holiday, with a pink surfboard, Hawaiian shirt,
Bermuda shorts... and a moustache, which Karen declares a ‘ludicrous monstrosity ... like a gerbil stapled to your
lip.’ TJ heads up to office to return to work.
Later, in the office,
TJ is back in his work clothes and admiring his moustache in a hand mirror.
Karen continues to gripe about it.
TJ: You are just jealous because you can’t grow one.
KAREN: I can too!
Karen also complains
about TJ reeking of garlic, a smell that turns her stomach. TJ chases her
across the office, breathing on her, and she leaves. Outside the office door, Debbie
is waiting with some men who want to see TJ: Horace Flint (played by Richard O’Callaghan)
and his burly sidekicks, bald Manfred (played by Phil Atkinson) and bearded
Philip (played by Alan Bennion).
TJ: Let me guess. You’re either restaurant critics ... or mobsters
here to bully me out of money each week.
FLINT: Well I’m not a restaurant critic.
Manfred makes a hole
in the office’s water cooler with a pen, and water gushes out. TJ plugs the
hole with his thumb. Flint answers a phone call that turns out to be from Mr.
Frapelli, and drops the receiver in the fish tank. He wants £100 to ensure that
no more ‘accidents’ occur, and gives TJ 24
hours to decide.
The next day: Debbie
cries when a vicar (played by Anthony Benditti) orders orange squash, because that
morning, Derek had squashed her cat Fluffy by reversing over him with the car.
The vicar consoles Debbie, before happily claiming his free meal. He is on his
way out, singing All Things Bright And Beautiful, as Karen is coming in.
TJ tries to tell her about Flint.
TJ: We had three guys in here yesterday.
KAREN: Holy moly, business is going through the roof!
TJ: Will you please take me seriously?
KAREN: With that thing on your face? Hahaha, you’ve got to be
kidding.
When TJ does manage to
explain, Karen says she detests bullies and will not cave in. Then she and TJ
enter the office to find Horace Flint and his thugs already in there (they
broke in via the Spatz’ back door). Karen smiles sweetly and is eager to
please, offering Flint £150 instead of £100. She tries to stop TJ standing up
to Flint, insisting that they pay him; but TJ refuses, chucking Flint out of
the office. He says he has his answer, and he leaves with his men.
Karen creeps
downstairs, where she sees the staff wearing cardboard smiles. She tears the
smiles off one by one. Then a brick crashes through the front window, smashing
it and sending sparks flying from the neon Spatz sign. The customers hide in
the kitchen (until Karen orders them out). In case there was any doubt as to
who threw the brick, it has ‘IT WAS US’ written on it. Repairing the damage
will cost around £1000, and Karen demands that TJ hand over the key to the
office safe, so she can get the money to pay off Flint. TJ refuses and runs
away with the key, with Karen in pursuit.
TJ goes into the back
yard and hides from Karen behind the bins. Philip and Manfred enter the yard:
Flint has told them to set fire to Spatz, but they’ve forgotten the matches. TJ
shows himself and says it’s time to call the police. The thugs advance on him,
and Manfred throws a punch...
Back in the
restaurant, the staff are clearing the broken glass (the window is later
boarded up). Philip and Manfred run past outside, shortly before TJ staggers in
from the back: his clothes are torn, he has a black eye, and half his moustache
is gone. Concerned, the staff gather round. Then Karen arrives, sees TJ and
laughs at him. In spite of taking a beating, TJ still refuses to pay Flint.
Later: it’s dark
outside, and only the staff are in the restaurant. When Dexter tries to stop a
woman from coming through the door, she barges in and throws him over the
counter. She is Amanda Quince (played by Leigh Funnelle), martial arts expert, and Freddy has
hired her so that the staff can learn self-defence and be ready for Flint’s
next onslaught. Vince gets worried.
AMANDA: I wanna show you that self-defence has nothing to do with size
or strength. Remember, David defeated Goliath.
STANLEY: Wha, you taught David? You must be good. And about 3000 years
old.
TJ arrives (now
entirely moustache-less), and tells them that violence isn’t the answer, so
Freddy turns Miss Quince away. Livid at having her time wasted, she
karate-chops up a broom that Stanley is holding, and leaves feeling much
calmer. Dexter takes a phone call from Flint, and passes it over to TJ. TJ
tells Flint in no uncertain terms to stay away, but in response, Flint says
that he’ll be round with 6 men in half-an-hour to break legs. Telling the staff
to go home, a dejected TJ says that he will handle it himself, and goes off.
Debbie insists that the staff stick up for their mate, and suggests that they
use their advantage over Flint and his hooligans: ‘brains.’
Later: Flint and his
half-dozen thugs arrive outside Spatz. The restaurant is in darkness. Flint sends
2 of his men around the back, 2 down the alley that leads to the staff room,
and Philip and Manfred through the front entrance - which is unlocked. The men
then get ‘taken out’ in a variety of ways:
One gets a vat of
custard tipped on him by Debbie in the store area;
Another gets pelted
with eggs from a tube above his head;
One gets repeatedly
smacked by locker doors in the staff room, being pulled with strings by Dexter,
who is hidden under the table;
Another staggers out
of the staff toilets mummified in toilet paper;
In the kitchen, Philip
slips on sausages and knocks the milkshake machine on as he falls, ending up on
the floor with milkshake pouring onto him;
As Manfred climbs the
stairs, he is confronted by a monster made of mayonnaise and sauce buckets,
with drink lids for eyes and a cardboard smile for a mouth. He is terrified.
The monster falls apart and buckets rain down on him.
Flint, who’d been
waiting outside, ventures into the darkened restaurant. He finds his boys
slumped over the counter. Then the lights come up, as do the staff from behind
the counter. They don’t hesitate to stand up to Flint, who is outnumbered and
has become a coward without his thugs alongside him.
STANLEY: Maybe he’s just a nasty little wimp. All mouth and Y-fronts!
DEBBIE: Trousers.
STANLEY: Oh, sorry. All trousers and Y-fronts!
Then TJ arrives,
apparently oblivious to what’s been happening, but the staff credit him with
bringing down Flint’s gang. By this time, Flint is cowering by the stairs. TJ
reaches into his jacket pocket and Horace, fearing he is about to have a gun
pulled on him, admits defeat, says he will never return, rallies his men and
departs. It turns out that TJ was only going to get Flint’s money out of his
jacket. He tells the staff he owes them one, and Freddy whispers ‘one wee thing’ he can do for them.
The next day: Karen
arrives, meeting a cheerful TJ at the door. She claims that she could have ‘creamed the local mafia’ herself if she’d been
there, and she refuses to thanks TJ. She notices that customers are leaving in
droves, and that the staff aren’t giving Super Spatz Smiles. Holding up garlic,
they smile and breathe on Karen, and she nearly passes out. Revenge is sweet,
even if it isn’t sweet-smelling.
The end.
The Curse Of Karen, the 5th
episode of Series 3
On a stormy day, two
eccentric bag ladies, Lou (played by Anna Wing)
and Mildred (played by Denise Coffey,
last seen in Series 2’s Fire Alarm) are taking ages at the Spatz
counter, as they count out coins. Karen arrives and learns that the businessman
behind them (played by Geoffrey Swann)
has been waiting for 10 minutes.
KAREN: Dexter! Will you serve this gentleman?
DEXTER: I don’t believe it. She just got my name right.
DEBBIE: Yeah, but she was talking to me.
Karen orders the ladies
out, but not before almost having a fist fight with Mildred. The businessman
pays for his Cheese Maxi (£1.70) by tipping money out of his shoe. TJ comes
downstairs and receives verbal abuse from Karen.
TJ: Ah! First one of the day, nothing like it.
VINCE: So how many insults are you on now, TJ, 60 a day?
TJ: No, I’m up to 80. Someone ought to stamp a government health
warning on her tongue.
It stops raining. TJ
goes to investigate a small group of people outside. They include colleagues
Craig (played by Benjamin Hallam),
Hayley (played by Lucy Briers) and
Pippa Dee (played by Jan Ravens),
producer of Lenny’s Lunchtime Laugh-In: Lenny the Lion’s children’s TV
show, which they plan to do live from the mall on Saturday. Hayley brings up a ‘bijou problemette’: it turns out that the mall is
entirely open-air, but rain is forecast for Saturday. TJ solves this problem by
offering Pippa the use of Spatz. She leaves for lunch with Rudy Rooster.
TJ sees Mildred
checking a litter bin. She has lost her umbrella. She remembers that it’s by
the counter, and TJ takes her inside to collect it. Karen is furious, and
orders Mildred to leave again. Mildred puts a curse on Karen, calling for bad
luck and disaster to follow her everywhere, and then runs out cackling. The weather
has turned stormy again. Superstitious Freddy is worried, warning Karen that
Mildred may have the evil eye, but Karen dismisses the idea that she’s been
cursed - and walks straight into a customer, getting milkshake down her outfit.
She snatches the customer’s scarf to wipe it off. While Freddy frets, Vince
smiles to himself.
Karen storms to the
office in order to get changed, slamming the door in TJ’s face. Through the
door, he tells her about the Lenny the Lion plan; but Karen, who hates kids and
puppets that attract snot-nosed kids even more, tells TJ to ‘unarrange’ it. Opening the door, Karen gives TJ
her outfit to be taken to the dry cleaner, and orders him to get her a
sandwich, tuna mayo on granary bread, while he’s at it. Vince appears, wanting
the key for the back gate; TJ tells him it’s on his desk, and Vince enters the
office to get it, closing the door behind him. TJ remarks on Karen’s bad mood.
TJ: Are you grouchy today! In fact, I’ll give you 10 out of 10
Grouchy Marks!
Karen re-enters the
office and sits at the computer. Vince says that he can’t find the key. Freddy
enters the office with a tray of rubbish she’s collected (for some reason), and
just then, the computer explodes, sending out sparks. Then Karen leans on a
shelf, and it collapses. Freddy says that this is the curse in action, and it’s
reminded her of ‘the curse of Alistair McAllister’.
As the lights go down and bagpipe music starts up, Freddy tells the story.
FREDDY: When he stole Mother McMurtaugh’s prize pig, she put a curse
on him. That very same day, his croft burnt to the ground. Then his favourite
cow was struck by lightning. His wife ran off with a travelling sporran
salesman ... as he was walking past the Highland Games, a stray caber came
flying over the fence and knocked his head off!
Karen claims not to be
scared, having never stolen a pig in her life.
Downstairs, Debbie and
Stanley talk about curses and the unexplained, such as crop circles and Jason
Donovan record sales. TJ returns from the one-hour dry cleaner with Karen’s
outfit. He has Karen’s sandwich too, but when he tells her that they were out
of mayo, she is beside herself, and overwhelmed by her bad luck, refuses the
‘jinxed’ sandwich. Returning to the office with TJ, Karen finds Vince returning
the back gate key, and she orders both men to leave. Karen slams the office
door, which promptly falls off its hinges. Karen clings to TJ in fear, then
resolves to find Mildred and get the curse lifted.
Later: Spatz is
closed, and the staff are in their everyday clothes in the staff room. Karen is
in her dry-cleaned outfit. She can’t find Mildred. Suddenly she gets an
excruciating pain in the back of her neck as the staff look on. Debbie mentions
voodoo. Karen begs Freddy for help, only to be told by Freddy that she’s ‘a
dead woman’. Vince recommends that Karen counter the curse by being nice, and
after suffering another bout of intense pain, she agrees. Dexter asks to be
made assistant manager, and Karen grants his request, as well as approving TJ’s
Lenny the Lion arrangement.
Saturday morning:
Jungle scenery is being set up in the restaurant, ready for Lenny’s
Lunchtime Laugh-In. Karen arrives holding a flower, and is sweet and lovely
to all. She is pleased to tell Freddy that she has been free of pain and accidents
for two days. When a customer complains that his burger is cold, Karen
apologises and arranges for him to have a replacement burger and a free
milkshake. Dexter appears, dressed in a suit and throwing his weight around:
livid over the cold burger, he orders Vince and Debbie to his office, just as Lenny the Lion and Terry Hall arrive.
Dexter’s office, it
turns out, is the staff room. He has taken it over, forcing the staff to change
in the back yard. Sitting at his executive desk, he bellows at Debbie and Vince
that they’ll be sacked unless they improve. They are dismissed, and Dexter
makes a call on his mobile phone - so he can ask his mum to set the video for
Huxley Pig. Debbie complains to Vince about Dexter’s behaviour, and he replies
that he wishes he’d ‘never started the whole thing’,
but won’t explain further.
12pm comes and the
live show begins. Children watch from rows of chairs. TJ experiences neck pain
like Karen’s. She discovers that he forgot to take the pin out of the cleaning
ticket in his dry-cleaned jacket. Lenny the Lion picks TJ and Karen to be boys’
and girls’ team captains for a series of games. These include: a tug of war
with a giant snake, leaving Karen exhausted; pin the tail on the cheetah,
during which a blindfolded boy sticks a pin in Karen’s bum; a race between the
teams to untie their captains. The boys win this, so TJ gets to ‘pull the python’, and gunge pours onto Karen’s
head. She sees Lou and Mildred laughing in the doorway, and it’s No More Miss
Nice Girl as she stalks over.
Dripping with brown
slime, Karen confronts Mildred outside, telling her that she beat the curse.
Lou explains that there was no curse: Mildred had been influenced by seeing the
Wicked Witch in The Wizard Of Oz. Mildred runs off and Lou chases after
her nutty friend. All the staff come outside, and Vince admits that he staged
the office mishaps for a joke. But he’s not confessing out of guilt: he wants
Dexter off their backs. Karen, now back in Wicked Witch mode herself, strips
Dexter of his assistant manager’s badge and threatens Vince with death (though
he doesn’t even get fired - a miracle!). As she announces that she never
believed in the curse, lightning strikes the bin behind her, filling it with
smoke and fire.
The end.
Driving Miss Wesley, the 6th
episode of Series 3
Debbie opens the
restaurant, and her boyfriend Derek Pewley (played by David Harewood)
is desperately jostling for attention within the early morning crowd. (We
learn that the cost of 6 Breakfast Buckets is £10.65, and that 3 coffees and 6
doughnuts cost £3.20.) He wants to know why Debbie stormed off while he was
teaching her to drive the previous night. Debbie notes that among other things,
Derek wore a crash helmet and stopped her from driving above first gear, and
that she resents being treated like an idiot. She disappears into the back,
leaving Derek talking to the other staff.
FREDDY: In my opinion, Derek, you’re persona non grata.
DEREK: You what?
DEXTER: That is haggis-chat for ‘your bird has dumped you’.
Derek refuses to
believe this, insisting that he’s the only man in Debbie’s life. He leaves.
VINCE: Their relationship’s been on and off more times than Michael
Jackson’s nose.
Mr. C. Stubbs, the
mall manager (played by John Grillo), arrives to see TJ, though Dexter warns
him that TJ is extremely busy.
Stubbs enters the
office to find TJ playing with his Rudy Rooster train set, which includes
Strick Land and Not Funny Junction. Stubbs tells TJ about a break-in at the
mall’s video shop the previous night – the third in a month – , and gives him a
poster to put up, advertising for a security guard.
TJ: You should have done this before.
STUBBS: I did. Someone nicked all the posters.
Stanley and Freddy are
filling the back room with boxes, as part of a secret venture. Dexter arrives
and is curious.
STANLEY: Why should we tell you that we’re earning some extra money by
assembling 20000 Christmas crackers in our coffee break?
Dexter demands ‘a piece of the action’. Debbie, who comes in to
get her jacket, isn’t interested – she has her own secret project. The gang
follow her, and spy on her through the smeary front window, going off with a
handsome man (played by William Vanderpuye).
STANLEY: I
think it’s disgusting.
FREDDY: What, cheating on Derek?
STANLEY: No, this window, I can’t see anything!
Karen arrives, sending
the staff back to work. TJ hears her coming, and hides the train set.
TJ: Hi, Karen, I was just doing the fiscal payment requirements for
the audit on the pickle account.
KAREN: What does that mean?
TJ: I have no idea.
TJ’s train runs from
under the desk, across the floor. Karen has a box, with a brand new laptop,
around which she sets up a ‘20-mile exclusion zone’
– she sends TJ out of the office.
Derek arrives with
flowers for Debbie, but is told by the boys that Debbie is seeing someone else.
When Debbie arrives, she struggles to deny that she was with another man. Derek
is distraught, and as he staggers to the door, he catches Stubbs’ poster.
The next morning.
Debbie arrives late and is in a cagey mood.
TJ: What’s with her?
DEXTER: It’s guilt, innit? ‘Eats away at the soul like a moth that
feeds on silken liver.’
TJ: That’s good, Dexter, who wrote that? Wordsworth? Shakespeare?
DEXTER: No, Huxley Pig.
FREDDY: … ‘Love is a worm that poisons the soul.’
TJ: Huxley Pig?
FREDDY: Poddington Peas.
Stubbs arrives with
the new security guard – Derek! He sees Debbie and chases her to the back room,
where she holds the door half-closed against him. She has worked out that
Derek’s motive is to spy on her, and he confirms this, telling her that his
scrutiny with prevent her from seeing her fancy man. Debbie angrily opens the
door fully, so that Derek falls onto an open box of cracker parts.
DEBBIE: I do what I like, when I like, and with whom I like, geddit?
Derek follows Debbie
back out the counter, and when she complains, Karen collars him.
KAREN: Excuse me! I’m the only one around here who’s allowed to harass
the staff!
Listen to a clip of this from
a CITV ‘Coming Up Next’ advert.
Karen is sceptical about
Derek’s new job, so he proves his efficiency by swiftly handcuffing Karen and
TJ together.
DEREK: Anybody messes with Derek Pewley: Clunk click – they’re in the
nick.
However, when Derek
can’t find the key for the handcuffs, Karen is livid. Derek goes off to get Mr.
Stubbs.
That evening. In the
office, Stubbs reveals that the handcuffs are fool-proof, and can only be
removed with the key. Karen, who hasn’t been to the toilet for 9 hours, is
horrified.
STUBBS: Not even Houdini could get out of these.
KAREN: I bet if he was chained to Strickland he’d think of a way!
From the office
window, Derek sees Debbie going off with her new man, and runs outside. Stubbs
tries a chainsaw on the handcuffs, with no success. Derek is too late, and
stands sobbing as Stubbs leaves the restaurant. Karen/TJ have closed up and run
outside, but want to leave in opposite directions. Karen calls for them to
decide rationally – she stamps on TJ’s foot and drags him with her.
A man in black (played
by Roger Monk) places a ladder up to the
office window, arousing Derek’s suspicions.
BURGLAR: I’m a window cleaner.
DEREK: A window cleaner? At night?
BURGLAR: I… use a luminous chamois?
DEREK: OK. Alright then. Up you go. Do you want me to hold the ladder
for you? … Mind yourself … Alright up there?
Derek is so grief-stricken over Debbie that he misses
burglars going by.
The following morning. Stubbs, Vince and Derek stand in
TJ’s ransacked office. Karen’s £2000 laptop is gone – the burglar had convinced
Derek that he was taking it away for a service wash. After noting that the mall
has just suffered more break-ins in one night than in a whole year prior to
Derek’s arrival, Stubbs sacks Derek, but Derek’s only concern is Debbie.
Debbie meets Karen/TJ as they arrive at Spatz. Karen/TJ
spent the night going round and round on the Circle Line – fine for Karen, but
not for TJ, as the doors closed before he could get on! Derek appears, and
Karen/TJ rush to check the state of the office. Derek confronts Debbie over her
‘fancy man’ and just as he denies it, the
man drops by to return Debbie’s scarf.
Derek pursues Debbie to the back room, where the other
staff are finishing off the cracker-making. Pressed by Derek for an answer,
Debbie explains that she loves Derek, and that her ‘fancy man’ is in fact her
driving instructor! She has been taking lessons in secret in order not to hurt
Derek’s feelings. The pair make up; Vince and Freddy pull a cracker to
celebrate, and out comes a key – Derek’s missing key! Karen arrives with TJ,
seething with anger about her stolen laptop… when she sees the key in Derek’s
hand. He frees her from the handcuffs.
KAREN: Oh bliss! Oh rapture! Oh bathroom! [runs into the staff
toilets]
Freddy wonders why the cracker didn’t go ‘bang’ and
realises that they forgot to make up the crackers with bangers in! They have to
undo them all and start again!
The end.
Poetry And Music, the 7th and
last episode of Series 3
Late December snow
falls. Karen sees a busker performing outside Spatz, and borrows scissors to
cut his guitar strings. Her bad mood bothers the staff.
DEBBIE: I think we’d better wait ‘til she’s in a better mood.
FREDDY: That’ll be the day Captain Ahab joins Save The Whale.
So instead of asking
Karen, they ask TJ: can they have a staff Christmas party? TJ, confident that
Karen will agree, says yes.
A gorgeous young woman
named Donna Edwards (played by Chloe Annet)
comes to the counter to order a bean burger. Vince is love-struck and
tongue-tied, so Freddy serves her with her ‘Windy
TJ: You’re making a sign.
KAREN: Go to the top of the class, Strickland. And jump off.
In the office, Karen
writes a notice: ‘BUSKERS WILL BE BURNT AT THE STAKE’. She tells TJ that she
hates buskers because they are eating up Christmas shoppers’ small change,
which she’d rather was spent at Spatz.
KAREN: I’m not gonna get it if those tin-pot tone-deaf terrorists keep
driving them away.
She hears another
busker playing his bagpipes, and calls the police.
Donna returns to Spatz
with two friends (Graham, played by Alan Cox,
and an unnamed female friend, played by Alice
Douglas). Vince runs off, embarrassed. Stanley and Dexter encourage
him to approach her again, but she is talking with her friends about Byron and
Shakespeare, and feeling outclassed, Vince flees again.
Inspector Platt
(played by John Bardon) arrives with
a WPC, having been called to an ‘emergency’
by Karen. He is none too pleased to find only a busker, but after some argument
agrees to move the bagpiper along. Meanwhile, TJ still hasn’t asked her about
the party, but is confident she’ll approve it.
In the staff room,
Vince confides in TJ about Donna, revealing that toilet door graffiti is the
only poetry he knows. TJ demonstrates a love of English poetry by quoting some
of William Wordsworth’s poem She Was A
Phantom Of Delight at Vince.
VINCE: What toilets do you use?
TJ writes the lines out
on Vince’s hand; he manages to impress Donna by reciting them to her.
DONNA: You can be so wrong about people, can’t you?
She promises to meet
up with Vince the following morning. He is elated.
The next morning, before
opening time: the staff are organising the Christmas party in the staff room.
Dexter is disappointed with the LPs Stanley has brought in: The Golden Age
Of Steam: 20 Of Your Favourite Whistles, and The Speeches Of Winston
Churchill, from which
TJ opens the
restaurant, and welcomes the customers.
TJ: Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, give yourself a
treat, when you eat at Spat...z.
DONNA: That certainly wasn’t Wordsworth.
Vince chats to Donna,
while the other staff eavesdrop by cleaning nearby. Vince tells Donna that he
is an Oxbridge professor, working at Spatz as research for his book on ‘poetry in the common workplace’; and not only
does he have the same favourite poem as Donna (Tintern
Abbey by Wordsworth), but he delivered a groundbreaking Open University
lecture on it. Donna delightedly promises to bring her friends back to Spatz to
hear Vince’s expert knowledge on the poem, as they are studying it for their
Finals. As TJ warns off a trombonist before Karen can get to him, Vince asks
him for help.
Vince gives a lecture
for Donna and her two course mates, reading from notes secreted under napkins
and on the back of a ketchup bottle. Vince panics when Graham asks if one
particular line of Tintern Abbey is ‘ironical
or rhetorical, or is it mere whimsical lyricism?’ pretending to rush to
the toilet, Vince goes upstairs to get help from TJ, who hides on the stairs
and silently mimes an answer to Vince. But TJ is soon called back to work by
Karen. Meanwhile, Karen spots a band of elves busking outside, with someone in
a bear costume holding a charity bucket.
Vince secretly
organises for the other staff to find answers to questions as he calls them
out, using books on the floor behind the counter, and then to write them out in
notes hidden on their backs as they pass, and in a burger which Vince is
handed. But Vince misreads a note; Graham finds it, and having rumbled Vince,
Donna’s friends leave in disgust. Vince runs off, but Donna lingers, pensively.
While this is going
on, Karen blasts the buskers with a fire extinguisher, and the bear comes up to
the office to complain. He takes off his headpiece... it’s Inspector Platt, and
the buskers were a police band! As Platt threatens Karen with assault charges,
she is obliged to give him increasing amounts of money to appease him. When he
hears from Freddy that Karen’s lack of Christmas spirit stretches to denying
her staff a Christmas party, Platt threatens to take her into custody; she
empties one of the tills into his charity bucket.
KAREN: Take all my profits! Stab me in the heart. Have a merry
Christmas.
PLATT: And?
KAREN: Have your lousy party! [The staff cheer]
Donna finds Vince
wallowing on the back steps.
DONNA: I don’t like being lied to. And I don’t want you to ever lie to
me again.
Vince’s face lights up
as Donna kisses him, and snow sprinkles down.
The night of the
party: Karen finishes work and leaves the building, but is grabbed by a conga
line and driven into the festivities in the staff room, and under the
mistletoe, where TJ is dressed as Father Christmas. Donna and Vince watch,
amused. TJ plants a kiss on Karen, and his white beard ends up stuck to her
face!
TJ: Why, Miss Hansson, you’re beautiful!
The end.
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
Episode
Summaries |
|
|
|
|
|