Work, Rest & Play

Work, Rest & Play mixes a football story, a fraud and a prison. It begins with a flop for Harry. He has a contract to guard the puppies of a pedigree Afghan hound, but when they are born it turns out that the father was a mongrel. The contract is cancelled and Harry is left with a lot of surplus surveillance equipment.

Ken's client is Willie Connolly, a Scottish footballer from Dundalk who has moved to a Nottingham team and wants a minder after his car was vandalised. A Glaswegian warns Ken off, openly admits that he did the damage, and says Willie has twenty-four hours. Then, while Willie and his girlfriend, Belinda, are looking round a house they plan to buy, Willie's wife, Moira, whom he left in Scotland, walks in and catches him kissing Belinda. The Glaswegian is Moira's father, Donny McGregor, a bookmaker determined to make Willie suffer.

Ken suspects Willie's manager, Bob Barnet, whose office, rented only a few weeks earlier, is now empty. Belinda has also suggested putting the house in her name, supposedly to stop Moira taking half. Ken thinks the two of them are planning something.

Meanwhile Smudger, the landlord of the Drum, asks Harry to organise the pub football team for a match against a team from a nearby prison. Rocky is put in goal when the regular keeper hurts his knee, and knows he will let everyone down.

On the day of the match Willie hides on the pub team's coach to escape McGregor's men, and is stranded inside the prison walls until the final whistle. There is no score at full time. When one of the pub players is injured, Harry goes on as a substitute, and Willie gives Rocky a piece of psychology: put his hat in the corner of the goal and then dive that way. Rocky does, and saves the decisive penalty.

Back at the pub, Barnet and his solicitor are about to get Willie's signature on the house when Ken walks in with Brian Clough, who confirms that Barnet is not managing any Forest players. Willie and Moira are reunited.

Tim Munro wrote the script and Bill Hays directs. John Hannah plays Willie and Julie Graham plays Moira, and Clough appears as himself. The title borrows a Mars Bar slogan.

The prison match is the best thing in the episode, because it combines three stories, Willie's hiding place, Harry's team and Rocky's fear, in a single penalty shoot-out. The weakness is the Clough cameo. A famous local manager appearing to settle a fraud is a fine joke for a Nottingham audience, but it replaces investigation with celebrity.

IMDb users gave it more votes than any other episode of the fifth series, which probably reflects the football.