The Dessert Song

Terry does not set out to be a hero on this particular afternoon. He just happens to see Charlie, a Greek-Cypriot, taking a beating in the street, and walking past is not in him. One rescue leads to another. Charlie's cousin Christina runs the family restaurant with her brother, and her brother-in-law wants the place badly enough to threaten her for it. The threats are no idle talk. So Terry takes a job working in the restaurant, undercover in the middle of the family's daily business, and waits for the men responsible to walk in.

But the restaurant makes a tight little stage for this sort of story. There is nowhere to hide in a kitchen, and Terry finds that minding a business from the inside means peeling vegetables, taking orders and keeping his opinions to himself. The setting is a gift for the show, all steam and shouting and plates, a world where a stranger stands out immediately and a quiet man can hide in plain sight. The danger is a family matter, money and old grudges shared over years, which makes it harder to read than a stranger's. Christina keeps the place running while the men who want it circle closer, and Terry keeps his head down until the bad element finally shows itself.

Roy Ward Baker directed, and Andrew Payne and Leon Griffiths wrote it. Dennis Waterman anchors the piece as Terry, with Diane Keen as Christina and Peter Bland as Charlie, whose rescue sets everything in motion. George Cole is Arthur. Daniel Hill, Godfrey James, Michael Angelis, Glynn Edwards, Ian Barritt and Bruno Barnabe fill out the cast.

There is something quietly satisfying about a story that turns on a family's survival rather than a fortune. Terry stops to help one stranger and ends up guarding the whole family, which is how his best days always seem to go. The undercover work is no glamorous affair, just a man doing an honest job for low pay, and that is exactly the point.