A Number of Old Wives' Tales

Clive Cosgrove is the picture of success, a man with businesses in every direction. So Arthur and Terry are puzzled when Clive seems genuinely frightened of getting married. A man that successful usually has an opinion about everything, including weddings.

The truth, when it dawns, is better than the puzzle. Every one of Clive's business concerns is run by a woman, and Clive is already married to all of them. All of them. The manageresses are his wives, the wives are his managers, and the marriage he keeps dodging is the one his current arrangement cannot absorb. It is the kind of setup that would take a team of accountants and a divorce lawyer to unpick, and Clive has apparently managed it on charm alone.

It is the sort of premise that sounds like a music-hall joke and plays out with real, patient comic timing. Arthur, who thinks he has seen every dodge in London, has to sit with the fact that a man can be several times married and still present it as a business structure. Terry, for once, is simply the audience. The question of how Clive ever found time to run a business never quite gets answered. The comedy comes from watching a man who has organised his whole life to dodge the word husband. The word has been chasing him all along.

Patrick Mower gives Clive a smooth surface with panic underneath, which is exactly the right note. Tony Hoare and Leon Griffiths wrote the episode, Francis Megahy directed. Dennis Waterman is Terry, George Cole is Arthur, and the supporting cast includes Patrick Malahide as Chisholm, Glynn Edwards as Dave, Ray Winstone as Arnie, Vivienne Ritchie as Angie, Sue Holderness as Laura, Kate Williams as Mary and Belinda Sinclair as Mavis.

And there is the title to enjoy: a number of old wives' tales, all of them true, all of them his.