The Second Time Around

Ruby Hubbard, an old friend of Arthur's and a successful novelist, comes back to London with two plans: write her next book and sell her house. Both plans hit the same wall, because her ex-husband Barney Todd has already sold the house behind her back and, presumably, banked the money where she cannot reach it. Ruby is played by Beryl Reid, and the casting alone tells you she will not be out-manoeuvred for long.

Ruby is not the sort of woman who accepts this quietly. She recruits Arthur to help get the money back, and she sets Terry and her secretary to work coming up with ideas for the new book. So the episode splits its time between a property dispute and a literary brainstorm, a welcome change from the usual cargo of dodgy goods. The brainstorm scenes are the quiet treat: a novelist's secretary and a minder, both trying to invent a romance plot, while the woman who actually writes them looks on.

There is real pleasure in watching Beryl Reid hold the centre of it. Ruby is sharp, and she is not about to be robbed by a man she already divorced once. Bill Maynard's Barney Todd knows he is in trouble the moment she walks in, and watching his confidence drain over the hour is the episode's best running joke.

Geoffrey Case and Leon Griffiths wrote it, Francis Megahy directed. Dennis Waterman is Terry, George Cole is Arthur, Beryl Reid plays Ruby Hubbard and Bill Maynard plays Barney Todd, with John F. Landry as Ronnie Todd, Glynn Edwards as Dave, Fiona Mollison as Susan Hall, Ivor Roberts as Jack Hodgson, Dot Rubin as Jane Lugg and Nigel Le Vaillant as Andy.

But the gentlest joke is the pairing itself. Ruby, who makes stories for a living, asks Terry, who can barely keep one story straight, for plot ideas. The book will be fine. The house is another matter.