Whatever Happened to Her Indoors?

Arthur's week is going badly even by his standards. The bank will not extend the overdraft, the lock-up has had the phone and the electricity cut off, and the council is refusing to let him erect a 'British is Best' flagpole on the car lot. Then Doreen disappears. No note, no call, nothing.

Morley and Park take the case, and Morley in particular has convinced himself that Arthur has done away with his wife and buried her under a fresh concrete slab on the forecourt. It is a serious accusation to be carrying around a man who cannot even win an argument with the council. Arthur defends himself in court against the flagpole case and gets it dismissed, which is probably the proudest moment of his year.

Doreen, meanwhile, has simply gone to a health farm. She comes back rested and untroubled, and Arthur, who has spent the episode as the prime suspect in her murder, is chiefly relieved that the flagpole question is settled. His priorities have never been clearer.

Kevin McNally plays Richards, George Costigan is Billy and Cherry Gillespie is Lynn. Lill Roughley and Sidney Livingstone return as Doreen and Bert Daley, and George Cole, Gary Webster and Glynn Edwards hold the middle of it, with Nicholas Day and Stephen Tompkinson doing the suspicious police work. David Yallop and Leon Griffiths wrote it; Roger Bamford directed.

It is one of the funniest premises the show ever had, played almost entirely straight. Morley convinced that Arthur has buried his wife under the forecourt while Arthur worries about planning permission is the sort of joke that would not survive a single wink. The cast never gives it one.

But there is a warm edge to it as well. Whatever else she is, Doreen is missed, and her return is the one moment where the comedy stops and lets the relief in.