The Mistress

Just had the misfortune to watch one episode of the first series on bbc4 probably the most boring uninspired show I've ever seen how it got a second series is beyond me,it had a poor man's butterflies feel to me.

I know Carla lane was known for women lead comedy but this show the man was really the lynchpin,how could you employ two of the most famous British actresses up against a jobbing actor and he simply didn't have the charisma to pull it of I see they sacked him for the second series I might watch 1 more episode to see if it made a difference Wasn't really funny and the biggest laugh I had was when he had to go out to a phone box to phone his mistress and realised this was probably why mobile's took of with businessmen.

Florist Maxine begins an affair with married man Luke, the couple instantly connect, and they spens every moment they possibly can together, until reality hits.

I'm giving it a score of six, and I'll try to explain why, the first series was very poor, almost to the point where I wanted to switch it off, but there was a definite improvement in series two.

I often romanticise about The 1980's being the golden era of comedy, and it's true there were many classics, this wasn't one of them. As a comedy it just doesn't work, it simply isn't funny, but the tragedy side of it really does work well in series two.

It's easy to spot that it's a Carla Lane comedy, as there are some of the repeated themes, the affair of course, it isn't really a patch on her best known comedy, Bread.

Jack Galloway was poorly cast as Luke in Series one, he didn't feel right, Peter McEnery was much better suited, Felicity Kendall was very good, the standout I thought was Jane Asher, I also think Helen was the most interesting character too.

It's almost a shame it ended at series two, it really was starting to improve.

6/10.