Another Country

Work on the house has stopped due to it being a listed building, the lads have the opportunity to go home, but chose to stay, with little to do in the area, trouble ensues. Neville uses his time productively, and Wayne gets very close to Arthur's daughter Carol, much to the annoyance of her father.

It isn't the best episode I think it's fair to say, but it's still good, and still has its moments. It's very much a battle of the classes, when the lads were in Germany it was never a thing. I'm missing the guys working together on a site, that was the highlight, they're all too spread out here.

I did enjoy seeing the boys taking on the locals, with Oz taking on hooray Henry, very funny. The class system is very much in play, the 80's were such a different time (nicer!)

Jimmy Nail is fabulous once again, that scene where he's trying to catch fish by hand, was just so good. The show just wouldn't have worked without him.

The SDP, The Party of the future, that was an amusing scene, the party that literally amounted to nothing.

7/10.

This is the worst episode in series two, perhaps even all of AWP. (It's a while since I watched series three and four, so I can't compare it with them just now) This is saying something, as series two was much weaker than the original series.

Most of it is taken up with how the lads interact with the local nobs and would-be gentry, who live around Thornley Manor. Most of the upper class characters are one dimensional Hugos and Henriettas, with only Sir James and Celestia having any depth. Cue lines like "Why are you annoying my dog?" and "Someone should throw these people out." You get the picture. We know Oz can be a wee bit coarse and gauche, but shoving him into these scenarios is predictable, and not very clever. The only thing which lightens the mood is Barry's ridiculous spiel about the SDP being the "party of the future" which would make the "class war meaningless" (it ceased to be a year or two after he said this and turned into the Lib Dems). It would have been better if the snobbery was dealt with more subtly (there are some hints of this with the Mrs Bellamy character), which could have been done with better writing perhaps.

That said, Arthur Pringle's in this episode, which was always a bonus in series two. It's interesting to hear exactly how his children turned out. His daughter turns out to be a good character, not just a woman for Wayne laying.

High Point: Oz and Barry going poaching.

Low Point: "What are you annoying my dog for?" – A pointless scene with a cardboard cut-out character. The scene in the Cross Keys is almost as bad.

Look out for: Sir James' son, who's actually played by Jimmy Nail's real life son.