You Must Be the Husband

Tom arrives home one day to learn that his wife has become a successful authoress, spending her afternoons penning a romantic novel.

It's something of a mixed bag this one, there are definitely elements that are funny, there are some aspects which are decidedly unfunny.

It's very much a product of its time, a comedy from the aspirational eighties, where success was judged by the size of the balance, the twist here that it's coming from the wife, not the husband.

It's humour that veers between high brow clever humour, to farce, some episodes are straight up sitcom land, others are a little more outlandish, very much with that Duty Free style of farcical humour.

You can't fault the acting, Tim Brooke Taylor and Diane Keen are great as the two lead characters. I'm a fan of Tom, I found Alice hard to warm to. The best character by a mile, for me, was Miranda, who's cynicism and sarcasm I found very funny.

I can't say I'm surprised that it's never had a commercial release, and two series was perhaps the right length for it. It amused me, it's not going to be for everyone.

An amusing watch, not sure I'd deem it a hidden gem, 7/10.

Now that the 'traditional' sitcom has been pretty well killed off in favour of spoof docusoaps, sketch shows and character comedies, it's easy to knock this kind of programme, but having watched it at the time I can honestly say that YOU MUST BE THE HUSBAND really wasn't as bad as some people have said it was. The cast worked well together, there was a nice thread of surrealism running through the scripts and nobody does farcical panic quite like Tim Brooke-Taylor. I later saw him in a stage production in a similar role and he stole the show, in fact, there is a certain 'stagey' quality to this series which might not have helped its cause as far as the critics were concerned. Although the chances of this being repeated are slim, if you enjoyed Tim's patriotic coward persona in THE GOODIES, you'll have a fun time. Sheila Steafel, Garfield Morgan and Terry Hall lent memorable support in the later episodes.