Agony (TV series)


Agony is a British sitcom that aired on ITV from 1979 to 1981. Made by London Weekend Television, it stars Maureen Lipman as Jane Lucas who has a successful career as an agony aunt but whose own personal life is a shambles. It was created by Len Richmond and real-life agony aunt Anna Raeburn, both of whom wrote all of the first series. The second and third series were written by Stan Hey and Andrew Nickolds.
Agony was the first British sitcom to portray a gay couple as non-camp, witty, intelligent and happy people.

Cast

Jane Lucas is an agony aunt, who is highly successful in her career working at radio call-in show in London and writing the "Dear Jane" advice column for Person magazine, but whose own marriage and personal life is a complete disaster. Her Jewish mother, Bea, interferes in all aspects of her life, and her gentile psychiatrist husband Laurence is unreliable and emotionally inept during the course of their on/off relationship. Jane's friends and colleagues include her assistant Val, her boss Diana, and her gay neighbours Rob and Michael, all of whom come to her with problems of their own. Meanwhile, Jane has to contend with the constant advances of oversexed, smarmy radio disc jockey Andy Evol and the equally libidinous Vincent Fish.
Although a sitcom, Agony often included subjects in its storylines that were considered taboo at the time such as drug use, racism, and homosexuality, and often included darker, more dramatic storylines such as Jane being held hostage by a crazed maniac, the suicide of one of her friends, and the abduction of her newborn baby.

Reception

Writing in The Guardian, television critic Nancy Banks-Smith praised the series, describing it as "a wide-awake, wise-cracking comedy with a cracking good comedienne in Maureen Lipman" and that "the one-liners are one a second, fast and fresh and funny."

Episodes

Series One (1979)

  1. "Help"
  2. "An Unmarried Couple"
  3. "Conjugal Wrongs"
  4. "Wedlock, Deadlock"
  5. "Forever and Never"
  6. "Too Much Agony, Too Little Ecstasy"

    Series Two (1980)

  7. "Back to Reality"
  8. "Working Girls"
  9. "Coming Out... and Going In Again?"
  10. "Television Can Damage Your Health"
  11. "Problem Parents"
  12. "Second Time Around"
  13. "A Woman Alone"

    Series Three (1981)

  14. "From Here to Maternity"
  15. "Arrivals and Departures"
  16. "Hospital Romances"
  17. "Communications Breakdown"
  18. "Holy Wars"
  19. "Lucas v Lucas"
  20. "Rings Off Their Fingers"

    ''Agony Again''

Agony was revived in 1995, this time on the BBC as Agony Again; produced by the BBC after ITV turned it down; the revived version had originally been pitched to Radio 4, but was felt to have enough potential to again be a television production. In addition, Agony was remade for American television under the name The Lucie Arnaz Show, with Len Richmond as the writer. This ran for six episodes on CBS in 1985 and starred Lucie Arnaz.

DVD releases

All three series of Agony, including a 3-disc set of the complete series, have been released on DVD in the UK by Network DVD.
DVDRelease date
The Complete Series 15 November 2007
The Complete Series 225 April 2008
The Complete Series 317 August 2009
The Complete Series 1 to 3 Box set5 October 2009