Dinnerladies



A two-series Work Com set in a Mancunian factory canteen. Written by, and indeed starring, Victoria Wood, and features a number of her regular collaborators.

The plot follows Brenda "Bren" Furlong (Wood) in an otherwise ordinary canteen job, flanked by four colleagues, the older best friends Dolly and Jean- one uptight and prudish, the other... less so, as well as the younger Twinkle (brassy, loud, ladetteish) and Anita (quiet, ditzy), all presided over by their boss, Tony, and supported by a cast of peripheral factory workers- HR manager Phillipa, planning manager Jane and caretaker Stan. Oh, and Bren's Cloudcuckoolander mum, Petula.

The comedy predominantly comes from the interactions between the cast rather than wacky hijinks, Take Thats, visual gags or blatant vulgarity- to the point that, with the exception of two small scenes involving a hospital and a Game Show, the entire 18-episode production only used one set.

Despite the humour shown, which being a Victoria Wood programme, can often take a turn for the slightly bizarre, most of the characters have darker moments to contend with both on-camera and in their backstories. This generally sees the programme described in listings as "Bittersweet".

Came twenty-eighth in Britain's Best Sitcom.

""Oh ha ha, straight to video.""
 * All Lowercase Letters - the title text.
 * Berserk Button - Anything, according to Stan.
 * Also, Dolly, when she drinks coffee containing Viagra which someone had mistaken for sweetener.
 * Breathless Non-Sequitur - the source of a lot of the show's jokes. Especially when Petula gets her Noodle Implements out.
 * Brick Joke - a non-comedic example. In the very first episode, Petula asks Bren to throw a mobile phone into a bin. In the very last episode, Petula reveals that the phone belonged to someone who gave her a lot of money, which then finds its way to Bren and the other staff. It isn't mentioned in any of the intervening episodes.
 * British Stuffiness - Dolly embodies this trope, frequently name-dropping The Daily Mail.
 * Buffy-Speak - "You know, he's that thing, sort of a bouncy word. Not unicorn Beat Impotent, that's it."
 * Catch Phrase: A few.
 * Norman: "I fell off a diving board in Guernsey!"
 * Dolly: "It was in the Daily Mail!"
 * Blaming everything on "Tony Blair!", saying his name in a hilariously contemptuous manner.
 * Bren: "What's that word? Not X (Beat) Y" - where X and Y are completely unconnected and unalike words.
 * Not unrelated so much as distantly, idiomatically related.
 * "What's that word? Not unicorn, (Beat) dilemma!" - The link here is a horn.
 * "What's them things like cucumbers? (Beat) Suffragettes!" - The link here is courgette.
 * Cloudcuckoolander - Anita, who is just highly ditzy, Phillipa, who just gets a bit muddled up, and Petula, who is under the impression she is a friend of the rich and famous, but actually lives in a caravan behind a petrol station.
 * Cluster F-Bomb: "Never mind your bloody coffee- get in the bloody bloody BLOODY FRIGGING CAR!"
 * Deadpan Snarker - Twinkle.


 * Did Not Do the Research - Averted. Wood went to great lengths to make the canteen as authentic as possible, to appease those who work in canteens.
 * The Disease That Shall Not Be Named - Averted. Tony's Cancer- and its treatment- becomes a major plot point.
 * Do-It-Yourself Theme Tune - On the last episodes of each series, in the credits.
 * Downer Ending - Bren's mum dies, and the canteen is to be closed. Then they pull it out of the bag, so to speak, as Bren rescues the inheritance she accidentally threw away and shares it with her coworkers.
 * Freudian Slip - when visiting royals ask Anita about her views on wearing a uniform.
 * Mistaken for Pregnant - Bren, after a fainting spell brought on by the mention of needles when the blood donor van comes to visit. The punchline to this is itself a Noodle Incident - "We thought you were pregnant" "Not unless sperm can get through a sash window"
 * Show Within a Show - "Totally Trivial"
 * Status Quo Is God - Played relatively straight in the first series (Although nothing of significance really happens in it), but continuity hits hard in the second.
 * Unusual Euphemism - "Can you smell my Charlie?"
 * Video Wills
 * Will They or Won't They?: Bren and Tony. They Do.