List of George and Mildred Episodes

This is a list of episodes of ITV sitcom *George and Mildred*.

## Series 3 (1978)

 Mildred invites people to her coffee morning, but the only guest who arrives is Ann, who is heavily pregnant.
Jerry tells George about a scheme to take pigeons from Trafalgar Square to create a 'pigeon farm'. They would breed them, kill them, fry them and sell them in a chain of shops. George has very little money, so he thinks it a good idea to sell the house to raise the capital to back it. He goes to Fourmile to ask him to put the house on the market, which he gleefully does without charging any commission. Mildred is angry when she finds out from Ann that George tried to sell it, so it is taken off the market. Jerry tells George that he has another scheme - selling newts.
 2
 After their bed breaks when George sits on it, Mildred is determined that they buy a new one. However, their attempt to buy one in a shop fails because they do not have enough money and George is on a hire purchaseblacklist. George bets on a horse race accumulator and wins, but when he comes to collect his winnings the bookmaker only gives him 85 pence, after deducting the money owed by George from previous losing bets.
 3
 Mildred receives a letter from an American, Lee Kennedy, with whom she had a fling during WW2 when he was a flight sergeant. She accepts his invitation to have dinner with him at the Dorchester Hotel. She is pleased to see him, but is soon disappointed when he tells her that he has also invited 18 other women, who soon arrive.
George phones Gloria Rumbold, with whom he had a five-year nonsexual relationship when she was young, slim and soft-spoken. He arranges to meet her in the pub. However, he leaves before meeting her when he sees that she is now a plump, outspoken, middle-aged woman who works in a massage parlour.
 4
 Mildred's brother-in-law Humphrey offers George a job, but the notoriously lazy George does not want it, despite Mildred's insistence. After learning that Humphrey is planning a weekend away in Jersey with his attractive young secretary Maggie, George tells Humphrey that he will not tell Ethel about his trip if he claims that there is no job at his firm for him. When Ethel finds the tickets for Jersey in Humphrey's jacket pocket, he claims that they are a present for George and Mildred and she gives the tickets to them. When George reveals that Humphrey's plan was to take his secretary, Humphrey rips up the tickets.
George takes a job from Fourmile - advertising his company by walking along the street wearing a sandwich board.
 5
 Ann goes into labour whilst Jeffrey is away at work in Birmingham. George takes her to the hospital in his sidecar. At the hospital, the staff wrongly assume that George is her husband - and he faints whilst watching the birth.
 6
 George's father moves into an old folks' home, then turns up at George and Mildred's house after claiming that he was thrown out of the home. Mildred phones the home's manager, who tells him that he was not evicted - he left because they would not allow him to keep his ferrett there. At the house, it escapes. Fourmile accidentally kills it by running over it, then gives them a live one to replace it.
Reg Lye, Beatrix Mackey, and Tim Barrett appear in this episode.

## Film version

Main article: George and Mildred (film)

Following the fifth series, a feature film version of the series was produced in 1980.[1] The film was not written by Cooke and Mortimer but by Dick Sharples.[2] The Fourmiles only played a small role in the film, which focused on George and Mildred celebrating their wedding anniversary, at Mildred's insistence, at an upmarket London hotel. It featured several guest stars including Stratford Johns, Kenneth Cope and Vicki Michelle.[3] The film was neither a critical nor box office success.[4] It was shown on ITV on Christmas Day 1980.[5]

## The end

The final caption of the *George and Mildred* film read "The End - or is it the beginning?" It was to prove to be the former as Yootha Joyce died from portal cirrhosis of the liver due to chronic alcoholism on 24 August 1980, before the film was released. Friends and colleagues were unaware that Joyce had been habitually consuming half a bottle of brandy every day for over 10 years.

In 2004, on an audio commentary on the Australian Umbrella DVD release of *George and Mildred*: the Complete Series 2, Brian Murphy revealed that there had been plans for a sixth series of eight episodes of the show. These were to have been recorded in late 1980. Murphy also revealed that this was due to have been the final series of *George and Mildred*, as he and Yootha Joyce were afraid of being typecast after playing the characters since 1973 on television and in two films. However, despite scripts being written, Joyce's hospitalisation and subsequent death brought a premature end to the show. Her funeral took place on the day the cast were due to begin rehearsals for the new series. Speaking of their relationship in a 2001 ITV programme, *The Unforgettable Yootha Joyce*, Murphy said that when they had first met at Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop he had, "always regarded Yootha as very stylish and very confident. I was rather over-awed by her at first, full of admiration for her. "At her death, "People said, 'You've lost a working partner' and I said, 'No, I've lost a chum'... and then I realised I've lost my working partnership *as well*...".

Thames Television did consider producing a spin-off for the character of George, looking at him cope with life as a widower. However, this project did not materialise, though Brian Murphy did reunite with *George and Mildred* co-star Roy Kinnear and writers Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke for *The Incredible Mr. Tanner*, a comedy produced by Thames Television in 1981.