Married Single Other

Monday, 22 February 2010, 9:00PM - 10:00PM – ITV1

Lillie (Lucy Davis) and Eddie (Shaun Dooley) have been going out for 16 years. They live together and they have two children, Harry (Tom Kane) and Joe (Jack Scanlon). Their relationship is perfect, except that Eddie wants to get married and Lillie doesn’t. Every year on Lillie’s birthday, Eddie proposes, but every year she says no. Lillie argues that marriage destroys love; she sees it happen everyday at the central women’s shelter where she works.

It’s Lillie’s birthday and this year Eddie hopes she will change her mind and accept his proposal, but when Lillie wakes to find post-it notes stuck on the bedroom window spelling ‘will you marry me?’ she turns him down flat.

Being 16 years old, Harry couldn’t think of anything more embarrassing than going to his parents wedding. However, 11 year old Joe is determined to see his parents tie the knot. Joe wants Eddie to propose at Lillie’s birthday party but when Lillie is attacked by Mr Connelly (Neil Bell), an ex-husband breaking his restraining order at the women’s shelter, Eddie realises she will never change her mind and agree to marry him.

As Lillie’s birthday party approaches, Joe decides that if he

Six-part romantic comedy drama, Married Single Other, tells the story of three couples trying to work out what a couple is these days. Starring Amanda Abbington, Lucy Davis, Shaun Dooley, Dean Lennox Kelly, Ralf Little and Miranda Raison, Married Single Other, is produced by Left Bank Pictures, a company founded by former ITV Drama executive, Andy Harries.

Married

Babs (Amanda Abbington) has realised her relationship is in real trouble. She can no longer live with her useless, but lovable, husband, Dickie (Dean Lennox Kelly), who has a unique talent for spending his days and her income on ‘great ideas’. Frustrated by his frivolous approach to life, Babs is faced with one of the biggest decisions of her life.  Should she divorce Dickie after all they’ve been through together?

Single

Clint (Ralf Little), Dickie’s brother, has never dated the same girl twice. Until he meets Abbey (Miranda Raison), a gorgeous model, who turns his world upside down and makes him question his one night stand approach to relationships.  For the first time in his life he wants a proper girlfriend. And in order to persuade her he’s boyfriend material, Clint has to change his attitude to love and romance.  Is he a confirmed womaniser or will he settle down and be faithful to one woman for the rest of his life?

Other

Childhood sweethearts, Lillie (Lucy Davis) and Eddie (Shaun Dooley), have been together for 16 years and are blissfully happy. Eddie has proposed on 16 different occasions, but each time he crashes and burns.  Lillie still refuses to wed Eddie, claiming she loves him too much to marry him. However, when she encounters an abusive husband, whilst working at the women’s refuge, her opinion on life dramatically changes.  She also never realised how much her young son, and child prodigy, Joe (Jack Scanlon) wanted her to marry his Dad until she finds his secret scrapbook. It’s a life changing moment for Lillie as the impact of what she discovers sinks in.

Married Single Other also stars Leila Mimmack as Gina, Babs’ 15 year old daughter from a previous relationship, Tom Kane as Harry, Lillie and Eddie’s eldest son, Gina Yashere as Eddie’s co-worker Flo and Oona Chaplin as feisty man-eater, Fabiana.

ITV’s Director of Drama Commissioning, Laura Mackie, is delighted with the project:  “Married Single Other is a fantastic mix of laugh out loud humour, high emotion and true romance brought to the screen by a wonderful ensemble cast.”

Executive Producer, Andy Harries (The Damned United, Cold Feet, The Queen, Prime Suspect), said: “Peter has created a script which offers a romantic and sweet take on modern day life, against a sometimes bitter and realistic background. I’m thrilled to be working with him and we have an outstanding cast and crew on board.”

Married Single Other is a Left Bank Pictures production for ITV1 and is executive produced by Andy Harries and Francis Hopkinson, alongside writer Peter Souter and Hugo Heppell from Screen Yorkshire.

The 6 x 60 minute series has been filmed in Leeds and produced by Radford Neville (Wuthering Heights) and directed by Declan Lowney (Cold Feet, Father Ted, Little Britain) and Charles Martin (Skins).

Married Single Other has been commissioned by Laura Mackie, Director of Drama ITV and Sally Haynes, Controller of Drama ITV and is supported by Screen Yorkshire through its Production Fund.

Babs’ life is anything but simple. Her marriage is on the rocks and her teenage daughter, is well, a teenager.

Babs is Lillie’s best friend. Without Lillie she would be lost. They met when Lillie looked after her on her first day at school while the other girls were still deciding whether her nickname should be Baps or Boobera.

Babs and Lillie were teenage mums together. Lillie because she knew instantly that Eddie was her man and wanted to be a young mother, Babs because she was drunk, horny and didn’t like the feel of latex.

Babs fell in love with and married Richard Trench, Dickie to his numerous friends.  Never have two people been more sexually compatible. And Babs loves sex.  Unfortunately she’s having doubts about Dickie. His epic laziness and addiction to the internet has left the couple hopelessly in debt.  Babs has clawed her way towards an Open University Psychology qualification and a new life as a counsellor.  She loves him, but now she has a parachute she may just use it.

She may be a child psychologist but Babs struggles as a mum are huge. Her teenage daughter, Gina, is her kryptonite. At all other times she is clever, sardonic and rather sophisticated, but confronted with her offspring she is petulant and utterly unreasonable…just like Gina.

If Dickie designed himself a website it would have to be called www.slowmotiondisaster.com

Dickie is married to Babs and loves her completely, but his innate laziness and impulsive ideas do less than impress. As a result his marriage is crumbling around him. Sex is the one thing he is really good at, and the one thing that keeps Babs coming back for more.

Dickie is not really a dad to Gina, more a laid back older brother with a carefree attitude to parenting.

Essentially, Dickie is a big, muscular lay-about. His easy charm is mostly employed to give him an easy life.

Dickie infuriates Babs because he has spent every penny he has ever earned on…stuff. Stuff with no use to anyone. Loveable Dickie has bankrupted the whole family in an entirely unlovable way.

His great (though sedentary) passion in life is the interwebulator. But he’s the world’s least successful web designer. He has a stunning talent for clicking and dragging, married to an unerring ability to seek out what is least commercial and dedicate himself to it.

Dickie creates the sites that interest him with no thought given to those that might interest other people.  And yet…there’s always the chance that one of his ideas will turn out to be an accidental home run…

When Eddie tries to convince Clint that marriage is sexy Clint replies: “What’s the point in being sexy if you’re not allowed to shag anyone?”

Clint is sharp, good looking, driven and utterly unencumbered by conscience. He has a good job in advertising but plans to get an even better one.

Clint is stereotypically materialistic and a bit of a show-off. He is determined to have more of anything than anyone else – more success, more money and more sex. But he is very well equipped to get more; he’s richer than any of his friends (though that’s not saying much). And he’s recently met Abbey, a small time model.

Clint’s usual behaviour pattern is to pick up girls, sleep with them and never call them again. But Abbey is smarter than that. She refuses to sleep with Clint for a month, and makes him run around after her like a puppy dog.

For the first time in his life, Clint realises he’s in love and that he may have to change his ways for good.  However, when he meets a gorgeous Brazilian stripper, Fabiana, his willpower and self-control is well and truly put to the test…

Abbey is gorgeous and a small time catalogue model with a crippling desire to please.  She’s smartish, funnyish and unrelentingly kind and thoughtful.

Modelling work starts to dry up in your late twenties, and while Abbey has still got it, she’s no fool and at 29 knows it’ll be time to move on very soon. Just at the moment she’s looking for something new to interest her, Clint walks into her life.

Clint is the last person in the world Abbey would normally go for. Being a model she meets guys like him all the time. Guys who are looking for a quick shag and then disappear before the sun rises.

Abbey rejoices in sending Clint away with his tail between his legs. But, when Clint continues to pursue her, Abbey decides to set him a challenge; she wants to meet his friends so she can find out from them what he’s really like…

Abbey makes Clint work hard for her love, and in doing so they both learn a lot about themselves and each other.

Will Clint turn out to be her one true love?

When you first meet Eddie what you see isn’t what you get. On paper, Eddie is ordinary. He’s an ordinary height, ordinary build, and has an ordinary face.

You might be surprised to find out that he’s going out with the passionate, fiery Lillie. However, when you get to know him better you’ll realise that it’s Lillie who is lucky because Eddie is, in fact, extraordinary.

Eddie is silly, warm, thoughtful and wise in a left-school-at-sixteen-but-sees-the-world-with-utter-clarity kind of way. Eddie is as loyal and fluffy as a Golden Retriever.

Eddie joined the Ambulance service because he wanted to be a union activist.  But, when the whole idea of unions evaporated in the greedy nineties, he stayed on to fix people instead.

He pulls off a neat trick by being totally under Lillie’s thumb while maintaining pride and quiet masculinity.  He does what Lillie wants because he loves her absolutely and because he really does think she’s always right.

If you’re a father you’ll find Eddie pretty hard to be around.  He’s the only man in the universe who would genuinely rather play with his boys than read the paper or watch football.  As a result he finds it slightly harder to keep male friends than female ones.  His only real male friends are Dickie and Clint. He hangs around with Dickie because Dickie’s wife, Babs, is Lillie’s old school friend and Clint is an extra bonus because he’s Dickie’s brother.

Eddie’s life is unglamorous, “My job is to let drunk people be sick on my shoes”, but it is also pretty perfect.  And that’s when the Gods pick on you, right?

You’ve gotta love Lillie. Although she’s not much bigger than a pint of milk, Lillie is brave, funny, and utterly without vanity. She’s a totally unromantic and uncompromising partner to Eddie, but she loves him with a passion that would frighten a pride of lionesses.  Just don’t expect her to say “I love you” out loud.

Lillie is a brilliant if somewhat combative mum. She’s 35, had her children early, and went back to work immediately. Both she and Eddie are shift workers, and it’s been hard but they managed with a little child minding help from her mum. Being second generation Irish, she is allergic to injustice and to say that Lillie has a short fuse is to mistake her for someone who has any kind of fuse at all.

Lillie spent her twenties in dead-end jobs that let her pursue her passion for getting arrested: “Nobody believes in anything any more and even I don’t have time since the kids, but when I was young I believed that things could be changed. I believed that you shouldn’t stand by while bad things happened. I stood where you shouldn’t stand.  Chained myself to stuff you are not allowed to chain yourself too. I made noise about all the usual suspects: Smoking Dogs, unfair taxes, carelessly placed bombs. All the clichés…”

Lillie is, incidentally, the person who put the grass Mohican on Churchill’s head during the Trafalgar Square Poll tax riot.

A few years ago she stumbled into a job at a shelter for abused women. At the shelter she fell in love for only the second time in her life; the shelter is everything to her, a seemingly endless opportunity to try and fix broken things.

Home life for Lillie and Eddie is a bit of a struggle. Although money is tight and they have two eccentric and sometimes difficult kids, they have a love so powerful nothing can touch them. Well, almost nothing.

Amanda was lucky enough to have had existing relationships with the majority of the cast prior to filming, “I’ve known Dean for years; we first met when we did a commercial together. I knew Lucy through my partner Martin Freeman, I’d worked with Shaun before and I’ve worked with Miranda three times. It helped knowing Lucy as our characters are best friends. The only person I didn’t know on this project was Ralf.”

Discussing the nature of her on-screen relationship with Dickie (Dean Lennox Kelly), Amanda says: “Babs and Dickie are the ‘married’ couple. When we meet Babs she’s at the end of her tether with Dickie and she’s finding it very difficult to keep the marriage alive. Dickie loves her, she’s his soul mate and she does love him, but their marriage isn’t working. She can’t keep bailing him out, as there are bills mounting up because he’s got a bit of a gambling problem and she has her 16 year old daughter to think about. There’s a scene in episode two when Babs and Dickie are at a dinner party in Clint’s house and Dickie is gambling on his mobile phone. That’s the final straw for her!

“Babs is a child psychologist, but she can’t get her career off the ground because she’s put everything into Dickie’s work even though he’s never helped her. That is another bone of contention; he’s waiting for his big chance and keeps trying to set up websites but they all keep failing and he’s terrible with money.

“They have such an up and down relationship, but the one thing that’s brilliant between them is the sex.”

On the subject of Dickie and Babs’ animated sex life and how it was to be captured on screen Amanda says: “I had a nudity clause in my contract because no-one wants to see my naked body believe me, I’ve had two children! It’s all shot from the waist up but still works to convey the scene very well, as you can see it all but you don’t need to see any bits!

“One of my first days filming was a sex scene up against a wall. Luckily I knew Dean so it wasn’t as embarrassing as I thought it would be.”

In the series, Babs has known best friend Lillie since school and ignites a strong friendship with Clint’s on-off girlfriend, Abbey.

“Lillie is Babs’ rock. Lillie tells her she’s an idiot for staying with Dickie and Abbey becomes a very good friend quite quickly after they first meet. All the women are very independent and strong. Babs has been brilliant to play.”

Although a mother herself to two young children, Amanda was terrified to play a mum with a teenage daughter.

Amanda jokes: “Part of me thinks, surely I don’t look old enough to be playing the mum of a 16 year old!! It’s nice though because I’m the only woman in the cast who has children. I’ve adopted the mother hen role!

“Babs has a bit of a love-hate relationship with her daughter, Gina. She had Gina when she was very young. Gina doesn’t know who her real father is because he left when Babs was six months pregnant. Dickie stepped in and he’s been a fantastic father.”

Amanda has high hopes for Married Single Other. She says: “It’s refreshing because I haven’t seen anything like this on television for a while so I’m hoping people will like it. Peter writes really well in terms of friendships and relationships. The series is beautiful; there are so many peaks and troughs. One minute we’re laughing and the next we’re in tears. I think watching relationships and human nature is very interesting.”

Dean Lennox Kelly is instantly recognisable for his breakthrough role as Kev Ball in Channel 4’s Shameless. Now Dean is embarking on a new challenge, playing the loveable yet clueless Dickie in Married Single Other.

“People still think I’m in Shameless! It was so brilliant to do and I had a good  working relationship with Maxine Peake.”

In Married Single Other, Amanda Abbington plays Dean’s on-screen wife, Babs.

“Working with Amanda is a bit like working with Maxine. Our on-screen relationship works, it looks right, it feels right, and we have a similar approach to acting.

“On our first day we filmed a sex scene. It was a bit weird, but there’s no naked bodies wriggling about, and it was quite harmless.

“It’s funny as actors on the whole are pretty gregarious. You have to be pretty open. I find myself saying on most jobs it’s a great job, and a fun cast.  For it to be awkward is very rare.

“Also, I’ve known Amanda for years. We did an advert together playing assistants in a shop and we got on great. Over the years we’ve bumped into each other.”

Amanda wasn’t the only cast member who Dean already knew: “I’ve known Shaun  Dooley for years and I play football with Ralf sometimes.”

In the series sparks are flying early for Dickie and Babs…

“He’s a nice fella but he’s like a big kid.  He doesn’t mean to be bad or lazy or dysfunctional, but he just doesn’t worry about problems. To him, every day is a new day. Babs makes it very clear how unhappy she is, but they’ve been there before and the sex is great.  That’s what he’s good at and what it is that keeps her with him, but perhaps now she’s had enough.  It’s their last chance.

“Dickie is a loveable soul, but he just seems to get things wrong. He’s quite romantic, but frustrates Babs by spending a lot of time on his computer on an online poker game. He’s obsessed with making money so he can set up the next big internet site.”

Unlike Dickie, Dean is not an avid fan of gambling.

“I’ve never gone that way, apart from maybe the Grand National and the football pools years ago!”