Episode Two: The Arrest – Grace and Favour

Broadcast 17 January 1992

After their first night in the hotel, the former staff of Grace Brothers tries to adjust to life in the country.

Mrs Slocombe tries to arouse Mr Humphries and gets a big surprise.

Mr Humphries goes to-ing fro-ing with Mavis in the woodshed.

Mrs Slocombe and Captain Peacock head for the village on a horse and cart but there’s trouble ahead.

Having been confined to the shop floor for so long, the staff of the former Grace Bros department store inevitably find themselves struggling to adapt to their new life in the country and it begins as soon as they get down for breakfast. There’s nothing laid on here; as Miss Brahms remarks, the milk is still in the cow, the eggs are under the hen and the rest is in the pigsty. Oh, and there’s a mouse in the teapot!

But there’s an even greater shock in store (pardon the pun) for Mrs Slocombe, who decides it’s time to arouse Mr Humphries. He’s had a dream in which the farmer’s daughter got into bed with him and is telling her about it when Mavis casually walks in and rummages under the bedclothes for a sock! A stunned Mrs Slocombe hurries downstairs to the kitchen, but before she gets a chance to tell the others, Mavis herself comes running down the stairs and quite innocently asks if anyone has seen her knickers!

There’s even more to gossip about when Mavis takes him into the woodshed. It’s all quite innocent though; they need to saw logs to throw on the antiquated boiler (no modern central heating here), but Miss Brahms tells Mrs Slocombe Mavis has lit his fire! He certainly seems to have taken on a new lease of life!

Mrs Slocombe soon has problems of her own, however, when she goes to fetch the eggs from the hen house and has to be prised out by a rather “fresh” Mr Moultered. It becomes evident later on that he’s more familiar with her than she lets on and it transpires that she had a brief encounter with him years before.

As if she didn’t have enough to cope with, Mrs Slocombe encounters further trouble when she takes a trip to the village with Captain Peacock on a horse and cart. Their journey, however, is abruptly cut short when another horse and cart blocks the path, its driver having to attend to a personal matter behind a tree! Mrs Slocombe thinks she can get the horse to move out of the way but the horse has other ideas and gallops off into the distance with her on board and Captain Peacock following behind.

For Mr Rumbold, the new manager, there are more pressing matters to attend to and he calls a meeting to discuss their new situation. How will they run the hotel? How will they get paid? Can they get more staff? They reluctantly agree their only option is to run the hotel themselves since Mr Rumbold’s feeble attempts to advertise for more staff receive few replies and those they do get are of dubious quality. Fortunately for the Grace Bros staff, Mr Grace’s solicitor arrives with cheques from the pension fund so they can pay them their wages.

Another reason for Mr Thorpe’s appearance is to represent Mrs Slocombe in the forthcoming trial, which is the basis of the next episode. She has now been arrested for stealing a gypsy cart (a lesser charge of exposure being mercifully dropped), while Captain Peacock is done for speeding.

All these concerns are of no interest to Miss Lovelock , whose only interest is riding her stallion, much to the annoyance of Mrs Slocombe and Miss Brahms who don’t see why she should be there at all. She does have one duty to perform though: signing the cheques as a co-beneficiary of Mr Grace’s will, which an admiring Captain Peacock delights in assisting her with.

It’s good to see these characters in a new environment and out of their comfort zones. There’s more opportunity for mishaps and, not surprisingly, even more innuendoes, while the new characters add a whole new dimension to the series: there’s the charming naivety of Mavis, the glamorous Miss Lovelock, and hints of an intriguing back story with the local farmer, Mr Moultered. Without them, life in the country would be much less interesting.

Also Appearing

Miss Prescott (Mr Thorpe’s secretary)…………..Shirley Cheriton

Mr Thorpe (solicitor)……………………………………..Michael Bilton

Joseph Lee (gypsy cart driver)… ………………….Andrew Joseph

Fox Hunter……………………..…………….………………..Martyn Townsend

Next episode: The Court Case in which Mrs Slocombe finds herself in the dock