Birds of a Feather

- Season 3

(1991)

The sisters cannot see eye to eye. Tracey disapproves of Sharon's forging Chris's signature on his premium bond win claim and Sharon disapproves of the way Darryl's appearance has gone to seed, prompting her to get Chris to have a man-to-man with him. Tracey gets a letter from him, asking her to dress in a sexy fashion on her next visit and Dorien offers to lend her her most revealing little numbers but will she go through with it?

Charles Fitzroy, who claims to be a motorist needing water for his car, knocks at the door and gets Sharon talking about herself, Tracey and Dorien. Then she wonders if he is a police spy getting information on Chris and Darryl and regrets talking too much. In the event he is a tabloid journalist onto a story about Marcus's work for a fraudster and when Marcus and Dorien return from a holiday in Zurich, Dorien's racy love life is all over the front page.

Whilst selling double-glazing in a shopping mall Sharon runs into her old flame Dave. He is now married and his wife is heavily pregnant, which is what he wanted for himself and Sharon and she broods on what might have been. Tracey is slaving over a hot stove now Garth is home from school and Dorien is out to look at her most glamorous when she attends her nephew's circumcision.

After years of silence Darryl's parents, Les and Olive, who don't get on with Tracey, write to him and Tracey agrees to ask them round for dinner. Dorien comes in to cook it, largely because she has given Tracey's number to her latest bit on the side, and, when he rings, Les and Olive are appalled, writing to Darryl accusing Tracey of running a sex chat line. They suggest that they should move in to become her moral guardians, but when Tracey and Darryl confront them on a prison visit it becomes obvious they are only out for themselves and Darryl tells them to get ...

Tracey feels that she should get a job but, because Darryl has always insisted she should not go out to work, she lacks self-confidence - so Sharon starts her off helping Siobhan, who runs the newsletter for prisoners' wives. Sharon then goes with her to apply for a receptionist job but Tracey is over-awed by the notion of having to fill in the application form so Sharon fills it in and gets the job.

When Tracey's video breaks down and her toy boy stands her up, Dorien suggests a hang-gliding weekend for three but falls over and ends up in a private clinic, where her snobbery comes to the fore. The sisters decide to shame her by posing as her cleaners and sending a bag-lady in to visit her.

Sharon and Dorien are going to a car boot sale and, whilst clearing the garage for sale items, Tracey finds an album with a photo of a drunken Darryl snogging a mystery woman at a party. After a row Sharon moves in with Dorien and confides in her that she thinks she was the woman in question. The boot sale goes down a storm with Dorien copping off with a professional buyer and, after Sharon has moved back in with her sister, the true identity of the girl in the photo is revealed.

The sisters and Dorien are on a trip to the Isle of Wight where Chris and Darryl have been transferred to Albany prison. When Tracey gets food poisoning and Sharon takes her back to their hotel, Dorien uses Sharon's visiting order to interview Chris for a book she is writing on prisons. She is taken in by his criticisms of Sharon as a bad wife but Sharon gets her own back when a poem, supposedly by Darryl, is read out.

Desmond Gibbs, who claims he took Darryl under his wing when he was first sent down, turns up at Tracey's house. He is a loser who breaks everything he touches but she feels sorry for him and, to Sharon's annoyance, lets him stay. They get him a job as chauffeur to the injured Marcus but he manages to wreck not only Marcus's car but Dorien's plans for afternoon delight.

Sharon faces prosecution by the Social Security since they pay rent for her old flat when she no longer lives there and her lodger is in prison. When she and Tracey visit the flat they find squatters have moved in and the lady next door uses the address to order from a record club without paying. They manage to change the locks whilst the squatters are out but find that Dorien has been using Sharon's experiences as a model for the heroine of her saucy novel.

Sharon accuses Tracey of inverted snobbery when she is annoyed with Garth for spending his school holidays with hunting and shooting types and feels she cannot bring herself to tell her sister that her new boyfriend, Mark, is upper-class. However, when Dorien takes Sharon for a riding lesson and they meet Mark and his controlling mother, Sharon realizes that he is not the man for her.

Chris inherits a café and Sharon is so pleased to be running it she celebrates by drinking Greek brandy, which, mixed with the medication she's on, causes her to throw up in a policeman's helmet. Business starts to boom but Dorien gets side-tracked whilst on the sandwich run and Tracey walks out when she feels Sharon is exploiting her. When the police get called for a second time Sharon's business seems doomed but Dorien knows someone who needs a cleaner.

Abel Kane, ex-rock star and ex-cellmate of Darryl, offers the sisters, Garth and Dorien free use of his villa in Majorca. On arrival the women are shocked to find Darryl and Chris are there, having escaped whilst touring with the prison rock band. Helpful local Pedro comes in to clean and rescues the three women after they have been marooned on an island after a boat trip. On return to the villa, however, they find someone has planted drugs in Dorien's hand-bag, leading to their arrest. Fortunately Darryl uses his insider information to bust a drug-smuggling racket ...