Birds of a Feather

- Season 4

(1992)

Despite its shaky start, Sharon's café is now thriving and she can even afford to take on an assistant, the super-efficient Gloria. By contrast Tracey feels inferior as she can only get menial jobs, so Sharon, knowing she is good at figures, asks her to become her book-keeper. Tracey initially feels patronised but comes up trumps by exposing Gloria as cheating Sharon. Dorien becomes reflective and feels she should stop her cycle of one-night stands, beginning by giving hunky Wayne the push. She starts to waver but Sharon is there for her...

Garth comes home for the holidays and incurs Tracey's displeasure by announcing that he wants to study at a catering college in Nottingham, which she feels is a waste of an expensive education. Dorien also goes to college, to pursue a psychology course - and its handsome tutor Philip, whose sympathy she seeks by pretending that she is a penniless widow.

Sharon is appalled when Chris informs her that he is dumping her for a woman named Tina. Chris she can do without but Tina has been promised the café, which is what really hurts. Fortunately when Tina sees that the café is not what Chris had cracked it up to be she departs from his life and Sharon is back in business. Dorien considers living in sin, or rather Walthamstow, with her young lover Luke, but she misses her creature comforts and returns to Chigwell.

Sharon wants a man and submits a video tape of herself to a video dating agency. She meets laddish Mike, who takes her to a Rolling Stones concert and claims to know all the big names in rock but is exposed by Garth. Tracey thinks Sharon would be better off with shy, stammering Jimmy and organizes a meeting but she had forgotten that Dorien had also submitted a tape.

Auntie Sylvie, just out of hospital, comes to convalesce with Tracey and Sharon and proves to be very demanding, as well as encouraging Garth to buy a motor-bike against his mother's wishes. They consider putting her in a home but feel unable to go through with it, though fortunately she has a mind of her own.

Sharon has a new man in her life, Gil, and this time it could be the real thing as far as she's concerned. The only trouble is that he wants her to move to Norfolk with him and Tracey is not happy. Oddly enough though it's Chris,who is having problems in prison, who persuades her to stay.

Fed up with her slobbish Greek customers, Sharon decides to make her cafe more upmarket and orders from a Jewish caterer suggested by Dorien. She is ostracized by the entire Greek community and the cafe looks like closing until she visits a Greek Orthodox priest who saves the day for her.

After Darryl comments that she has put on weight, Tracey goes on a diet, suffering but losing ten pounds in the process, but when she goes back to see Darryl he is now worried she looks too alluring and needs her reassurance. Dorien cannot fathom why Brett, her hunky young builder, does not want sex with her and assumes he is gay but Sharon gets to find out otherwise.

Dorien is depressed because she has reached the menopause but hormone replacement treatment soon puts the smile back on her face. Tracey is annoyed because she feels Darryl fails to give Garth sufficient praise but all is sorted out on a visit. But can Sharon and Chris's little problem, his infertility, be solved by adopting a Bulgarian orphan?

Tracey gets a boost when she lands a temporary job as secretary to Bill, managing director of a printing company, but his smarmy ways and efforts to hit on her get her down and finally she organizes the other secretaries to get their own back on him. Sharon and Dorien, inspired by watching 'Thelma and Louise', also try to teach him a lesson but it all goes rather wrong.

Dorien has completed her bonkbuster novel and its publication is forthcoming but, concerned that Marcus doesn't identify her with some of the heroine's racy escapades, she gives Sharon's name as the authoress. Sharon puts up a convincing charade when he publisher calls but when a re-write is called for and Dorien is away on holiday, five people have to collaborate on the chapter.

Sharon and Tracey are desperate for a holiday and the answer seems to lie in the first prize at the local karaoke contest. Unfortunately, they never get to perform 'I Will Survive' because Sharon gets stage fright and, whilst Tracey is comforting her, Dorien takes the microphone to perform an abandoned version of 'Like a Virgin'. She wins the prize which she donates to the sisters. After all, she wouldn't be seen dead on a charter flight.

Sharon needs eight grand up front when the landlords of her café want to increase the rent in line with her new lease. Tracey refuses to put her house up as collateral and Dorien, who has a few grand to dispose of for tax purposes, gives it to charity after Sharon insults her. Fortunately Sharon has confidence in herself as a business woman to meet the problem head on.

When the case against Darryl's associate Trevor Mimms is thrown out of court due to unreliable evidence from Inspector Tatum - who arrested Darryl and Chris - the sisters wonder if their lads might have been fitted up by Tatum and start a campaign to free the Chigwell Two. Tracey goes on daytime TV and finds a lawyer to fight the case but she comes to realise that she may be kidding herself. Dorien is unsympathetic until Marcus is arrested as a suspected drugs baron. When Trevor gets sent down for another robbery the sisters realise the truth but he does give them a ...