British Men Behaving Badly

- Season 5

(1996)

Gary and Dorothy are back together whilst Tony is busking his way around Europe and seems likely to stay there so Dorothy moves her things into the flat. Then Tony returns, complete with a bushy beard, though he trims it down to a moustache to try and look sophisticated for - an unimpressed - Deborah. Gary now has a quandary. His best friend and his lover are in the flat but is it big enough for the three of them?

Dorothy and Tony are both living at the flat but Tony interrupts Gary and Dorothy in bed to inform them that Les, the seedy landlord of their local, the Crown, has been ousted, and the pub is being refurbished. In protest the men try other pubs but end up back at the Crown, whose new landlord Ken only got the job through nepotism. However, angry that she is having to do all the housework, Dorothy goes to the Crown and shows Gary up with a display of blokeishness that gets them both barred. Tony meanwhile makes crude attempts to win over Deborah, who is into astrology,...

Stuck in a traffic jam Gary forces Dorothy to sound the horn but leaves her to face the violent driver this has offended. To prove he is not a coward he arranges for a stooge to meet him at the pub so he can impress Dorothy by hitting him. He certainly floors a rude and insulting man, though this was not the stooge in question. Tony, now working at the pub, is intrigued when Deborah's friend Judy comes to stay and suspects that they are Lesbians. Deborah plays along.

Tony is now working at the Crown and risking blood poisoning with his home-made tattoo, 'Deborah, I Love You', which he carves into his leg, but shortening it to just 'Deb' due to the pain. Dorothy is fed up with him so he moves into the pub but Gary misses his drinking pal so much that he brings in a life size dummy of him. Eventually matters resolve themselves when Tony moves back and Dorothy moves in with Deborah.

Gary is feeling middle-aged. Not only is he dressing like George but Anthea mistakes him for their older colleague. He decides to prove his youth by going to a rave but, after getting lost, he eventually throws up on arrival. Deborah is now a mature student and is befriended by the very young Adam, of whom Tony is insanely jealous, though she declines to have sex with both of them. Tony and Gary ultimately agree that the only way to act their age is to dance very badly in the Crown.

Tony discovers that Gary has been hoarding a large nest egg in the flat and tells everybody they know, including George and Anthea, who demand a pay rise. Dorothy makes him donate a cheque worth £5,000 to the hospital but he attempts to Tippex out the noughts whilst she is asleep and, when this fails, reports his cheque-book and credit card as stolen. To make things up he buys her jewellery - though this turns out to be rather cheaper than it looks. Tony meanwhile takes drastic steps to lose weight when Deborah comments that he is getting chubby.

When Dorothy and Deborah go away for the weekend Tony builds a sauna in the she - or a shedna, as he terms it. The lads meet two attractive girls who are staying next door and invite them to a barbecue, followed by a session in the shedna. Whilst Tony fails to get anywhere with the happily married Paula Gary is seduced by Carol, though he later feels unusually guilty, believing he has done Dorothy wrong. Tony finally persuades Deborah to try the shedna but it blows up before they can use it.