Miss Jones and Son

No, this wasn't a spin-off from 'Rising Damp'. This Miss Jones was a young mum from London, played by Paula Wilcox, bringing up her child alone after the father, a Fleet Street journalist, does a runner ( the swine! ). Richard Waring specialised in forgettable, middle-of-the-road domestic sitcoms, such as 'Not In Front Of The Children', and this was more of the same. Miss Jones was middle-class, had a trendy flat, wall-to-wall friends, and a sympathetic neighbour ( Christopher Beeny ) who carried a torch for her. It was twee, sickly, unreal. Yet, amazingly, it attracted the wrath of Mary Whitehouse! The Great Mary ( who'd also railed against that other sinful show 'Robin's Nest' ) thought that single parenthood was not a fit subject for comedy and publicly complained before it went on air. After only two seasons, the show ended and the world got back to normal. The theme tune by the late Roger Webb was identical to one he'd written for a 1974 soft-porn film called 'The Amorous Milkman' )!

The wonderful Paula Wilcox was a popular star of Man About the House and this served as a follow-up of sorts for her. Though Robin (Richard O'Sullivan) was the main character of that series and always first billed, every episode featured Paula in a key role. And very often she was the lead character of an episode. This time Paula as the title character is unequivocally the lead.

Paula is delightful again but the support cast is less than riveting. (There is also a big cast changeover between the first and second series.) The scripts aren't very funny and lack strong jokes. The characters are archetypes and the stories are pretty thin, nearly always relying on misunderstandings and mistaken identity while characters pull confused faces or try to cover something up. Often Paula's character Liz Jones is covering up the fact she has a baby or is unmarried.

Unlike her MATH character, Paula's character here is fairly onenote and superficial: generally nice, often silly, always chatty.

The first series ends with the promise of a new romance for Liz but the opening scene of series two explains he went back to his wife. It is a pity as this was the only storyline I found interesting.

If not for Paula's participation I expect there would have been very little interest in this series (then or now). It is of interest only to see Paula's next big role after MATH.

There's nothing groundbreaking here but the effervescent Paula Wilcox, an excellent cast and a crackling script carry the slack and make up for the silly and unimaginative stories.

The series' employs the British 'farce' tradition of misunderstandings and uncomfortable situations to generate daft premises, but they mostly work well.

Best episode (and finest example of this) is the third episode of the second series which guest stars both Judy Loe and Derek Fowlds as a married couple, whose arguments stand in the way of a promotion at work.

The 70's was a decade filled with some truly dreadful British sitcoms as well as some awesome classics. This falls comfortably in between the two extremes.

I just binge watched the two series' as I missed it the first time around. I'm glad I did. Lovely and cheerful Paula Wilcox is a joy to listen to as she navigates her middle class life as a single mom. Despite the silliness, it's great fun.