Dream Stuffing

[veghead]

Hi - I was beginning to think I'd imagined it, until I found this:

http://www.britmovie.co.uk/forums/lo...early-80s.html



So does anyone remember anything about it ?



My memory of it was that it involved two girls, one black and one white ,with the white girl being a punk who played the saxophone and who was on the dole.



The titles involved a picture of a grim block of flats that got painted over with a sunny sky and grass and nice things.



I think it aired on Friday nights on Channel 4.



I also seem to think it was by a production company called "Wizzened" (NOT Witzend).



Evidently my Google-fu isn't up to par because I can't find any trace of it.



Any info would be greatly appreciated.

[cornershop15]

The only show I keep coming across in my limited research for early '80s sitcoms is No Problem!, but this appears to have had an all-black cast, including Judith Jacob, later in EastEnders. And it's that programme that brings to mind unemployed punk Mary (Linda Davidson) who had a black friend called Sheena. She was a stripper, played by Dulcie Liecier. But then that's a BBC Soap when you're looking for a Channel 4 sitcom ... and they weren't in a block of flats either! As for the saxophone ...



Sorry I can't be of more help.

[Rowdon]

I definitely remember the series just as veghead describes it. In one scene, the punk says to her flatmate "It's all right for you - you've got built in street cred." because she's got mixed black/white parentage.

I remember it wasn't very good, but it did exist.

It'll only take a flash of brilliance in a google search, and we'll have it. We must not give up.

[veghead]

Guys, thanks for the Moral support. It was certainly around the time of No Problem (which I loved at the time and which provided a good source of actors for future Eastenders episodes.)



The "built in street cred" line rings a huge bell! Also I vaguely remember the Punk girl doing a performance-art piece about signing on...

[veghead]

I think I've got it!

From this wonderful list:

http://www.davebudd.org.uk/sitcom/all



Dream Stuffing!







Dream Stuffing (84) C4 Paul Hines & Su Wilkins

2 girls share council flat. "Eighties Liver Birds"

Rachael Weaver, Amanda Symonds, Maria Charles



Phew - I can sleep now.

[cully]

I think I've got it!

From this wonderful list:

http://www.davebudd.org.uk/sitcom/all



Dream Stuffing!







Dream Stuffing (84) C4 Paul Hines & Su Wilkins

2 girls share council flat. "Eighties Liver Birds"

Rachael Weaver, Amanda Symonds, Maria Charles



Phew - I can sleep now

The only one I really recall is Amanda Symonds, an attractive "big girl"!

I'm not sure Maria Charles does much acting now. Ordered some flowers from a local florist last year and Maria delivered them. She was very active in the 60s and 70s.

[Rowdon]

Fantastic news, Veghead !!!



However, if we both remember the 'street cred' line as a stand-out! I think it was well-intentioned and 'up-to-date- and relevant, but forgot to be very funny.



Get hold of some original Liver Birds stuff instead (the Polly James years).

[cornershop15]

Congratulations, veghead



More information from the Radio Times' Guide to TV Comedy by Mark Lewisohn:



Dream Stuffing

UK-C4 (LIMEHOUSE PRODUCTIONS/HUMPHREY BARCLAY PRODUCTIONS) - SITCOM

[No mention of Wizzened - see first post]



10 x 30 mins - colour (Indeed! This was the 1980s, after all)



6 January - 9 March 1984 - Friday(s), mostly 9pm



MAIN CAST

Jude .......... Rachael Weaver

Mo .......... Amanda Symonds

Richard .............. Ray Burdis

Bill ...................... Frank Lee



OTHER APPEARANCES

May ................... Maria Charles

Brenda .......... Caroline Quentin

Stella ...................... Alison King

Mrs. Tudge ....... Helen Brammer



CREDITS

writers Paul Hines/Su Wilkins - director John Kaye Cooper - producer Humphrey Barclay

A Friday-night series on C4 - the first to be made by the prominent sitcom producer Humphrey Barclay under his own independent aegis - depicting the lives of two down-to-earth urchins, Mo and Jude, living in a high-rise tower block in the East End of London. Others may think that there's not much for them to laugh about in such circumstances, but they manage well enough.



While Jude is permanently on the dole, Mo has work, at a glass-eye factory, although a strike to avert redundancy proves useless: she is laid off part-way into the series, the two friends becoming the scourge of the DHSS employment officer Mrs. Tudge. Friends offer support and a joke, including May (who runs the launderette) and the problematic Brenda (an early role for the future Men Behaving Badly star Caroline Quentin), a colleague from the glass-eye factory who has a baby as the series comes to end.



Neither of the leading ladies are familiar to me by name but it looks like I remember Rachael (now Rachel) Weaver from a Touch of Frost called Quarry (1995). Seeing the names of Nathaniel Parker and especially Del Henney is vaguely bringing something back. If this is the episode where (he?) is chopping a tree trunk in the back woods, I've seen it. If I recall, Rachel was an angry blonde woman protecting her dodgy husband.

EDIT - Disturbingly, the only picture I can find of Rachel Weaver is this screencap from Doctor Who:



As Inga in the story Terminus (From the show's Image Archive website)



Also with the aid of Google Images, a much smaller one of Amanda Symonds:

All I can find:

Maria Charles, who I still mostly remember as Maureen Lipman's mother in sitcom Agony, played a friend of Rita's in Coronation Street a few years ago but was suddenly 'killed off' by the writers, much to my surprise and annoyance. Barbara Young, another great character actress, disappered as well. This seems to be the thread for triggering off Soap memories (EastEnders last time)! I can tell you that, as I suspected, the Alison King listed in the above credits is NOT the one currently starring in 'Corrie' but the strange-looking Woman who was in classic sitcom The Lovers.



Significantly, Dream Stuffing is the only sitcom written by either Paul Hines or Su Wilkins, whose only writing credit this appears to be. It seems nearly all the best writing teams - and comedies - were pre-1980s.

[LocalHero]

As I answered on this thread last year, the theme tune was written and performed by the late, great Kirsty MacColl.



Lyrics are:



It's a funny old world for London girls...



I woke up this morning and I don't know what for

With the final reminders coming through the door.

The place is a mess, the situation's dire

Now the kettle is boiling and the toast's on fire.

I dont want a job being somebody's wife

I just want to see some action in my life.



Everybody seems to get me wrong...

But you and me - we seem to get along....



It's a funny old world for London girls

[amanda]

hi I'm the mixed race one from Dream Stuffing.I asked Humphrey Barclay the producer if he had a copy as mine was nicked by my cousin,don't think even he has found one,he is also busy being an honoury Ghanahian tribal King.I remember it as being alot of fun,it was my first telly job after i did the film Scrubbers and I thought at the time it was patchy but as the series went on it got much funnier and quite groundbreaking.It had the gay nieghbour Ray Burdis and his pensioner stand up comic dad,working man's club variety to add to the punk.race and unemployment issues,maybe it tried to hard.It had a loyal teenage audience but went out friday night the same time as Auf.. Pet,pretty much scuppered eh?The writers did another series about crime with Buki Armstrong and then sadly Paul died.I'm still working,do alot of theatre and not much telly anymore.Nice to know it remembered even vaguely.

[Rowdon]

maybe it tried to hard.

Well, that's a good thing, isn't it? Better than not trying at all - and 80s Pop Culture is FULL of things guilty of that ...

I don't think I saw more than a couple of episodes, but I know I didn't watch Auf.. Pet either ... Wonder what I was doing?

[duggy]

I loved that show. I used to have a few episodes on VHS which sadly were lost (or stolen) a few years ago. They must have been 20 years old when they went missing!



I can still remember bits of it. Like when Mrs Tudge the jobcentre lady has a nervous breakdown. And thick as two planks Stella in the launderette.