About Face

About Face

1989 - United Kingdom

A series of 12 unconnected half-hour sitcoms, all written by different writers, created as a starring vehicle for Maureen Lipman who had previously had a huge hit with Agony, but for the past two years had been starring in a series of hit TV commercials for British Telecom as Beattie (a play on BT and suggested by Lipman herself who thought the name more apt than Dora, as created by Richard Phillips, an advertising copywriter who devised the campaign). There were two series of About Face, 1989 and 1991 and the first appeared less than two weeks before Victoria Wood launched a similar series on BBC1. During the run Lipman played a South London telephonist, a Cypriot immigrant, an overworked doctor and Margaret Thatcher. The last show in the series was written by her husband, Jack Rosenthal

Guest stars included Michael Gambon, Phyllidia Law, John Wells, Keith Barron, Libby Morris, Stephanie Cole, Martin Clunes and Bernard Hill. 

Published on November 26th, 2018. Written by Laurence Marcus for Television Heaven.

Read Next...

A Little Princess

A young girl, left penniless when her father dies, is put to work as a servant in the school that he had sent her to in order to get a good education.

Also starring Maureen Lipman

Absolutely Fabulous

Developed from a sketch in the TV series French and Saunders in which Saunders played a baseball capped parent berated by her prim and proper daughter (French), the pilot episode was greeted by one TV executive with the comment, "I don't think women being drunk is funny."

Also tagged British Sitcom

Absolutely

Absolutely drew together a new breed of relatively unknown (mainly Scottish) comics and pretty much gave them free licence to create a collection of surreal and silly sketches and songs.

Also released in 1989

Dad's Army

"If the quality of the writing was a major factor in Dad's Army's resounding success, then that quality was more than matched by a cast which not so much interpreted the writing, as physically embodied it."

Also tagged British Sitcom

After Henry

BAFTA-nominated comedy After Henry followed the comfortable middle-class lives of three women; except that, for one of them, life wasn't all that comfortable...

Also tagged British Sitcom

George and Mildred

Domestic sitcom about a work-shy husband and his sex-starved, upwardly aspiring but ultimately frustrated wife.

Also tagged British Sitcom

Desmonds

Classic British sitcom set in a Peckham barber shop, which is a gathering place for an assortment of local characters

Also released in 1989

Faces of Jim

Jimmy Edwards series of one-off sitcoms that introduced a minor supporting character actor who would go on to become 'the guv'nor' of British comedy...Ronnie Barker.

Also tagged Comedy Anthology