Both Ends Meet sitcom

Both Ends Meet / Dora

1972 United Kingdom

Like most housewives, Dora (a widow with young son Ronnie to bring up), continually finds she has too much week left at the end of her money. 

In order to make more than she is earning in the sausage factory where she works, she turns to a catalogue company called Excelsior Trading. Not to purchase anything, but to become one of their agents. After all, with all the women working around her, she has a ready-made customer base. Or does she? It's a question of being accepted as an agent. But if she is, surely life's little luxuries will at last be winging her way. 

Both Ends Meet
Timothy Bateson and Dora Bryan

Veteran comedian Dora Bryan starred in this LWT sitcom as Dora Page, the strap-cashed Cannon's Family Sausages packer who was always at loggerheads with her boss Julian Cannon (Ivor Dean), and finding herself in desperate situations with the other female factor workers. Also starring was Wendy Richards. Both Ends Meet, by the way, is a reference to the sausages! 

Ronnie was played by David Howe in the first series, broadcast from February to April 1972, but when it returned for series two later that same year (September to November) he was replaced by Peter Vaughan Clarke. That wasn't the only change. The original title was dropped and changed to Dora.

Also see: According to Dora

Share on...

Published on August 12th, 2019. Written by Laurence Marcus for Television Heaven.

Read Next...

The Adventures of Aggie

Also tagged British Sitcom

An oddity - a British made sitcom from the 1950s starring a US actress so it could be sold to America.

Are You Being Served?

Also released in 1972

Hugely successful and long-running British sitcom set in a London department store.

The Army Game

Also tagged British Sitcom

Hugely successful series from Granada TV that started in 1957 as a fortnightly live sitcom, which was moved to a weekly spot when it became so popular. The series followed the misfortunes of a mixed bag of army conscripts.

According to Dora

Also starring Dora Bryan

According to Dora, subtitled A Bryan's Eye View on the World, was a starring vehicle for Southport born actress/comedienne Dora Bryan who had made her showbiz debut as a child in pantomime in Manchester.

Another Saturday Night and Sweet FA

Also released in 1972

Every weekend, long-suffering referee Mr. Armistead wades into the melee to try to teach two sets of testosterone-fuelled maniacs the value of restraint, justice and fair play.

Arthur of the Britons

Also released in 1972

This excellent children's television series was a muddy and realistic version of the King Arthur legend.

Agony tv series

Also tagged British Sitcom

Series about a magazine agony aunt who also runs her own radio phone-in and who, like Dr Frazier Crane many years later, could solve everyone's problems except her own