No, Honestly - Set 1 [VHS]

This boxed set contains the first seven episodes of the series. Episode 1 sets the stage as C.D. and Clara, who have been married, Clara notes, "nearly 10 years next Thursday a week on Monday," recall how they met at "Freddie's awful party." Framed by the couple's light banter, each of these episodes flashback chronologically to their often comically confused courtship and marriage. Oddly enough, we do not see them joined in (again, Clara's words) "holy deadlock," but instead join C.D. and Clara as they embark on their honeymoon and endeavor to keep their newly married status a secret (why they keep it a secret is a bit unclear) by pretending to be a boring, frustrated long-married couple.

"Life with Clara," C.D. observes at one point, "is not a bowl of cherries, it's a dish of blouse buttons." And in less expert hands, Clara could get tiresome quickly ("I tend to get things rather muddled," she confesses early on), but Pauline Collins (perhaps best known for her signature role as Shirley Valentine) plays her with a mischievous twinkle that make her leaps of illogic endearing. She particularly shines in episode 4, in which she resists C.D.'s efforts to make her dress more fashionably than like "the remnant of a disbanded folk group." --Donald Liebenson