Keep It in the Family (1980 TV series)

File:Keep it in the family.jpg

Glyn Houston as "Duncan Thomas" (holding the plate), Robert Gillespie as "Dudley Rush", Stacy Dorning as "Susan Rush" and Pauline Yates as "Muriel Rush" (Screen capture)

For the U.S. game show see Keep It In The Family (game show)

Keep it in the Family is a British comedy television series about a likable and irrepressably fun-loving and mischievous British cartoonist, Dudley Rush.

Also featured are Dudley's very attractive wife, Muriel, and their two pretty daughters, Jacqui and Susan. Dudley's literary agent, Duncan Thomas, is also featured.

The show was made by Thames Television for the ITV network, and ran from 1980 to 1983.

Cast

• Robert Gillespie — as "Dudley Rush"
• Pauline Yates — as "Muriel Rush"
• Jenny Quayle — as "Jacqui Rush" (1)
• Sabina Franklyn — as "Jacqui Rush" (2)
• Stacy Dorning — as "Susan Rush"
• Glyn Houston — as "Duncan Thomas"

Plot

Dudley and Muriel Rush own and live in a multi-storey house, of which the ground floor has been converted into a flat. The ground floor flat had been rented from them and, when the tenant dies, the former tenant's family arrive to carry off all his possessions.

Dudley and Muriel have two very pretty daughters, Jacqui (who is in her early twenties), and Susan (who is in her late teens). Jacqui and Susan want to have the vacant downstairs flat for themselves, so they can escape from the parental home and from Dudley's obsessive gaze. Dudley wants to rent out to the flat to somebody else, but his daughters' pleas win the day and the two girls move into the flat. Dudley's obsessive and possessive gaze, though, is still on them, and he objects to the young men who, he notices, visit his daughters.

Dudley is a gifted and talented illustrator and he earns his living from drawing his cartoon strip "Barney - the Bionic Bulldog" which he does while holding a pencil in the paw of his ventriloquist lion glove puppet. Dudley draws the cartoon strip under protest, for his literary agent Duncan Thomas - who sells Dudley's cartoon to newspapers. Dudley would rather do anything than draw the cartoon strip and he keeps procrastinating to such an extent that he keeps missing the deadline for his illustrations, much to the frustration of the long-suffering Duncan.

As well as objecting to Ducan trying to keep him to publishing deadlines, Dudley also jealously objects to Duncan's obvious approval of Dudley's attractive wife, Muriel, and he also objects to Duncan's eager consumption of Muriel's delicious cakes.

Dudley is also a compulsive practical joker, with his victim usually being his long-suffering agent, Duncan Thomas, who is usually on the receiving end of such jokes.

Trivia

A remake of "Keep it in the Family" was made in the United States under the title of "Too Close for Comfort".

External links

• Keep it in the Family at IMDb
• Comedy Guide - Keep it in the Family at bbc.co.uk
• Keep it in the Family TV.com website