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Two middle-age crazy English widows become best friends via letters, over many misadventure-filled years. Having met under a table at a wedding, when both were drunk with merriment, misunderstanding comes naturally to them. The ladies and their kin act out the events in the letters: in their homes, prison or wherever else they land, revealing the hilarious, venomous, or empathetic truth, between their ever-increasing lines. Based on a 13 year long BBC 4 radio series.
Irene and Vera have a disastrous reunion at the funeral of a gentleman friend. Vera takes a nasty tumble dancing inappropriately at the wake, leaving Irene as her reluctant carer.
Vera moves to a trailer park and falls in with some very suspicious company. She sends one of her newly acquainted thuggish neighbours to sort out her erstwhile friend.
Safely abroad, Irene boasts about her new life in Australia - the fabulous weather, the delicious wine, an adorable granddaughter, and a handsome suitor called Vincent - to Vera.
Vera and Irene both busy themselves raising their granddaughters, while their own daughters behave either mysteriously or very badly indeed. When Karen falls pregnant to trailer park heavy Damon, Irene can scarcely contain her joy!
When Irene's increasing isolation draws her towards composing poems, one of her missives leads the social services to scrutinise Vera's claim to custody of her granddaughter Sabrina. In the end, too much wine tips Irene over the edge, and conversations with God are followed by a spell in the local asylum.
Vera is in urgent correspondence with Lesley and then with Irene herself about Irene's breakdown. Was it the alcohol? or something more sinister?
Having been 'rescued' from the clinic by Damon and Karen, Irene is now living rough in the outback.
Vera reports more violence and mayhem at the trailer park, but is still providing a happy home there for granddaughter Sabrina.
Vera is right to suspect that St John the vet is her grandson Nelson's father: he heads for Australia the moment he hears the boy may be his. Irene is now housekeeping for him.
Despite the occasional cup of marijuana tea, Irene barely controls her irritation at Vera’s bossy interventions: has she forgotten that Irene has her own house back in England, thank you very much! She will be flying back to Blighty shortly, to mastermind the catering for Karen and St John’s wedding. Brian and Lesley - her daughter - are moving in together, so Vera’s suggestion that Irene bring Lesley’s daughter Cheryl Marie with her is completely out of order! Perhaps they should both focus on the up-coming Olympics - get healthy, concentrate on team efforts. Vera is outraged and informs Irene that she is considering legal action against her for theft of her daughter’s affections and for slander. She’d also like to point out that St John is poor as a church mouse and lives in a ‘bothy’, and that she’s busy on the day of the proposed wedding. Irene -now back in England - points out that Vera’s solicitor - Agabatha of the Astarte - is almost certainly a fake, that St John’s 12 bedroomed house (where Vera is welcome to live) is called the Bothy as a joke, and that Karen is willing to change the date of the wedding so that Vera can go. Vera succumbs, and moves into The Bothy. She and Irene fall to arguing about food for the wedding reception, what they might wear, and the wisdom of Vera’s involvement with the Astarte tribe. Jesus intervenes to prevent a new falling out, and inspired by the Olympic motto -’citius, altius fortius’ - the two ladies have a rattling good time at Karen and St John’s wedding
