Howards’ Way

[Carrie Fairchild]

There doesn’t appear to be a Howards’ Way thread, so just posting this here for those in the UK and Ireland who may be interested. Drama have started airing a rerun of the series, Monday to Friday at 2pm (with a late night repeat at 2.50am). They’ve also made the first series available to stream on their UKTV Play app (for those in the UK). I know that episodes of varying quality are out there already but people who haven’t invested in the DVD’s may be interested in this run. It’s been advertised as “new to Drama” but I’m pretty sure they reran it years ago.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

I was pleasantly surprised to see it given a little promotion by the Radio Times as one of the highlighted programmes for yesterday's listings. There's even a picture of Jan and Tom with faraway looks on their faces (no doubt thinking about Avril and Ken ).

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

I was pleasantly surprised to see it given a little promotion by the Radio Times as one of the highlighted programmes for yesterday's listings. There's even a picture of Jan and Tom with faraway looks on their faces (no doubt thinking about Avril and Ken ).

Wow! Nice to see it’s still worthy of a mention. I was saying, it was definitely rerun on Drama before (and UK Gold before that) but come to think of it, it may be 20 years or more since the last repeat run.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

So, I’ve set sail on the Flying Fish and finally started dipping into Howard’s’ Way. I’d seen bits and pieces previously and watched the Cult of Howards Way documentary on BBC but this is the first time I’ve seen full episodes. I’d read and heard that it gets soapier as it progresses but I’m quite happy to report that it is pretty soapy to begin with, if a bit of a slow burner.

Howard patriarch Tom is an aviation designer with an expensive sailing hobby. He’s lives in middle class bliss on the sunny south coast with wife Jan (only works two mornings a week in a chandlery to keep her in high fashion pastels) and their teenage offspring Leo (who has decided to ditch college before it’s even begun) and Lynn (who loves sailing as much as Daddy does). The cat is thrown among the pigeons when Tom announces that he’s been made redundant and plans to embrace his love of sailing by investing his golden handshake into the troubled Mermaid boatyard, run by boozy, cigar toting Jack Rolfe and his recently returned daughter Avril, back from London after her relationship with a mystery man fell apart.

Circling the central premise are a cast of equally beautiful people suffering from equally middle class problems. Jan’s boss Ken Masters is a business tycoon in the making with a penchant for big haired blondes. Randy Ken is matched only by Jan’s friend Polly Urqhuart, the seemingly neglected wife of absentee Gerald, who is perpetually on the lookout for her next shag and who spends her time inviting men (including Tom) to use her pied a terre in London. Polly’s plaindaughter Abby has just gotten back from Swiss finishing school and marks her return to Tarrant by trying to drown herself in the Solent.

As I said, it’s a slow burner compared to its US counterparts but you can see all of the pieces coming together. There’s also something a bit Jason and Sable about Tom and Jan. All seems quite rosy in the marriage as the show begins but they’re soon at each other’s throats. Also, some of the dramas are very middle class. Lynn throwing a strop and ending up in floods of tears when she hears that Daddy has to sell the boat to finance his new business venture, is not a trauma you can feel any empathy for. I do like how it’s written though. I’m four episodes in and Tom has yet to share any screen time with Ken and Jan has yet to share any screen time with Avril or Jack. So the two separate worlds of the Howard couple, which is causing friction in their marriage, have yet to collide. Sort of reminds me of Sons and Daughters when they’ve characters scattered between Sydney, Woombai and Melbourne, before they all come together in an explosive clash.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

So, I’ve set sail on the Flying Fish and finally started dipping into Howard’s’ Way.

Oh, how exciting. It's so long since I last watched it (we're talking pre-crash) so I've been hoping someone would get into a HW binge and give us a vicarious fix.

There’s also something a bit Jason and Sable about Tom and Jan. All seems quite rosy in the marriage as the show begins but they’re soon at each other’s throats.

I’m four episodes in and Tom has yet to share any screen time with Ken and Jan has yet to share any screen time with Avril or Jack. So the two separate worlds of the Howard couple, which is causing friction in their marriage, have yet to collide. Sort of reminds me of Sons and Daughters when they’ve characters scattered between Sydney, Woombai and Melbourne, before they all come together in an explosive clash.

These parallels make a lot of sense to me, and I suspect some of them could deepen as the series progresses.

 

[Willie Oleson]

As I said, it’s a slow burner compared to its US counterparts

The creators took their characters and storylines rather seriously so don't expect anything like Alexis and Sable's silly tanker war.
The eighties vibe - let's get greedy, let's get rich! - is much stronger here than it was in DALLAS and DYNASTY. They already had the mansions and the empires and it needed to be protected (I guess that goes back to 1950s and 60s Western series about the various ranch families who were constantly attacked).
If I have to compare it to US prime time soap then it would be KNOTS LANDING, and now that I've said it it just seems so obvious.

Polly Urqhuart

Ha!

 

[LMLDallas78]

Loved Howard's Way way back when. It was a family sit down tradition that we could all enjoy and a breath of fresh air. I caught a couple of episodes recently by chance on one of the channels and I still really enjoyed it.
Loved posh Jan and her hairstyle and her poshly spoken grown up children Leo and Lynne. Didn't Maurice Colbourne die suddenly while still in the series? I was gutted.

And Dynasty's very own Kate Omara popped up in it too. Remember Abby? I wanted to re dress her dowdy clothes.

Slow paced but a very enjoyable watch.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

The creators took their characters and storylines rather seriously so don't expect anything like Alexis and Sable's silly tanker war.

Yes. I believe they go in for certain flights of fancy like powerboat accidents and plane crashes later on but it still remains grounded enough.

If I have to compare it to US prime time soap then it would be KNOTS LANDING, and now that I've said it it just seems so obvious.

Knowing the turn that Jan’s career takes as the series progresses, I can see parallels to Abby going from doing the books at Sid’s garage to become a multimillionaire business mogul or Karen going from housewife to talk show host.

Didn't Maurice Colbourne die suddenly while still in the series?

He did sadly. From what I’ve read, it was mid-filming of series five.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

“I’ve built more boats than you’ve had hot dinners” I think I’ll be hearing a lot more of this sort of thing from Jack Rolfe.

Meanwhile, half of the cast have decamped to a sunny garden party where Roy from EastEnders is giving Tom business advice while a young Anthony Head is wooing Lynne. It’s all very ‘G&T’s on the lawn’ and culminates brilliantly in Jan running up to kiss Tom goodbye to the strains of a crescendo in Nik Kershaw’s Wouldn’t It Be Good, while a horny Polly Urquhart looks on with green eyes. It really does feel like 80’s middle class time capsule stuff. While early Brookside represented the grimmer side of the decade, Howards’ Way feels like the other side of the coin. Both pretty true reflections of the parts of society that they’re trying to portray.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

Episode Five or One Night in Tarrant. After a bit of daytime dramatics, the episode settles into the goings on after dark, over the course of one night as a number of characters, break off into couplings and backstory begins to unfold and lives continue to unravel.

A white tuxedoed Ken brings a spangly headband adorning Jan to dinner, under the guise of discussing business. This is much to the chagrin of “live-in girlfriend” Dawn, who after complaining to Ken, is told to watch some of the videos he brought home for her, which Dawn confirms are blue movies (I can imagine Ken picking them up in Soho). Dinner is followed by an almost fourth wall breaking tango scene, which gets Jan horned up enough to go home, stick on a negligee and relight the fire with husband Tom. Alas, this has the opposite effect, as we see a post coital Tom looking shellshocked as he realises he has Ken Masters to thank for his wife’s sudden lustiness. Jan doesn’t help matters either by saying it wasn’t Ken that turned her on (even though Tom hadn’t articulated those thoughts to her yet) and that it was the sense of achievement (how 80’s).

On the other side of town, after a fruitless attempt to find Jack, who drunkenly driven off like a madman from the Jolly Sailor, Avril invites Leo back to her cottage for a drink where she explains a bit about her mystery man in London (“the bastard”). Jack meanwhile has planted his car in a ditch, only to be picked up and taken in by none other than Jan’s mother Kate. Jack, as he does in every episode, confirms that he wasn’t a very good husband while Kate admits that she probably wasn’t a great mother. On the subject of bad mothers, Polly continues to put her foot in it with Abby by admitting that she and absentee husband Gerald hadn’t planned / wanted a child but were delighted when she did finally arrive.

Again, there is some 80’s gold with Tom referring to the “hooray Henry’s” at the yacht club and calling Ken a “medallion man”. Also, there’s a nice mix of the closing theme on this episode. With both themes, I actually don’t think I’d tire of listening to either of them. Simon May really was churning out great themes in those few years from 1985 to Eldorado.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Jack meanwhile has planted his car in a ditch, only to be picked up and taken in by none other than Jan’s mother Kate. Jack, as he does in every episode, confirms that he wasn’t a very good husband while Kate admits that she probably wasn’t a great mother.

I absolutely adore any Jack/Kate scene. They're so much fun to watch.

there is some 80’s gold with Tom referring to the “hooray Henry’s” at the yacht club and calling Ken a “medallion man”.

Funnily enough, a few years ago when preparing for one of my pilgrimages to The Jolly Sailor, I read a review of it somewhere where a local resident complained about the pub having been taken over by "hooray Henrys". It probably marked the only time I'd seen this used in the real world in several decades, which is why it stuck in my mind.

With both themes, I actually don’t think I’d tire of listening to either of them. Simon May really was churning out great themes in those few years from 1985 to Eldorado.

He certainly was.

I hope it's not too spoiler-ish to mention that you might hear a couple of variants of the theme along the way. I'll await your verdict with anticipation.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

In The Cult of Howards’ Way, Tracey Childs (Lynne) mentions the arrival of Charles Frere as the point when the show went up a notch in terms of soapiness. And she wasn’t wrong. No sooner has he arrived in his Bentley with its personalised number plate and we’re plunged into revelations about lavender marriages, poison pen letters and extramarital affairs. After cruelly dumping Dawn (whose hair is getting more voluminous with each episode), Ken entices her back long enough to carry out some sort of corporate espionage that results in him finding out who actually bought the Flying Fish. He wastes no time in stirring the Howard pot by gleefully revealing to Jan that the new owner is in fact Avril Rolfe! Jan is angry about this long enough to provide us with an episode cliffhanger but has soon calmed down and is off in an evening gown for drinks at Polly’s in the middle of the afternoon. Mother of the Year Polly, admits again that not only does she not like daughter Abby (who has run away from home and is trying to become a social worker) but that she never loved her and should’ve had an abortion! Turns out that absentee husband Gerald (who has showed up in a few scenes to provide a conduit to Charles Frere’s introduction) isn’t Abby’s father. Polly was pregnant when she met him and they entered into a marriage of convenience to provide a father to Polly’s unborn daughter and to provide a wife to Gerald (for business purposes) as he is secretly gay! Abby’s father was apparently a “casual fling” although given Polly’s apparent history with the newly arrived Charles Frere, I’m wondering is he the father - Charles Frere = Casual Fling?

Meanwhile Lynne, who seems to prioritise boats over everything else in her life, is nearly raped on Anthony Head’s Hooray Henry’s yacht and later wants to apologise to said assailant as “he’s her only chance to race the Fastnet”. He pours water on her attempts with a barrage of misogyny but thankfully there’s a lady with the very Howards’ Way surname of Penhaligon who’s planning on running an all female crew to the Fastnet. Charles Frere, who seems to get in where even water wouldn’t, shows up at Avril’s cottage (which Leo is redecorating with “something pastely”) and it’s revealed that he is Avril’s mystery man from London. His previously mentioned wife is in America and he wants Avril back. She throws him out and her subsequent anger and confusion proves to be a potent mix when Tom (fresh off receiving a poison pen letter from the dumped (again) Dawn, stating that Jan & Ken are shagging) turns up and they end up in each others arms.

I’m halfway through series one now and it is all quite addictive. Interestingly, as I’ve mentioned before, Tom still hasn’t shared screen time with Ken and Jan hasn’t crossed paths with Avril, yet they’re the two main issues in their marriage. You can certainly see the stakes rising too. In episode one, Jan was mostly a homemaker who did a couple of mornings work a week and now she’s on the verge of opening a boutique with talks of wanting shares in the company. It’s the epitome of 80’s upward mobility. In among all of the froth though, there is a bit of social commentary thrown in via the character of Davinder aka Davy (Kulvinder Ghir). Early on, he’s threatened by a co-worker for showing initiative and working into his lunch to finish a job (“that might be how you do things where you’re from!”) and later when Abby has gone AWOL, he plays down her not recognising him when he sees her leaving his father’s surgery (“we all look the same don’t we”). He only appears occasionally but he feels like an anchor to the real world while the rest of the characters are drifting off into 80’s greed is good territory (pardon the nautical puns but the show is full of them).

 

[AndyB2008]

Loved Howard's Way way back when. It was a family sit down tradition that we could all enjoy and a breath of fresh air. I caught a couple of episodes recently by chance on one of the channels and I still really enjoyed it.
Loved posh Jan and her hairstyle and her poshly spoken grown up children Leo and Lynne. Didn't Maurice Colbourne die suddenly while still in the series? I was gutted.

And Dynasty's very own Kate Omara popped up in it too. Remember Abby? I wanted to re dress her dowdy clothes.

Slow paced but a very enjoyable watch.

Yep, Maurice Colbourne died during production of Series 5.

Gerard Glaister had to rewrite scripts to explain Tom Howard's absence, before killing the character off at the beginning of the final series.

Should add that Leo Howard's real life son is Freddie Highmore, known for Bates Motel and The Good Doctor.

In The Cult of Howards’ Way, Tracey Childs (Lynne) mentions the arrival of Charles Frere as the point when the show went up a notch in terms of soapiness. And she wasn’t wrong. No sooner has he arrived in his Bentley with its personalised number plate and we’re plunged into revelations about lavender marriages, poison pen letters and extramarital affairs. After cruelly dumping Dawn (whose hair is getting more voluminous with each episode), Ken entices her back long enough to carry out some sort of corporate espionage that results in him finding out who actually bought the Flying Fish. He wastes no time in stirring the Howard pot by gleefully revealing to Jan that the new owner is in fact Avril Rolfe! Jan is angry about this long enough to provide us with an episode cliffhanger but has soon calmed down and is off in an evening gown for drinks at Polly’s in the middle of the afternoon. Mother of the Year Polly, admits again that not only does she not like daughter Abby (who has run away from home and is trying to become a social worker) but that she never loved her and should’ve had an abortion! Turns out that absentee husband Gerald (who has showed up in a few scenes to provide a conduit to Charles Frere’s introduction) isn’t Abby’s father. Polly was pregnant when she met him and they entered into a marriage of convenience to provide a father to Polly’s unborn daughter and to provide a wife to Gerald (for business purposes) as he is secretly gay! Abby’s father was apparently a “casual fling” although given Polly’s apparent history with the newly arrived Charles Frere, I’m wondering is he the father - Charles Frere = Casual Fling?

Meanwhile Lynne, who seems to prioritise boats over everything else in her life, is nearly raped on Anthony Head’s Hooray Henry’s yacht and later wants to apologise to said assailant as “he’s her only chance to race the Fastnet”. He pours water on her attempts with a barrage of misogyny but thankfully there’s a lady with the very Howards’ Way surname of Penhaligon who’s planning on running an all female crew to the Fastnet. Charles Frere, who seems to get in where even water wouldn’t, shows up at Avril’s cottage (which Leo is redecorating with “something pastely”) and it’s revealed that he is Avril’s mystery man from London. His previously mentioned wife is in America and he wants Avril back. She throws him out and her subsequent anger and confusion proves to be a potent mix when Tom (fresh off receiving a poison pen letter from the dumped (again) Dawn, stating that Jan & Ken are shagging) turns up and they end up in each others arms.

I’m halfway through series one now and it is all quite addictive. Interestingly, as I’ve mentioned before, Tom still hasn’t shared screen time with Ken and Jan hasn’t crossed paths with Avril, yet they’re the two main issues in their marriage. You can certainly see the stakes rising too. In episode one, Jan was mostly a homemaker who did a couple of mornings work a week and now she’s on the verge of opening a boutique with talks of wanting shares in the company. It’s the epitome of 80’s upward mobility. In among all of the froth though, there is a bit of social commentary thrown in via the character of Davinder aka Davy (Kulvinder Ghir). Early on, he’s threatened by a co-worker for showing initiative and working into his lunch to finish a job (“that might be how you do things where you’re from!”) and later when Abby has gone AWOL, he plays down her not recognising him when he sees her leaving his father’s surgery (“we all look the same don’t we”). He only appears occasionally but he feels like an anchor to the real world while the rest of the characters are drifting off into 80’s greed is good territory (pardon the nautical puns but the show is full of them).

Tony Anholt's (Charles Frere) son Christien was later a cast member of Relic Hunter alongside Tia Carrere.

Given the cast shake ups later, only he and Tia lasted the entire run.

 

[Mel O'Drama]

Leo Howard's real life son is Freddie Highmore, known for Bates Motel and The Good Doctor.

I can completely see the resemblance now it's been pointed out but... well I never!

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

Tony Anholt's (Charles Frere) son Christien was later a cast member of Relic Hunter alongside Tia Carrere.

I see he also appeared in the pilot for Mama’s Back, the failed attempt at a BBC sitcom vehicle for Joan Collins in the early 90’s.

 

[LMLDallas78]

Am I right in recalling this was another theme tune that was vocalised and made it into the charts like Eastenders? "Always there" I seem to think it was called. Or "love will be always there?"
I hope I haven't dreamt this. I can sing the words to it as well as know the tune.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

Am I right in recalling this was another theme tune that was vocalised and made it into the charts like Eastenders? "Always there" I seem to think it was called. Or "love will be always there?"
I hope I haven't dreamt this. I can sing the words to it as well as know the tune.

It wasn’t a dream! Musical theatre star Marti Webb sang the vocal version, which peaked at No. 13 in the UK charts.

 

[LMLDallas78]

It wasn’t a dream! Musical theatre star Marti Webb sang the vocal version, which peaked at No. 13 in the UK charts.

Thankyou for that. Oh wow, Marty Webb, I've got no recollection of her singing it.

That's mad, I was only thinking of Marty Webb the other day and how she often appeared on entertainment programmes during the 70s and 80s.

 

[AndyB2008]

It wasn’t a dream! Musical theatre star Marti Webb sang the vocal version, which peaked at No. 13 in the UK charts.

She also sang the theme to the 1985 LWT series To Have And To Hold, adapted by Deborah Moggach from her novel and starring Amanda Redman, Brian Protheroe and Eamon Boland.

However it wasn't her version that became a chart hit though - a version by Catherine Stock became a Top 20 hit in 1986.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

I’m on the home stretch now, with only four episodes left of series one and the soapiness sure is escalating. Charles Frere is becoming more of a presence, dropping into the grounds of stately homes in his helicopter and hosting champagne breakfast meetings on his yacht. He really accentuates the class divide among the monied set of Tarrant, no more so during a cocktail party at the Urquharts. Charles is top tier, mixing with titled merchant bankers and other dignitaries. The Howards fall somewhere in the middle while poor Ken Masters, while wealthy, is bottom of the ladder with his new money. Ken knows it too and seems a bit embarrassed when trying to explain his petrol station / chandlery empire to Sir Something of an international bank. He’s only mixing with the high flyers because they want his waterfront site for a new property development.

Jan is continuing her climb to the top. Not content with any old tat for her new boutique, she’s off to London where designer friend Sonya (who I’m convinced was the inspiration for Fleur in Absolutely Fabulous) has introduced Jan to Claude Dupont, a young French photographer/ designer who’s shooting models to the soundtrack of Roxy Music’s Don’t Stop The Dance. As an aside, one of the fun things about watching Howards’ Way is spotting the various actors who’ll later pop up in other things. Claude’s assistant is played by the patriarch of the Hart family who were infamously blown up in Family Affairs while the garage where Leo works in managed by Boycie from Only Fools and Horses. Speaking of Leo, he’s tracked down Abby to a dingy bedsit Southampton and while he disagrees with it, he’s supporting her decision to have an abortion. Yes, the most signposted plot twist in the show has finally been revealed. Abby is pregnant. By contrast, Lynne’s woes seem positively trivial. After Anthony Head threw yet more misogyny at Lynne and the crew of Jo Penhaligon’s boat, Lynne became even more determined to beat him and his boat of Hooray Henry bastards in the Fastnet Race. But not before some mid race drama, which saw a crew member with a Princess Diana haircut get thrown overboard and the aforementioned Jo have her arm broken (which she announced with the same urgency as one would use when asking if anyone would like a cup of tea).

And finally, Tom continues to blunder through his marital woes. Annoyed that Jan won’t put up their house as collateral to save the boatyard, he dives headlong into his attraction to Avril, aboard the family’s beloved Flying Fish no less, in broad daylight for all of Tarrant to see.