Wednesdays at 10:00 pm

Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer star as old flames Jean Pargetter and Lionel Hardcastle in Bob Larbey’s “As Time Goes By,” which airs Wednesday nights on LPB at 10:00 p.m. Their love story was all set for a happy ending in the 1950s when Jean was a student nurse and Lionel was a young army officer, but he was posted abroad and through the vagaries of the postal service they lost touch. Lionel’s fate led him to Kenya, where he planted coffee and had an unsatisfactory marriage, while Jean married, had a daughter, and after her husband’s death, set up a secretarial agency. Thirty-eight years later, Lionel has returned to London to publish his autobiography and needs a temporary secretary to help him complete the book. By some strange coincidence, it is Jean’s agency that he contacts.

Series 1 • Series 2 • Series 3 • Series 4

Episode Descriptions:

#101
Lionel and Jean meet again by accident after 38 years. Each has been married but is now alone. There is a possibility that they could get together again but 38 years is a long time and many things hare changed.

#102
Although 38 years ago they were young and in love, any thoughts of rekindling the romance seem absurd. They have made vague promises to keep in touch but there is some doubt as to whether they really will.

#103
Jean and Lionel have established a vague, uneasy friendship. But is there enough common ground for them to build a new relationship upon?

#104
After spending a day visiting old haunts together Lionel heads for Norwich where he is due to give a lecture. Jean is persuaded by her daughter to pay him a surprise visit. However, Jean doesn’t have the monopoly on surprises — Lionel has one of his own in the form of Denise.

#105
Relationships turn frosty after Jean discovers another woman on Lionel’s arm. Alistair, Lionel’s publisher, has become keen on Jean. Jean responds to his attentions as a way of getting back at Lionel.

#106
Judith, Jean’s daughter, is besotted with Lionel while Alistair is besotted with Jean. Lionel and Jean are flattered by this attention but feel it has gone on long enough They decide to share a picnic in the hope that Judith and Alistair hit it off together and give them some peace.

#201
Lionel’s visit to a photo booth produces a disastrous set of photographs. He tells Jean that the photos are a trial run to see how he looks on film because his publisher, Alistair, has decided that Lionel’s portrait should be on the front of his autobiography, ‘My Life in Kenya.’ The book must have a “pick me up and buy me” cover, according to Alistair. But Lionel is more nervous of being shot by a photographer than he was of being shot in the Korean War. He calls at Jean’s office to ask her to go along with him for moral support, but as she has an important meeting with a potential client she declines. Lionel arrives at the photo studio to find a fake jungle and a white hunter’s outfit waiting for him. Jean later has a change of heart, leaves Judith and Sandy at the office to deal with the client, and turns up at the studio. But when she sees the other little surprise Alistair has arranged to give the cover photograph that “pick me up and buy me” ingredient, Jean just can’t help laughing...

#202
After walking in on one of Lionel and Jean’s tete-a-tetes, Judith announces that she’s going away for the weekend so that her mother will have the house all to herself. The prospect fills Jean with misgivings. It all seems so “set up.” Meanwhile, over a working breakfast with his publisher, Alistair, Lionel has a preview of the book jacket for his autobiography, which he pronounces “vaguely pornographic.” He also discovers that Alistair, too, is planning a weekend away. Jean jumps to the conclusion that Judith and Alistair are going away together. When Lionel turns up at the office to see Jean, she at first tries to avoid him, then tells him she’s working all weekend and can’t see him. But Lionel is not a man who is easily deterred...

#203
Lionel takes Jean boating on the lake, but becomes depressed that he’s not capable of “running, jumping and springing” like he could when he was younger. His attitude depresses Jean, but she cheers up when he invites her to accompany him to Hampshire to meet his father. Mr. Hardcastle Senior is an eccentric character who has a large house stuffed full of items that reflect his passing fads — from jukeboxes to motorbikes. If anything, his housekeeper, Mrs. Bail, is even more eccentric — but she mixes a mean Pina Colada. Mr. Hardcastle announces that he’s going to get married again and asks Jean if she’ll be bridesmaid. Jean finds Lionel’s 85-year-old father endearing and very different from Lionel. “He never talks about the things he can’t do — only the things he can do,” she tells Lionel. But this observation appears to fall on deaf ears.

#204
Lionel is following his publisher, Alistair’s instructions regarding the preparation for the launch of his autobiography ‘My Life in Kenya.’ He has been issued with a “bible” of how to behave in any given situation — and how he should look for his public. Unfortunately Lionel and Jean fail to find a suitable outfit for him to wear for his book launch, but Lionel manages to stand out from the crowd on the street by practicing his smile. However there is something, other than his image, that is worrying Lionel. He just can’t understand why such a successful publisher as Alistair is taking so much personal time and effort to promote a book, that even Lionel admits is really rather “a dull read.”

#205
A chance meeting with Jean’s sister-in-law Penny leads to a weekend in the country for Jean and Lionel which develops into a tricky situation. Not wanting Penny to know that her relationship with Lionel pre-dates her marriage to Penny’s brother, David, Jean fibs that she has only known Lionel for a few months. She then gets carried away with her deception and tells Penny that Lionel is a psychiatrist. Lionel enters into the spirit of things by chipping in that they ran into each other on the dodgems at a fairground. So when Jean and Lionel are invited to spend a weekend with Penny and her husband Stephen they have to continue the pretence. Ever since the death of Jean’s husband, Penny has had the irritating habit of referring to her sister-in-law as “poor Jean.” After dinner on the first evening Jean decides to put a stop to this once and for all by telling Penny that her relationship with Lionel has gone a long way past the “companionship” stage. Much to Jean’s horror, Penny immediately changes the bedroom arrangements so that Jean and Lionel can share a double bed...

#206
Jean returns home from her weekend with Lionel at Penny and Stephen’s cottage and is annoyed by Judith and Sandy’s insinuations. Jean dislikes her private life being the subject of discussion. Lionel visits Jean at the office and, over lunch, he puts his foot in it by asking Jean to accompany him on a “freebie” cruise. Both Judith and Alistair tell him that he could have been less crass in the wording of his invitation...

#207
Lionel has “first night nerves” over his first signing session at a bookshop. Alistair drives him to the venue in a zebra striped jeep, where a crowd — hand-picked by Alistair — is queuing to buy Lionel’s autobiography ‘My Life in Kenya.’ Meanwhile Jean, Judith and Sandy are busy phoning all their friends, bribing them into rushing out to buy copies of the book. Jean goes along to the shop to offer a bit of moral support. Lionel’s promotion tour has him rushing round the country as though he’s in a “milk race,” but Alistair feels that they need a bit more of a publicity push. He comes up with the idea of using the inscription in Lionel’s book — “To Pooh” — as a promotion angle, along the lines of “where is she now?” Pooh is Lionel’s nickname for Jean — and she isn’t keen on cooperating, but is willing to go along with the idea if it will help sell the book...

#301
After 38 years apart, Lionel and Jean are falling in love with each other again. When they were young they had dreamt of a romantic holiday together in Paris. Now the dream has become a reality but they find they are not alone in this lover’s paradise and true love never runs smoothly.

#302
Lionel’s father is getting married and Jean and Lionel have key roles to play. Jean is to be a bridesmaid and Lionel’s giving the bride away. That’s the plan, but on the day events beyond their control mean Lionel becomes Best Man and Alistair steps in to give Madge (the bride) away!

#303
Jean and Lionel have now decided to live together. Wires get crossed and there is confusion over who is going to live with whom. They end up still living apart.

#304
Still in a stalemate over the who is to live with whom, Jean and Lionel are still living apart. Jean’s sister-in-law Penny and husband Stephen announce they are in town and want to meet the ‘lovey-dovey’ twosome. Not wanting to tell them the situation Jean embarks on a cover up.

#305
Jean and Lionel have at last agreed that Lionel should move in with Jean. Alistair and Sandy help with the move but when Lionel and Jean are left alone together they find it a little difficult to adjust to their new way of life.

#306
Jean is opening another secretarial agency and is looking for someone to run it. Judith and Sandy have their own ideas as to who will be the lucky candidate. Work for Lionel seems to have dried up, giving Jean cause for concern. However, after talking to Alistair she learns that Lionel is withholding information.

#307
Alistair returns from a trip to L.A. and tells Jean and Lionel that he has an American TV Company interested in their love story as a mini-series. Lionel has very little time to write a treatment before lunching with a representative from the station. Meanwhile, Jean has to interview a prospective candidate to run her second agency.

#308
Jean and Lionel are in Los Angeles to discuss turning their story into a film. But Jean becomes concerned when Lionel meets the executive who will decide their fate.

#309
Having returned from sunny Los Angeles to rain-swept Holland Park, Lionel retires to bed with jet-lag whilst Jean goes straight back to work. At the office is discontent from Judith and Sandy about the newly appointed manager of the secretarial agency’s new branch. Jean decides to take Sally down a peg or two but instead of being firm and decisive her delayed jet lag makes a blunder of the whole situation.

#310
Problems continue to follow Jean and Lionel as the discussions over the mini-series of their love story continue.

#401
Sandy has moved into the Pargetter household. With daughter Judith also at home, Lionel finds himself surrounded by females and wonders if he has done the right thing moving in.

#402
The American producers have requested some spicier rewrites in Lionel’s script for the mini series. One of Jean’s secretaries is brought in to help, but how much help does one expect from a well-meaning but overzealous secretary.

#403
Lionel’s chattering secretary, Gwen Flack is still around with her “helpful” suggestions but Jean devises a plan to get rid of her without hurting her feelings.

#404
Jean’s sister-in-law, Penny, is convinced that her husband is having an affair with his dental nurse and insists on moving in with Jean and Lionel.

#405
The U.S. producer is looking for locations for Lionel’s American TV mini series. Jean and Lionel hear some unexpected but welcome news from Lionel’s father Rocky and his equally eccentric wife Madge.

#406
Lionel’s proposal to Jean has been accepted but their happiness is not universal. Judith is barely on speaking terms with Alistair; Sandy has walked out on her boyfriend and Stephen’s plans for a surprise anniversary party for Penny have gone hopelessly wrong.

#407
Jean and Lionel’s date for their wedding has been set. The preparations are in full swing. The ladies are, naturally, out shopping for clothes! Lionel has at last finished the script he has been writing and the American producers are expected to go ahead with the TV mini-series based on Jean and Lionel ’s early romance.

#408
Wedding day nerves affect Lionel whilst Jean does her best to remain composed in spite of her sister-in-law’s efforts to calm her.

#409
Judith is involved in a new romance. From Sandy’s evasive comments there is clearly a problem — but Jean’s well -meaning efforts on her daughter’ s behalf only lead to further complications.

#410
The TV series based on Jean and Lionel’s early romance is now in production. Sequences are being shot but the American TV producers have brought their own “improvements” to Lionel’s original script.