If 'It's Awfully Bad For Your Eyes, Darling' is remembered at all today for any reason, its because it provided an early comedy role for Joanna Lumley, twenty years before she teamed with Jennifer Saunders for 'Absolutely Fabulous'. It was the creation of novelist Jilly Cooper who wrote it in collaboration with Christopher Bond. Four posh girls share a flat in London. They are 'Samantha Ryder-Ross' ( Lumley ), 'Virginia Walker' ( Anna Palk in the pilot, Jennifer Croxton in the series ), 'Clover Mason' ( Elisabeth Knight ), and 'Gillian Page-Wood' ( Jane Carr ) who because of her love of food was known by the nickname 'Pudding'. The show was like an upmarket version of 'The Liver Birds'. Each week, the girls encountered problems such as lack of money for rent, boyfriends, nosey parents, and internal conflict. Jeremy Lloyd - then married to Lumley - appeared in several episodes as the toffee-nosed swinger 'Bobby Dutton'.
It was a talked-about show at the time mainly because the Lumley character was often to be seen floating about the flat in her skimpy underwear! Despite this, however, it did not get past a single season. Perhaps the young people for whom it was intended could not identify sufficiently with the characters, unlike working-class 'Beryl' and 'Sandra' from the Carla Lane/Myra Taylor show. Only one episode is known to exist - 'A New Lease' - in which the girls panic because their lease is up for renewal the day after a wild party. They try to get the flat looking presentable before the landlord arrives, but it proves an impossible job. No sooner have they signed an agreement than they find out he was really an encyclopedia salesman.
There is a strong 'Avengers' connection with this show. Jennifer Croxton played 'Lady Diana Forbes-Blakeney' in the Linda Thorson episode 'Killer', while Joanna Lumley went on to play 'Purdey' in 'The New Avengers' in 1976.
It was a talked-about show at the time mainly because the Lumley character was often to be seen floating about the flat in her skimpy underwear! Despite this, however, it did not get past a single season. Perhaps the young people for whom it was intended could not identify sufficiently with the characters, unlike working-class 'Beryl' and 'Sandra' from the Carla Lane/Myra Taylor show. Only one episode is known to exist - 'A New Lease' - in which the girls panic because their lease is up for renewal the day after a wild party. They try to get the flat looking presentable before the landlord arrives, but it proves an impossible job. No sooner have they signed an agreement than they find out he was really an encyclopedia salesman.
There is a strong 'Avengers' connection with this show. Jennifer Croxton played 'Lady Diana Forbes-Blakeney' in the Linda Thorson episode 'Killer', while Joanna Lumley went on to play 'Purdey' in 'The New Avengers' in 1976.
