Roger’s plans for Joanna’s birthday take a wrong turn.

Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam return with the fifth series of Jan Etherington’s award-winning comedy about a long-married couple in love with life and each other.

This week, Roger and Joanna are left exhausted by bickering dinner guests and Joanna observes ‘Sometimes I think we’re the only happy couple in the world’. Roger responds ‘And then I forget to put the bins out – and you think again’. Roger makes plans to surprise Joanna with a nostalgic birthday trip – in a hippy love bus. Her response is not quite what he had hoped, as she declares ‘I am a five star woman, living a two star life!’ Peace and love are in short supply - until she has a magical birthday encounter.

Conversations from a Long Marriage is Written by Jan Etherington. It is produced and directed by Claire Jones. And it is a BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.

Wilfredo Acosta - sound engineer
Charlotte Sewter - studio assistant
Jon Calver - sound designer
Katie Baum - production coordinator

Conversations from a Long Marriage won the Voice of the Listener & Viewer Award for Best Radio Comedy in 2020, was nominated for a Writers’ Guild Award in 2022 and a British Comedy Guide award in 2024.

‘Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam have had illustrious acting careers but can they ever have done anything better than Jan Etherington’s two hander? This is a work of supreme craftsmanship.’ RADIO TIMES
‘Peppered with nostalgic 60s hits and especially written for the pair, it’s an endearing portrait of exasperation, laced with hard won tolerance – and something like love.’ THE GUARDIAN
‘You’ve been listening at my window, Jan’. JOANNA LUMLEY
‘Sitcom is what marriage is really like – repetitive and ridiculous – and Jan’s words are some of the best ever written on the subject’. RICHARD CURTIS Show less