Conversations from a Long Marriage

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BBC Radio 4 FM

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Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam play a long-married couple trying to keep the passion alive.

Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam play a long-married couple. Their conversations are practical, passionate, hilarious - and familiar to every couple. Written by Jan Etherington.

BBC Radio 4 LW

Joanna Lumley

Roger Allam

Jan Etherington

Claire Jones

Conversations from a Long Marriage: Conversations from a Long Marriage

BBC Radio 4 - Conversations from a Long Marriage, Conversations from a Long Marriage

Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam star as a couple who have been married for over 40 years.

Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam star as children of the 60s who've now been married for over 40 years. We follow them from café to kitchen table as they try to keep the passion alive

Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam play a couple who have been married for over 40 years. Children of the Sixties, they’re still free spirits, drawn together by their passion for music – and each other. 
 
The show follows their conversations that take them from the local café, to their kitchen table, taking in her resentment of new glasses - a symbol of ageing - and fury at being lectured by the dental hygienist. He has a dodgy knee and is on statins, and when they discuss the marriage break-up of their closest friends, Sally and Peter, there’s jealousy and talk of affairs. She suggests there are advantages to single beds, separate holidays and wants to go clubbing in Ibiza for her imminent ‘big’ birthday.
 
When a couple stop kissing each other, the marriage is in trouble, she believes. ‘What it says in the Shoop Shoop Song is so true. It IS in his kiss!’
 
Written for Joanna Lumley by award-winning comedy writer and journalist Jan Etherington, who herself has been married for 35 years. Jan has created and written many long-running radio and television series with her husband Gavin Petrie (Second Thoughts, Next of Kin, Faith in the Future) and has written sketches for Radio 4’s Ayres on the Air, but this is her first solo-scripted, half-hour comedy. She says: “Conversations from a Long Marriage will resonate with couples of any age but especially those who are still dancing in the kitchen, singing in the car and trying to keep the passion alive.”
 
Producer: Claire Jones 
A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4

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