Three Piece Suite (TV Series) Hearts and Flowers/Screen Night/Briefer Encounter (1977) User Reviews

Diana's scarlet woman

[ShadeGrenade · 8/10 · 3 June 2023]

The late Diana Rigg will forever be remembered as the karate-chopping 'Mrs. Emma Peel' from 'The Avengers' television series of the 1960's. In the 70's, she made two attempts to break into sitcom. The first was 'Diana', clearly pitched at the Mary Tyler Moore audience, which cast her as 'Diana Smythe', an Englishwoman in New York. It only ran to a dozen or so episodes. She later called it a 'disaster'. She fared better with her next effort - 'Three Piece Suite' - which was made by the BBC and produced by Michael Mills. Each episode was divided into three segments. In 'Hearts & Flowers' ( written by Richard Waring of 'Not In Front Of The Children' fame ), it cast Rigg as a dowdy woman who puts an ad in the lonely hearts column of the magazine 'Time In'. A mix-up results and she winds up with the wrong man. In Roy Clarke's 'Screen Night', Barry Norman ( playing himself ) interviews a talentless, foul-mouthed Hollywood actress who is plugging her new book. The raucous 'Miss Scarlet' is a long way away from the elegant and witty Mrs. Peel. Rigg is outstanding here. Looked at now, its not hard to imagine Kenny Everett being inspired to create the leg-twisting 'Cupid Stunt' some years later. The late magician Paul Daniels appears briefly as 'The Great Marvo'. The final segment is 'Briefer Encounter' by Keith Waterhouse and Wills Hall and, as you might already have gathered from the title, is a spoof of David Lean's classic film 'Brief Encounter' with Rigg and Peter Barkworth ( who came up with the show's title, incidentally ) as a couple who meet up in a railway station after many years and regret that they never took the opportunity to go to bed. They don't now. Seeing Barkworth doing comedy is unusual ( he was mainly known as a dramatic actor ) and he is rather good. The series was, on the whole, variable but boasted some good performers such as John Cleese and Bob Hoskins. Rigg shone in every role she played. She never made another series like this one and returned to stage and dramatic television ( she was wasted in a terrible Dr. Who episode called 'The Crimson Horror' ). She died in 2020.