These days Mistress was billed as a dramedy. Back in the 1980s it was termed as a comedy, albeit a more high brow, middle class and slightly serious one.
Writer Carla Lane flirted with the idea of a middle aged married woman having a platonic affair with another man in Butterflies.
In Mistress, Luke (Jack Galloway) has to balance life with his wife Helen (Jane Asher) and mistress Maxine (Felicity Kendal.)
Maxine runs a florist and keeps rabbits at home. She is besotted with Luke and deep down knows that sharing a life with a married man involves a lot of subterfuge.
The first episode concerns Luke trying to arrange a sly weekend with Maxine. Only for Luke to be extra cautious which annoys Maxine.
Controversial at the time because of its subject matter. This was bittersweet rather than funny. If you take off the nostalgic glasses, this was made for a staid BBC2 audience.
The characters are dreadfully uninteresting and middle class.