Ring Around the Bath: Topsy-Turvy Family Life

A riotous sitcom about a mother battling to get her adult children to leave home.

In this wonderful, fraught, witty real comedy about a middle-aged mother desperate to begin her post-children life, Stella is wondering why those grown-up children are all still in her house. Dreaming of retiring to a life in the countryside with her husband, instead she's dealing with four extra people in the house, rooms that urgently need de-junking, surprise pregnancy tests, difficult neighbours and a mother who really isn't helping anything.

When she attempts to clear the useless clutter from the house, Stella realises it's her children who really need to go; if she can't move to the country, then she's going to make sure the country will move to her; and when it finally seems like at least one child is moving out, that's the perfect moment for Stella's mother to decide she's moving in. Stella feels like the family chaos will never end...

Cast

Penny Downie—Stella (Series 1 & 2)

Pippa Haywood—Stella (Series 3)

Duncan Preston—Patrick

Claudie Blakley—Alison

Bruce MacKinnon—Rick

Catherine Shepherd—Xanthe

Daniela Denby-Ashe—Egg

Rita Davies—Mother

Russell Bently—Fergus

Production credits

Witten by Lucy Clare and Ian Davidson

Produced and Directed by Elizabeth Freestone

Originally broadcast August-September 2003 (Series 1), November-December 2004 (Series 2) and January-February 2006 (Series 3)