London, 1975 and 1976. When women had careers and the coil and multiple orgasms, and the hip and open-minded were reading John Updike’s <i>Couples</i>. The time of crop tops and hipster flares and Biba. When one interpretation of gender equality was that women could screw around, too, but woe betide the woman who reached the grand old age of thirty without being hitched, because she’d missed the boat and was on the shelf. Or lesbian. A time of such confusion and mixed messages that one might almost forgive the reactionary old farts who hankered for the simplicity of traditional role divisions.

So. Lois is married to her old ethics tutor Hugh. She’s now twenty-eight and he’s forty. He’s a wonderful man and she loves him very much, but he isn’t enough for her. And he, because he loves her very much, too, and doesn’t want to be a fuddy-duddy and lose her quite completely, grits his teeth and says it’s just fine for her to have lovers. Meanwhile, wide-boy builder Jack is married to prudish, uptight Tessa and currently having an affair with dippy Pamela. Ann, recently jilted by her long-term lover, is rapidly approaching the midnight strike of thirty and desperately looking for a toad who might just turn out to be a prince. Two possibles are Sebastian and Charlie. Or are they gay? Then Tony and Zoe appear on the scene. Another nice man with a wife who wants more. And, not to be forgotten, Mick Galway is happily married, with a couple of kids, but just adores women so much he simply can’t resist them.

Take the ingredients, mix them all up willy-nilly and surely it has to be a recipe for disaster for everyone concerned? But Tess and Jack are a bit cordon bleu, and Sebastian makes a mean curry. And it all turns out sort of all right in the end . . .

- Suzy Ceulan Hughes @ www.gwales.com,