The Life and Loves of a She-Devil

For six Wednesday nights from 08/10/1986, the nation was gripped by this Fay Weldon drama. Julie T. Wallace made her debut as the big-boned, neglected housewife Ruth, who exacts revenge on her husband Bobbo (Dennis Waterman) when she finds out he's been having an affair with romantic novelist Mary Fisher (Patricia Hodge). Tom Baker and Bernard Hepton were among the guest stars who were obliged to leap into bed with Wallace, while Stephen Greif played the plastic surgeon who transformed her into a Patricia Hodge doppelganger. The series originally aired on BBC2, this recording is from a 1993 BBC1 repeat.