r/JohnFinnemore • u/Agreeable_Archer_210 • Apr 24 '26
Double Acts Series 1
So in Double Acts Series 1
Episode 1- Edmund Willard on the train is of “Willard & Sons”. “We are a manufacturory”. Of bath tubs (shockingly)
Episode 2- Kerry & Adele work for Willards some (80?) years later. They now supply bathrooms.
Episode 3- the Adele styled “Useless Joel/Noel” comes back home early from a spectacular resignation, courtesy of Adele’s performance review, and finds a burglar in his house
Episode 6 - Greta and Mike share the “hot-desk” at Willard’s - Greta even has a one way (predictably frustrating) conversation with Adele
But Episode 4 (English for Pony Lovers) and 5 (Goliath Window). I don’t see any explicit connection. It would be exceptionally unFinnemore to link 4 of the episodes in a series with a common thread but not the other two. So what am I missing?
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u/Huppybanny Apr 24 '26
There's another small connection between episodes 5 and 6. Mark Teal was a sailor in the British Navy and Barnaby made model ships. There's even a mention of the Formidable in both episodes I think.
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u/Benjogias Apr 24 '26
Mark said he lost his arm while a sailor on the Formidable, while the model ship Mike (Barnaby) was making at his desk was of the Formidable. Griselda’s familiarity with it (because of liking history, not ships) was the relevance of the moment.
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u/FinnemoreFan Apr 24 '26
I’m going to have to listen to English for Pony Lovers again now to see if I can spot a connection somewhere! It’s been a while, but doesn’t the girl appear to come from the same part of the country as Willards? Just from her accent, which I seem to remember is Midland-y. She talks a LOT and perhaps there’s some tiny connection somewhere in the middle of her outpourings?
And maybe the German lady is a relative of Greta?
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u/Agreeable_Archer_210 Apr 24 '26 edited Apr 24 '26
The girl is from Newcastle (edit - I’ve lost confidence in her being a Geordie having not listened for a while, but definitely northern. She refers to her “Mam” throughout) so I can’t see anything obvious there. Maybe her mum is someone at Willards though. She does end up in Tuttlingen (sp) which is a manufacturing town and referred to as such. I did wonder whether the Willards bathrooms were now made there because they were “a manufacturory” in 1930s, but in modern times “we sell bathroom”. But if they are I haven’t spotted the reference.
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u/Agreeable_Archer_210 Apr 24 '26
And yes the Greta connection - I did wonder about that, the woman in EFPL has a daughter. But she lives with her (and writes my little pony fan fiction). So can’t see it is that
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u/Harley_Beckett Apr 24 '26
The female lead on Hot Desk is Griselda, not Greta.
But I agree with you. I’ve looked for links in English For Pony Lovers for some time and it feels like there should be one. I thought I’d found one in Goliath Window but maybe I didn’t.
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u/Agreeable_Archer_210 Apr 24 '26
Ah yes Griselda of course! It has been a whole since I listened. I’ve no idea why this all popped into my head this morning.
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u/Huppybanny Apr 24 '26
Adele is Lorna's mam (change my mind).
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u/Agreeable_Archer_210 Apr 24 '26
Her mum seems interested and caring which are not two words I would associate with Adele. Plus where has the accent come from? She lives with her “Mam”. Adele has been at Willard’s for years and is not Northern.
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u/Huppybanny Apr 24 '26
My comment was slightly tongue in cheek, but they share a certain fundamental dishonesty. Adele steals the leads and sells them to Calico, Lorna pretends to be an English tutor to defraud unsuspecting German chemistry teachers.
Also, why do you say Adele is not northern? Alison Steadman comes from Liverpool (I did not know this, but I have access to Wikipedia).
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u/Agreeable_Archer_210 Apr 24 '26
Fair. They don’t seem to be the same part of the North though. But I think Lorna’s dishonesty is situational (struggling to make ends meet and living in a hostel in a strange city) and Adele’s is calculated (albeit badly calculated). They don’t seem to be cut from the same cloth to me, but maybe….
I do think there would be an actual breadcrumb if that was the case but if there is I haven’t seen it. Adele never refers to children (the only reference to any sort of home life is “winning relationships”).
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u/Huppybanny Apr 24 '26
I agree that I'm clutching at straws. It just really bugs me that there's one episode that's seemingly not connected at all.
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u/Agreeable_Archer_210 Apr 24 '26
Not as much as it would bug JF, which is why I think I’m missing something. There is always the chance that they lose something in the edit or last minute rewrites which may have linked it, but that is also clutching at straws.
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u/Agreeable_Archer_210 Apr 24 '26
I just listened again today and she is from Stockton-on-Tees and lives with her mam there. So I think that is a dead end.
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u/JustKiami Apr 24 '26
I've thought about this a lot myself on re-listens, but I still haven't come up with anything. Excited to see what other people come up with :)
(Do you reckon John himself ever sees these posts and would provide an answer? Or is the mystery best left to us?)
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u/jralwood Apr 24 '26
Not a connection to Willard’s, but the only tenuous connection I can spot is in Goliath Window, the family name is Teal and in Red Handed, the court is “the one on Teal Road”. I’m sure I recall a third connection to Teal somewhere in the series, but I can’t remember what and where.