++ GUIDES ++

 

 

:: IS IT LEGAL? SERIES THREE: BIG DESK BOB::

 

Originally aired [ C4 11/11/1998 ]

 

:: WHAT HAPPENS? ::

 

In this episode, the plot of which rests heavily on the previous episode Stella and Bob have an up and a down, though most of the humour derives from slapstick gags.

 

This edition starts with Stella driving both of them to work, clearly Bob has spent the night at her place. They discuss their lovemaking, and seem reassured that everything is working still – Stella describes her previous feelings as akin to a Cornish Tin mine threatened with permanent closure. They decide to keep their relationship clandestine. They confirm their mutual affection for one another, whereupon Stella asks him to get out of the car and walk the rest of the way to the office, this being so the others do not see them arriving together.

 

Bob inherits a large antique desk from his Uncle Bob, who was a solicitor in Coventry. Colin is called into Stella’s Colin's idea for the brochureoffice, and after a brief flashback in Colin’s mind to seeing Bob and Stella on the settee in her office and a moment of embarrassment from them both, they discuss Colin’s work on a Brochure for Lotus, Spackman and Phelps. Colin has decided that the Smig Barnet Wincie one is a bit serious but he manages to be childish and inappropriate, deciding that they should go for a leaflet that shows them hiding under pictures of farm yard animals. Stella is perturbed at being under the Duck, and tells Colin to have a rethink. On a different topic, she plucks up the courage to tell Colin that what he saw between her and Bob quiet.

 

Meanwhile, Bob is having trouble with his edificial desk. Not only is it far too big, but he has to climb over it to get to his pens and the draws do not open. It is quite hopeless, so he repairs to the conference room to do his paperwork. This movement catches Alison’s gossip-loving attention and she comments after Bob leaves the room that he was wearing the same clothes yesterday. Colin’s enormous guilt complex rears up and Alison realises immediately that something is “going on that I don’t know about”. Stella interrupts a possible interrogation as she comes into the office to speak to Bob. “Bob, I’ve just had Bollow’s on the phone…Bloody Hell” when she catches sight of the Desk. She can’t immediately see how to get to the conference room to speak to Bob, and so Colin attempts to lift her over it, though without having asked her. She screams to be put down immediately, and climbs underneath the desk to get past it.

 

Stella and Bob discuss work briefly, but she is distracted by his new big desk and so the conversation falters and they lapse to talking about their relationship. Bob asks her if they should tell the others. Alison is intrigued by their conversation and watches them from the open-plan office. Stella sees this, and replies adamantly that they should not. This of course merely fires Alison’s lean hunger for gossip. Bob and Stella leave the conference room, and Stella returns to her office. Darren asks innocently if anyone is doing anything this week end. Alison replies lazily that she and her boy friend are “just going to lie around having sex”. Colin, who else, blurts out “I expect the same goes for you and Stella, eh, Bob?”.

 

Given that then tension has been released for Alison, and in a way Colin, though builds in Bob’s case, an interrogation is attempted. Darren asks if Stella said “Take me, take me now Bobby baby”, though Bob decline to answer. Alison creates an image when she suggests that she imagines they undress poorly – “…see Stella hopping around trying to get the last leg out of her pants.” Darren even adds that they might consider lovemaking in the Office – on the big desk, as it is big enough! Bob attempts to tell them an anecdote to wean them off the subject, and describes a present of a folding bicycle he was once given, though they quite miss the point – Colin is bowled over by the false romance of the story.

 

Stella talks to Colin again about the brochure, and sees his revised effort. However, things are not improved as the farm-yard animals are replaced with fruit. Stella is unhappy about being under the Kumquat and about a truncated synopsis. Bob is unhappy with the dimensions of his desk, but in a bid to bring it down to size cuts off rather too much of it and not evenly. Colin supposes that it might affect its value for insurance purposes, to which Bob swears. Alison and Darren make a tentative re-entry into the open-plan office and reconcile with Bob. He wearily agrees, but they spoil it by Darren asking what she was like in Bed and Alison asks how many times they did it. Colin says what a tremendous couple Bob and Stella make, and that he is sure that Alison and Darren will not say what they know to Stella…as if. Bob wants to believe him, and muses a bit maudlinly that forming close relationships becomes more difficult with age, and that in his case it was compounded as he had lost his confidence after his disastrous marriage to Virginia.

 

Soon after, Stella asks Bob about a complication in one of their open cases, with which Alison is also dealing. They talk in a little depth about it, with Stella describing one of the parties as being angry enough to “go all the way with it”, where Colin blurts out “just like you and Bob, eh, Stella…”. At some point later, Stella calls Bob in to her office, and is clearly very nervous. She tells Bob it is off, as she “must just be too embarrassed by their relationship” – clearly she is finding it more difficult to form close relationships, too. Bob tries to make light of what has happened, and suggests amusingly touching possible reasons for her wish for separation, which could easily be remedied – “Is it my glasses?” “Is it that funny wiry patch of hair under my…”. Stella assures him it is not for those reasons. We see Bob in the open-plan office, with an empty feeling expression on his face. Colin comments that his desk is lovely, and promptly breaks it. We then see Bob leaving the office, looking over to the empty parking space with Stella’s name on it. Her car then pulls up next to him and she opens the passenger door, looking tentative. He gets in, and they talk as though nothing has happened, deciding to go to his place.

 

This review written by Sam F.

 

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