Last Tango in Halifax (TV Series)

Episode #2.3 (2013)

Tony Gardner: John

Quotes 

• Caroline : [after recently reading John's papers, which he's left lying around the house]  Why don't you talk to me about Alison Waterhouse?

  Celia : Who?

  Caroline : A flaccid, overripe fruit of a woman.

  John : I was experimenting with language, similes.

  Caroline : It's a metaphor. It's a lazy metaphor. I mean, what sort of fruit are we talking about? A banana? A tangerine?

  John : You know, people always think you've based characters on them and you haven't.

  Caroline : And can we leave Alison's dusky negress right out of it? Or Matthew Waterhouse will be getting his withering, shriveling, starved-of-light, pink little bollocks chopped right off.

  John : Right, fine.

  Celia : Is that what he's put?

  John : Adjustments will be made. Can I have it back?

  Caroline : No, you can whistle.

  John : Caroline!

  Caroline : And what about Lizzie Cunningham, a latter-day Bathsheba Everdene, no less, who owns her own sheep farm and has more suitors than she knows what to do with? Who does that remind us of?

  [reading] 

  Caroline : A sullen, sinewy 40-something woman with the purposeful frame and carriage of a sixteen-year-old boy. Ooh, la la, so...

  [aside to Lawrence] 

  Caroline : Mummy isn't the only gay in the village.

  [to John] 

  Caroline : I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to ring Gillian.

• John : So where's Ellie gone? Do we know?

  Gillian : I rang her mum and she said she had no idea. But then Harry phoned a bit later and said she was there. At her mother's. Silly bitch.

  John : Are you alright?

  Gillian : Oh. Everyone's fallen out with me again, so... I'm kind of up shit creek without a paddle. Again. So, God, I don't know. It's a bit mad, isn't it? You and me?

  John : Well, I don't know. It's not very much madder than almost everything else that's happened.