Whatever Happened To Her Indoors

Episode Overview

Arthur is convinced that the way to sell a few more cars is to appeal to British patriotism by erecting a flagpole of the union flag at the car lot. The council, in the form of Mr. Richards, promptly disagrees and Arthur finds himself up in court attempting to justify why he has done it. In the meantime, DS Morley is informed of the disappearance of Arthur’s wife by her hairdresser. Convinced that Arthur has murdered her because he is suffering from a severe cash crisis, Morley pulls out all the stops to find her.

Cast

Glynn Edwards as Dave, Nicholas Day as DS Morley, Stephen Tompkinson as DC Park, Kevin McNally as Richards, George Costigan as Billy, Lill Roughley as Doreen Daley, Sidney Livingstone as Bert Daley, Cherry Gillespie as Lynn, Michael Garner as Andrew Shanks, Richard Syms as Drummond, Geraldine Newman as Magistrate, Philip Glenister as Greg Hunter, Phillip Reader as Photographer, Wilfred Grove as Neighbour, Jonathan Donne as Traffic Cop

Facts

Unfortunately, very little information about ‘er Indoors comes forward in this episode, not even her first name, despite the fact that the plot is based around her disappearance. In Leon Griffiths’ 1979 book ‘Minder – A Novel By Leon Griffiths’ Arthur’s wife’s first name is Sarah and she is described at that time as “45 but looks older” and is never referred to as ‘er indoors at any point in the book. This episode features an early appearance from actor Philip Glenister as a newspaper reporter who would later become Gene Hunt in the successful BBC series ‘Life on Mars’. A second appearance in the series for Arthur’s younger brother Bert.

In this episode Ray’s mother Doreen shows considerable dislike for ‘er indoors. In this episode, we also hear Morley refer to DC Park by his first name, Johnny.

Double Take

This is the first time in The Ray Daley Years that we meet Arthur’s Yorkshire contact ‘Billy from Bradford’, who had first been mentioned in #8.1 The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Entrepreneur and would later reappear in #8.7 A Bird In The Hand Is Worth Two In Shepherd’s Bush again played by actor George Costigan. The character of Billy first featured in #7.6 The Wrong Goodbye, referred to then as ‘Billy from Leeds’.

Bloopers: At 16m20s as newspaper reporter Greg Hunter (Philip Glenister) is telling Arthur that his story will be in the newspaper that same day, a girl in the background is clearly looking into the car lot to see what is going on.