A Fine Romance: Complete Collection

A Fine Romance stars not only Dame Judi Dench, but her now deceased husband Michael Williams. Together they create, in an early 1980s world, a believable confrontational home relationship. It's dated a bit with issues and lack of sex, language, and action that seems to fuel 21st century American TV. So if you enjoy dialogue driven comedy, now period romantic comedy, unintentionally, this is great.Why a "NEW" complete collection release. Likely because so many desire it, the older copies sell for more than this new set on Amazon. Advantage to the new in that all discs fit into one shelf-saving case.SDH SUBTITLES for all 26 episodes-total about 11 hours. A keeper, not a rental.Dench is special, & shows her giftedness in this 80s series even though it's many roles and years since her 1959 debut. "Love in a Cold Climate" preceded, with "As Time Goes By", "Angelina Ballerina", "Cranford", "Pirates of the Caribbean", and "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" only a pittance of her filmography.Husband Michael Williams was also frequently acting in roles from "Educating Rita" and "Henry V" and more till he died in 2001.Susan Penhaligon plays the sister in almost all of the episodes, and can be seen reading a book "Bouquet of Barbed Wire", which she held the leading role when adapted for TV. That's an example of the wry wit displayed throughout the series.Her husband played by Richard Warwick, keep the romantic banter and bicker in fine tune.Like a British Ozzie and Harriet, but two decades later, and with no kids. Like Lucy and Desi, but not as slap-stick. Likable British family sitcom viewing recommended to all my mid-life to senior friends.

Excellent! I am hearing impaired and to ding this subtitled- at a reasonable price- was awesome! I love Dame Judi Bench. Sad to say I have the complete series “ As Time Goes On. It is close captioned and my DVD player does not play captions. I would be willing to sell the series- so I can replace it with a subtitled series that would play on my DVD player. Any offers- would be helpful! There must be people who want the series but don’t need subtitles. Thank you!If so contact me!

I have watched the 1st two discs of my DVD'S. THERE WORKING TERRIFIC. Really enjoying the show.

We always enjoy Judi Dench and this is the first time we have seen Michael work. He is very talented. It was warm and funny. We gave it four stars, because it doesn't come up to As Time Goes By, as far as we are concerned. We will be watching it over again soon, you always see more things to enjoy on the second playing.

It's hard to give less than five stars for Judi Dench, but although her performance was as wonderful as it usually is, the other acting sometimes felt a little wooden. I also thought that the difficulties/misunderstandings between the two lead characters were overworked. But this series is still better than 99% of the trash being put out on TV today.

Cute sitcom, but not the best I've seen. If you love Brit sitcoms you should enjoy this, but don't expect an award winner. Just for simple enjoyment, not earth-shaking comedy.

We enjoyed the series but it is three episodes short the one disc is a repeat of another one. I notified Amazon at once and you quickly responded with a new set but it has the same problem. Not happy but I'm sure it was caused by the manufacturer and all of your copies will have the same problem. I would suggest you pull your stock for a refund.

Great quality dvd of this old English sitcom.

couldn't play it --so very upset at waste of money frankly no star rating is more applicable

"A Fine Romance" is a 1980's British sitcom starring a younger Judi Dench as "Laura" as a Linguist who is currently translating a German textbook on urinary infections and Michael Williams as "Mike" who portrays a local landscape gardener; both of whom are middle-aged anti-social misfits who appear to be lonely but would be more comfortable hiding during social gatherings than to find true love. Fortunately, Laura and Mike are pushed together by Laura's younger sister Helen and her husband Phil who throw a house party to find a single man for Laura and decide at the last minute to invite Mike to have them meet and get to know each other. Not all goes well in the beginning as Laura would prefer to hide in a bedroom alone with a romance novel entitled "A Bouquet of Barbed Wire" and Mike would rather be hiding in the Loo to sit and solve a crossword puzzle printed on a roll of loo paper. However, as they are both trying to not only hide from the other party goers they also end up trying to hide and avoid each other and end up in the same hiding place during the house party. Laura and Mike soon figure out they need to make it appear to both Helen and Phil that they have made a good match by matching them up together and give the impression to their matchmakers that they are getting along as they pretend to leave the party together, but there also appears to be a underlying attraction between both Laura and Mike and so the love story continues on during the entire four series in a total of 26 episodes.The DVD quality of the program is a satisfactory recorded version of the master analogue video tapes and the entire series is recorded on four DVD's. This British sitcom was a great program filler back in the 1980's when it sometimes aired on CBC Television after an NHL hockey playoff telecast and this DVD box set will bring great memories to those who watched the series back in the 80's. If you love British sitcoms, then "A Fine Romance" is a must have item to add to your DVD collection.

I was very pleased with the DVD. It was totally a gift to myself and I enjoyed it very much.

Entertaining, but not as good as some of her other stuff.

This is one of the sweetest series I have ever seen. I love Judy Dench and Mike Williams is adorable in his role of the shy and clumsy boyfriend. Perhaps a dated romance to some but to me, it is classy and witty. Nice change from the smut, horror and filth that TV offers these days.