Robin's Nest
With
George And Mildred successfully spun-off from Man About
The House, writers Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke turned
their attentions to Richard O'Sullivan, the principal figure in
that original series.
 There he had been Robin Tripp, a catering student, living
(without sin, to his chagrin) with two girls.
In Robin's Nest he was a newly qualified chef, living
very much in sin with his girlfriend Vicky (Tessa Wyatt).
Keen to open up their own bistro, Robin and Vicky enter into a
business partnership with her irascible father James (pictured
below left).
Being the
co-owner, and a very protective parent who - initially, at least -
disapproves of his daughter's choice of boyfriend, James is on the
scene all the time as a not-so-silent Silent Partner.
 Occasional episodes also featured Vicky's mother, divorced from
James, played by Honor Blackman and then by Barbara Murray.
Bestowing the series its title, the bistro - situated in the
Fulham area of London - is called Robin's Nest.
Robin and Vicky work there full-time, as does Albert Riddle
(pictured above right), a
one-armed Irishman with a criminal record, who does the washing-up
more with blarney than bubble.
Robin
and Vicky were almost married at the end of the first series, and
they finally tied the knot at the conclusion of the second. Vicky
then gave birth to twins in the fifth, by which time Mortimer and
Cooke had long abdicated the writing role - in the series' final
three years the pair scripted just one episode.
 All the same, by making it clear that Robin and Vicky
(pictured at right) were
unwed yet living and indeed sleeping together, they had scored a
first, the 'common-law marriage' situation having never been
depicted before in a British sitcom.
Special permission had to be sought from the Independent
Broadcasting Authority before the writers were given the
go-ahead.
Following the trend to Americanise the Man About The House/George
& Mildred franchise, a US version of Robin's Nest
was made (called Three's A Crowd).
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