It’s 1990, it’s Stockport and Martin Parker (Conleth Hill) is a fiftysomething self-made man running a chain of electrical stores that are starting to struggle. Recession, “them s***houses from Rumbelows”, the banks and a couple of loan sharks are making business difficult for him. This is all despite his cheesy local TV ads, which give the BBC One show its name – “Cheapest prices this side of the Pennines; that’s the power of Parker.”
Martin is under pressure. He’s got a nice house, a couple of upmarket motors (Saab saloon, Mercedes sports car), kids at private school, and a put-upon but loyal and supportive wife, Diane (Rosie Cavaliero, who fills the role with such a surfeit of combustible nervous frustration she seems ready to implode). But Martin’s world is about to fall apart, because he also has a mistress, called Kath. Played with usual aplomb by Sian Gibson, Kath, roughly Martin’s age, isn’t doing as well for herself as the provincial electrical tycoon. She’s a mobile hairdresser with a clientele drawn mainly from residential care homes. They’ve been in this relationship for 25 years, but, with characteristic insensitivity, Martin chooses to end things on their “anniversary”, even as she’s dressed, randomly and comically, and just for him, as a Bavarian dairy maid, all ready for their carnal afternoon delight. We see Martin unusually tense, torn between lust and solvency because he can no longer afford the rent on her flat/love-nest above a butcher’s shop. “It’s over,” he tells her. “I can’t be responsible for you any more.” This merely adds to his problems.
