Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam return in the fourth series of Jan Etherington’s award-winning comedy about a long-married couple in love with life and each other. Conversations from a Long Marriage is written by Jan Etherington and produced by Claire Jones. The production coordinator is Katie Baum, the studio engineer is Wilfredo Acosta and sound design is by Jon Calver. It is a BBC Studios Production. Can Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam ever have done anything better than Jan Etherington’s two hander? Sublimely funny, touching… This is a work of supreme craftsmanship.’ SIMON O’HAGAN, RADIO TIMES We join them as Joanna breathily compliments Roger - ‘How do you get it so perfect every time?’ His reply ‘Hot goose fat and regular tossing’ reveals that they are enjoying his signature roast potatoes. They’re spending a quiet Christmas with Peter and Sally but this snowballs into an extravagant houseparty when Peter is offered a rich friend’s country pile and invites other couples.

Conversations From A Long Marriage. Image shows from L to R: Joanna (Joanna Lumley), Roger (Roger Allam) Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam will return for Series 4 and Series 5 of Conversations From A Long Marriage, the Radio 4 comedy created by Jan Etherington. Propelled into a different world, Jan and Gavin became full time writers. Faith In The Future, followed and won Jan and Gavin a British Comedy Award. “Everybody loved it and it was fantastically fun to do,” she says. They then wrote Next of Kin, inspired by their hedonistic neighbours in Sunbury, in which Penelope Keith and William Gaunt play an affluent couple forced to abandon their dreams of early retirement when their estranged son dies and they reluctantly become guardians of their orphaned grandchildren. Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam have had illustrious acting careers but can they ever have done anything better than Jan Etherington’s two hander? This is a work of supreme craftsmanship.’ RADIO TIMESIt’s not the first time that Etherington creates a radio hit, but her writing didn’t always find its way to the screen. However, as she explains, times have changed: the creation of BBC Studios means the corporation’s radio and television production teams are liaising with each other again in an attempt to develop formats.

An endearing portrait of exasperation, laced with hard won tolerance – and something like love.’ THE GUARDIAN Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam star in Jan Etherington’s award-winning comedy, as a couple who are passionate about life and each other. This week: they drop in on some old friends they haven't seen for years. And while Joanna and Roger feel the same as they always have, their friends seem to have changed beyond recognition. He's moved from technicolour to tweed, and she's never even heard of Stormzy. Her couples are always equal partnerships. “I hate the idea of dozy husbands who can’t work the dishwasher. All the couples I write about are equally strong - they support each other. If there are jokes about cooking it’s about her incompetence rather than his. But that’s not where the laughs come for me – I'm interested in the emotional strength of the couples, or the people I’m writing about. Vulnerability comes in different ways.”

The Official Website of Actor Roger Allam

Details of organisations offering information and support with some of the issues in this episode are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline. Written for Joanna Lumley by award-winning comedy writer and journalist Jan Etherington, who herself has been married for 35 years. Jan has created and written many long-running radio and television series with her husband Gavin Petrie (Second Thoughts, Next of Kin, Faith in the Future) and has written sketches for Radio 4’s Ayres on the Air, but this is her first solo-scripted, half-hour comedy. She says: “Conversations from a Long Marriage will resonate with couples of any age but especially those who are still dancing in the kitchen, singing in the car and trying to keep the passion alive.” This gives me hope that life and marriage might permanently include taking the absolute piss while simultaneously dancing in the kitchen’. EMMA FREUD On a long car journey, they reminisce about their first meeting and a long-held secret is revealed. Witty, big-hearted and a whole lot of fun, Conversations From A Long Marriage is a collection of eight scripts from the first two series of the Radio 4 comedy starring Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam, and will resonate with couples of any age - but especially those who are still dancing in the kitchen, singing in the car and trying to keep the passion alive.

Gorgeous is what Lumley does, and gorgeous is what she loves, as she explains in the first episode. When she was young, she loved the piano and wanted to play. But she struggled with reading the notes, so lessons went no further. Still, she and her family listened to classical records, and she heard music, too, when doing dance classes in Malaya, specifically Offenbach’s Barcarolle: “I can hear it to this day.” When pop came along, “I liked gorgeous music, so I loved the Everly Brothers… Elvis had a beautiful voice.” Come on!’ I’d shout at my radio and TV. ‘Where are my contemporaries? The strong, smart, funny women who have laughed and loved their way through life since the Summer of Love, and might still be married to the sexy hippie they met at Glastonbury 71?’ " Talking to British Comedy Guide, Etherington says: " Conversations... is the show that keeps on giving - five series and a book of the scripts! Joanna, Roger, producer Claire Jones and I couldn't be happier that the listeners - and BBC Radio 4 - love it as much as we do." Last Christmas... Roger Allam and Joanna Lumley in Conversations from a Long Marriage by Jan Etherington. (Image: Tricia Yourkevich 2014) Sublimely funny, touching series. Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam have had illustrious acting careers but can they ever have done anything better than Jan Etherington’s two hander? This is a work of supreme craftsmanship.’ Simon O’Hagan. RADIO TIMES

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Joanna and Roger have been married for over forty years. Children of the Sixties, they're still free spirits, drawn together by their passion for music - and each other. Conversations from a Long Marriage is exactly that: following conversations that take them from the local café, to their kitchen table. She suggests there are advantages to single beds and wants to go clubbing in Ibiza for her imminent 'big' birthday, he has a dodgy knee and is on statins, and when they discuss the marriage break-up of their closest friends, there's jealousy and talk of affairs. In fact, she does none of those things, but instead is a keen year-round North Sea swimmer, and spends a lot of time roaming the Suffolk coast with her "superstar" English Setter, Jagger (named after the Rolling Stone). She's an active contributor to her local village community - she edited the village news for five years and now does the fete programme - volunteered for five years as a tour guide for Southwold Lighthouse, is patron of Halesworth’s Pear Tree Fund, and a regular contributor to INK Festival. The cover quotes Lumley as saying " Jan Etherington has the pen of an angel", with Allam adding "Being 'married' to Joanna Lumley has been a complete joy". As a one-off episode broadcast on Radio 4 on New Year’s Day, Conversations from a Long Marriage portrayed Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam as a married couple for over 40 years. Children of the Sixties, they were still free spirits, drawn together by their passion for music – and each other. The show followed their conversations that took them from the local café, to their kitchen table, taking in her resentment of new glasses – a symbol of ageing – and fury at being lectured by the dental hygienist. He had a dodgy knee and was on statins, and when they discussed the marriage break-up of their closest friends, Sally and Peter, there was jealousy and talk of affairs. She suggested there are advantages to single beds, separate holidays and wanted to go clubbing in Ibiza for her imminent ‘big’ birthday. With series five commissioned, there's been talk of television, although, perversely for a writer, it’s not something Jan particularly wants to happen. The temptation in transferring it to TV would be to change it by introducing other characters, yet the USP of the series, she says, is two people having a conversation that nobody else can hear – that's what makes it intimate and real.

Conversations from a Long Marriage is written by Jan Etherington, who has been married to Gavin Petrie for over 30 years. Second Thoughts , Faith In The Future and Next Of Kin. She says: “ Conversations From A Long Marriage will resonate with couples of any age but especially those who are still dancing in the kitchen, singing in the car and trying to keep the passion alive.” Talking to British Comedy Guide about the genesis of her latest show, Etherington explained further: “I wrote it for Joanna Lumley because she epitomises that ageless style and curiosity for living in the moment. Roger Allam is absolutely wonderful, one of the gods of radio and it was just magical to see them together, they are so in tune and they genuinely like each other.” I’ve always tried to write about what’s going on in my life, not necessarily telling verbatim stories from our lives but using them as a benchmark,” she says. “They say ‘write about what you know’, but I think it’s more ‘write about what makes you laugh’ because it’s very therapeutic, even if you’re going through a tough time, divorce or a trauma like Next of Kin. Most of the couples I’m writing about are bowling along, then there’s some huge trauma and they have to deal with it.” Ken Bruce will join Greatest Hits Radio after more than three decades at Radio 2. Photograph: Bauer Media/PA Humourless boyfriends aside, she had a “lovely life” growing up in Kingston upon Thames. Her father, a wartime Lancaster bomber pilot, of whom she is tremendously proud, was from Swansea, so holidays were spent on the Gower Peninsula. Here she found an early comedy influence in her grandmother, a St John Ambulance volunteer at Langland Bay, where she had a beach hut.

Credits

Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam play a couple who have been married for over 40 years. Children of the Sixties, they’re still free spirits, drawn together by their passion for music – and each other. Perfect for a trivia night or a long trip, #TrainTeasers will both test your knowledge of this country`s rail system and enlighten you on the most colourful aspects of its long history. Meet trunk murderers, trainspotters, haters of railways, railway writers, Ministers for Transport good and bad, railway cats, dogs and a railway penguin. This is NOT a book for number-crunching nerds. Many of the answers are guessable by the intelligent reader. It is a quiz, yes, but also a cavalcade of historical incident and colour relating to a system that was the making of modern Britain. Conversations from a Long Marriage won the Voice of the Listener & Viewer Award for Best Radio Comedy in 2020. Conversations from a Long Marriage is written by Jan Etherington and produced by Claire Jones. The production coordinator is Katie Baum, the sound engineer is Wilfredo Acosta and sound design is by Jon Calver. It is a BBC Studios Production. The new run will see the long married loving couple dealing with a new, young rescue dog, a feisty old auntie, handing out advice to friends and godchildren - and "sailing away into the sunset".