French Fields

French Fields is a British situation comedy. It ran for 19 episodes from 5 September 1989 to 8 October 1991. It was written by John T. Chapman and Ian Davidson and was produced by Thames Television for ITV.

The series starred Anton Rodgers and Julia McKenzie as husband and wife William and Hester Fields and followed the series Fresh Fields, which ran from 7 March 1984 to 23 October 1986. At the end of the last series of Fresh Fields, William accepted a position with a French company. French Fields follows Hester and William after they make the move to Calais.

Other regular cast included their French real estate agent Chantal (Pamela Salem), who was also the Fields' neighbour to the left. On the right, were the horrible and snobbish English couple the Trendles (Robin Kermode and Liz Crowther). Hester and William also coped with Madame Remoleux (Valerie Lush), an unintelligible and ancient French woman who lived in and cared for the estate — called Les Hirondelles (the Swallows) — where they all lived. Also, popping in on a regular basis, were local farmer and mayor Monsieur Dax (Olivier Pierre in series 1 and 2 and Philip McGough in series 3) and his daughter Marie-Christine (Victoria Baker), to whom Hester did her best to teach English. Nicholas Courtney also appeared frequently as the Marquis.

French Fields had several different time slots on ITV:

• Series 1 (6 Episodes) aired Tuesdays at 20:30 (5 September - 10 October 1989)
• Series 2 (6 Episodes) aired Mondays at 20:00 (24 September - 29 October 1990)
• Series 3 (6 Episodes) aired Tuesdays at 20:30 (3 September - 8 October 1991)

A special 45-minute Christmas episode aired on Tuesday, 25 December 1990 at 22:00.