Plot
Dudley and Muriel Rush own and live in a multi-storey house, of which the ground floor has been converted into a flat. The ground floor flat had been rented from them and, when the tenant dies, the former tenant's family arrive to carry off all his possessions.
Dudley and Muriel have two daughters, Jacqui (in her early twenties) and Susan (in her late teens). Jacqui and Susan want to have the vacant downstairs flat for themselves, so they can escape from the parental home and from Dudley's obsessive gaze. Dudley wants to rent out to the flat to somebody else but his daughters' pleas win the day and the two girls move into the flat. Dudley's obsessive and possessive gaze, though, is still on them and he objects to the young men who, he notices, visit his daughters.
Dudley is a talented illustrator and he earns his living from drawing his cartoon strip "Barney – the Bionic Bulldog" which he does while holding a pencil in the paw of his ventriloquist lion glove puppet. Dudley draws the cartoon strip under protest for his literary agent Duncan Thomas, who sells Dudley's cartoon to newspapers. Dudley would rather do anything than draw the cartoon strip and he keeps procrastinating to such an extent that he keeps missing the deadline for his illustrations, much to the frustration of the long-suffering Duncan.
As well as objecting to Duncan trying to keep him to publishing deadlines, Dudley also jealously objects to Duncan's obvious approval of Dudley's wife, Muriel and he also objects to Duncan's eager consumption of Muriel's delicious cakes.
Dudley is also a compulsive practical joker, with his long-suffering agent, Duncan Thomas, usually being on the receiving end of such jokes.
Read more about this topic: Keep It In The Family (TV Series)
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