Plot
The story follows the life of gay school teacher Bob who is fed-up with the shallowness of dating on the gay club scene in Manchester. A romantic at heart Bob yearns to meet the right person and settle down. After yet another unsuccessful gay date he meets Rose while they are both waiting for a taxi cab. Rose is disenchanted with her down-to-earth boyfriend and is smitten with Bob but she does not initially realise he is gay. Subsequent episodes chart their on-off love affair which is bedeviled by the activities of Bob's best friend Holly. Holly (Jessica Stevenson) is secretly in love with Bob and does everything she can to quietly interfere with Bob's gay relationships because she does not want to lose him. Privately she is lonely and her only social life is through Bob and his gay clubs. When Rose suddenly appears on the scene Holly sees her as a threat, stalks her and may (or may not - the plot leaves the final matter in doubt) conspire with Bob's former boyfriend Carl to split Bob and Rose up. A situation is created which suggests Bob may have had a one-night-stand with Carl and Holly deliberately preys on Rose's insecurities and creates further doubts. Eventually she outright lies to Rose.
The story also follows the attempts of Rose's mother to find a reliable boyfriend, and Bob's campaigning mother who runs a fictional gay support group called "Parents Against Homophobia" (PAH!). The series is a gentle romantic comedy with each episode managing to end at an emotional or comic climax - as when Bob follows Rose down the street after they argue in a pub. He admits that their first heterosexual sex act has confused him but he wants to do it again. Equally confused, Rose turns towards the camera and unromantically says: "Oh b*llocks!" and the credits roll.
The script takes some shrewd looks at emotions and motivations but also contrasts the different atmosphere and attitudes within gay and straight UK night clubs - as in the scene where a straight man cannot get into a straight club wearing trainers but the gays can enter their club wearing skimpy satin sports clothes. One important scene which explains Bob's disenchantment with the gay clubs comes when he is approached by an attractive man who talks only about physical acts. Bob, desperate to be regarded as an individual replies: "I'm a Capricorn".
The series has an up-beat ending which manages to resolve issues for all the main characters - even Holly eventually learns from her mistakes and blossoms into a person in her own right. Bob and Rose find happiness and Carl gets an angelic dream date.
Read more about this topic: Bob & Rose
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)