The Catherine Tate Show Characters - Main Characters - The Aga Saga Woman

The Aga Saga Woman

An upper-middle-class woman who goes into a state of shock in various, seemingly innocuous situations. For example: after receiving a phone call from her husband's European personal assistant, she must tell her children that "Daddy hasn't been able to find any good brie" on his business trip to France. They fear that they will be mocked at the Parisian picnic at school because they lack the correct cheese. Another time, she panics at the thought of having to use a dishwasher when an egg cleaver falls onto the floor, meaning that Chloe cannot open her egg and it cannot breathe and may discolour. Everyone panics at this and can only suggest that the housekeeper rush to their house on public transport—a taxi—to put the cleaver through the dishwasher. She also dreads the thought of going supermarket-shopping by herself. The title of the sketch is a pun on the stereotype of the pretentious middle classes having an Aga oven at home. The Aga Saga Woman is called "Mrs Montgomery" in Series Two, later retconned in Series Three to "Mrs Taylor-Thomas".

In Series Two, she goes into a state of shocked terror when a Northern nanny has to look after her children. She does forewarn the children that the agency arranged for a temporary nanny (as Alice was ill), and that she feared that the nanny may come from as far north as Sunderland (pronounced by them as /sʌndəˈlænd/ as opposed to /ˈsʌndələnd/). Jill Halfpenny guest-starred as the Northern nanny.

In Series Three, she sends everyone at her children's school sports day into a panic when she finds out the eggs being used in the egg and spoon race are not organic. The children and parents immediately run for their 4x4s (all of them identical BMW X5s) and drive off. Another time, she becomes terrified at the prospect of having to use a hire car while her Land Rover is being repaired. She and her children are disturbed when they take a wrong turn and end up driving in Tottenham (pronounced by them as "Totting-ham"), where they are traumatised when they see the supermarket Iceland, when they notice that nobody is wearing brogues, and when someone cleans their windscreen at the traffic lights, screaming over whether they will 'survive' the incident. On another occasion they evacuate a picnic after her children's friend Fergus accidentally consumes a gooseberry and cinnamon yoghurt that is one day past its sell-by date. She seems to believe that encounters with the lower-middle class or anything less than perfect will prove fatal, and has passed this trait on to her children. This is evident in catchphrases like "Don't look them in the eyes!", "Run for your lives, children--we're all going to die!" and "Please don't kill us, we mean you no harm!"

The Aga Saga Woman's daughter, Chloe Taylor-Thomas, is played by two different actresses in Series One and Two and played by Jennifer Rae Daykin in Series Three. Chloe often comes up with good ideas during the Aga Saga Woman's crisis, such as suggesting that Roquefort will go well with some good bread at the Parisian picnic. The Aga Saga Woman's son, Thomas Taylor-Thomas, is played by different actors in all three series. He sometimes seems to be forgetful, as he once suggested bringing Wensleydale cheese, which would have been a grave mistake, to a Parisian picnic. He refers to his mother as "dear heart" and "darling" and often takes a lead role during the Aga Saga Woman's crisis by saying not to panic and "it puts everything into perspective."

Tate has stated that the character was based on a woman who was rude to her on Kings Road when she was pregnant.