The Green Green Grass - Scenario

Scenario

Boycie (played by John Challis) is forced to flee Peckham after providing crucial evidence against the infamous Driscoll brothers regarding illegal immigrants. He is the lead witness in the case and finds himself in trouble when every single other witness changes their statement and the Driscoll brothers walk free. In an attempt to live to old age, Boycie and his wife, Marlene (Sue Holderness) and son Tyler (Jack Doolan) move overnight to the secluded town of Oakam, Shropshire. Upon arrival at Winterdown Farm, Boycie begins to realise that death was perhaps the easier option.

The situation focuses primarily on their futile attempts to run the farm efficiently through utilising the current staff consisting of Elgin (David Ross), Bryan (Ivan Kaye), Jed (Peter Heppelthwaite) and Imelda (Ella Kenion) – the farm’s loyal, if a little eccentric staff. As the series progressed, Boycie and Marlene began to settle into their surroundings however, situations arose occasionally – usually involving their Welsh neighbour, Llewellyn. Tyler was soon sent to school to finish his GCSEs, something he really didn’t want to do but again problems arose as Tyler fell in love with his English teacher.

The snob in Boycie is often his downfall, as he found out when he attended the Agricultural Ball in 2005 where his photo was taken and published in a magazine that stated where he would be that Christmas however, luck ensured that Boycie remained at home when he was snowed in and missed his plane thus not getting scammed by the conmen and not getting killed by the Driscoll brothers who’d travelled to meet him.

As the series progressed further, Boycie started to use artificial fertiliser on his organic farm, applied to be mayor, fired a member of his staff only to rehire her and, to Marlene’s disgust, became infatuated with Tyler’s French exchange. He also ended up naked in front of Tyler’s girlfriend through no fault of his own and took part in a pub quiz in which £10,000 of his money was up for grabs.

In 2006, a whole year after they did a runner, Boycie allowed Marlene to invite her sister Petunia up to stay, however she was followed by the Driscoll brothers without anyone knowing. They attacked the farm’s staff and tied them up in the barn – including Boycie’s dog, Earl. When Boycie realised something was wrong he went to investigate the barn only to come face to face with two sawn-off shotguns.

Following the terrifying events of the Driscoll brothers' visit, life on Winterdown Farm is calm. Marlene, Tyler and Boycie have settled down and are beginning to enjoy village life. However, they cannot return to Peckham due to a deal between the Driscoll brothers and Boycie – he would allow them to bury something on his land and he must protect it. The events of 2006 still had repercussions in 2007 even though Farm Idol was accepting auditions and Earl was missing in the woods. Also, Boycie began to worry about his health after finding out about a genetic similarity between him and past generations (but still worrying about it after finding out that his biological father was a captured Nazi-German pilot). A death was about to hit the farm hard though, as Paxo the turkey died.

The departure of Lisa Diveney as Beth was then filled with the arrival of Samantha Sutherland who played Sara – Tyler’s new girlfriend. Boycie fell in fear of the Driscoll brothers once more when they turned up at The Grange and machine gunned his front door down when he refused to answer it. Also, paranormal experts investigate the house, Boycie decides to take some old junk down to the Antiques Roadshow and Boycie and Marlene decide to renew their vows for their fortieth wedding anniversary.

The humour comes from several sources. The interaction between characters is essential and much is made of the character’s individual traits, such as Boycie’s snobbery, Elgin’s façade of stupidity, Bryan and Jed’s general daftness, Imelda’s non-cleaning habits and Llewellyn’s constant underhand moves. There are also several running gags, including Boycie’s attempts to be a gentleman farmer and his yearning for respect which he never gets, Boycie’s fear of the Driscoll brothers and Marlene’s supposed long-time affair with Del Boy and the fact that Tyler is hinted to be Del’s son.