May to December

May to December is a British sitcom which ran for 39 episodes, from 2 April 1989 to 27 May 1994 on BBC1. The series was written by Paul Mendelson and produced by Cinema Verity. The series was nominated for the BAFTA award for "Best Television Comedy Series" in 1991, but lost out to The New Statesman. Set in Pinner, London, it revolved around the romance between a widowed solicitor, Alec Callender (played by veteran television actor Anton Rodgers) and a much younger woman, Zoë Angell (played by Eve Matheson in series one and two, and by Lesley Dunlop in series three through six). The title of the show comes from the Anderson-Weill song "September Song", which is sung during the credits. The titles of all of the episodes of May to December are taken from songs. Most are from musicals, reflecting Alec and Zoë's mutual interest, but some later ones are hits from the 50s and 60s. In keeping with a number of other BBC sitcoms, such as To the Manor Born, Yes, Minister, As Time Goes By and a number of others, in 1992 a radio adaptation of episodes was proposed. Episodes would have been adapted from the original television scripts, with Leslie Dunlop playing Zoë throughout. However, the radio version was dropped and never recorded, due to the changing demographic of BBC radio's listeners and output in the early 1990s.