The Mrs Bradley Mysteries

Mr. Simms:
[smiling] I hope you like Gilbert and Sullivan.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
Frankly, Doctor, I wish they'd never met.

George Moody:
Would a gentleman escort a lady into dinner on this side or this?

Mrs. Simms:
A gentleman would know.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
[addressing the students and faculty] But society is changing. Last year we women won the right to vote; Amelia Earhart flew the Atlantic; who knows, one day a woman might be Prime Minister. I was expelled from Harleigh Heights. Had I stayed I might well have come to believe in home, harmony, humility, and gone on to lead a life of jam-making and gin rummy, and Chalfont St Giles. So, girls, before you settle for the little life, remember the world is now your oyster, and, provided you believe in yourselves, there is nothing you cannot achieve.

George Moody:
[reading the plaque in the main hallway of the finishing school] "Home, Harmony, Humility."

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
Hogwash.

[Adela and George have just arrived at Adela's old school]

George Moody:
I bet this brings back memories - happiest days of your life, and all that.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
The *longest*, certainly.

George Moody:
How exactly would you define "finishing school", ma'am?

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
It's a sort of farm where they grow wives and mothers. Where young women are sent to be "finished".

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
[to the camera] Which is precisely what they *will* be if they believe half the twaddle they're taught here.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
The feminine value of self-sacrifice is entirely foreign to my nature.

Isobel Marchant:
I'm afraid the pickled onions don't exactly complement the burgundy.

Douglas Prideux:
Only an idiot stares down the barrel of a gun!

George Moody:
[bitterly] Only a coward walks away.

Douglas Prideux:
[concerning the Great War] Our bodies came back. We left our souls behind.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
The poor are always with us.

George Moody:
No, it's the dead who are always with us.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
Marriage is one of those things it's best to get over and done with early in life... [after a puff on her cigarette holder]... like chicken pox.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
[to George] Today, a funeral, tomorrow, an engagement party. Life goes on, n'est-pas?

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
[Approaching her moustached ex-stepson] Ferdinand, you appear to have something on your lip. It looks like a caterpillar.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
[Aside to camera] I'm never entirely sure if I'm famous or notorious. Someone once said that fame is to live in poverty and end up as a statue. Naturally I prefer to be notorious.

Bertie Philipson:
This is slander!

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
Only if it's untrue.

Vicar:
Condolences Mrs. Bradley. A good man.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
Yes. Dull, but good.

Ferdinand Bradley:
Honestly! Today, of all days.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
Is the day for truth. The only exciting thing your father ever did was to divorce me.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
Alastair, dear Alastair. There are two things in life you can never do. One, catch a waiter's eye before he's ready to see you. And two, turn back the clock.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
I've never cared much for the countryside. To me, it's a soggy sort of place where animals and birds wander about uncooked.

[shotgun fires in the distance]

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
Or *don't* wander about, as the case may be.

Hermione Bradley:
My husband's mother marches to the beat of different drum.

Ferdinand Bradley:
My mother has an entire orchestra of her own.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
Children disappoint their parents, it's one of the immutable laws of nature. Your son's made an unsuitable match, mine became a lawyer.

Archie Burlington:
[to Mrs. Bradley] Murder is no business for a woman. You should be at home, not throwing yourselves under horses and tying yourselves to railings.

Adela Bradley:
[to the camera] Given the choice of staying at home with a man like that or throwing oneself under a horse, I know which I would choose!

George Moody:
[after the knife thrower narrowly misses castrating him] Well, there's no point doing these things half-cocked.

Madam Marlene:
[after putting her bullwhip around George and pulling him provocatively close] Don't worry, George. I'm not going to devour you. I don't eat meat.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
[Aside to the camera] I'm afraid my belief in God is roughly on a par with my belief in the tooth fairy. Still, in times like this even I can see that faith still has a place.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
[Aside to the camera] If a picture's worth a thousand words, a look is worth even more. As my hairdresser Monsieur Javais says, 'Same old coiffure - husband secure; new style of hair - husband beware.'

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
Little children, little headaches. Big children, big headaches. There are three golden rules for bringing up children. Alas, no one knows what they are.

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
How well do you know your guests?

Myrtle Quincy:
[Taking offense] Enough. This is a respectable hotel!

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
It is? Oh, well.

Myrtle Quincy:
I beg your pardon!

Mrs. Adela Bradley:
Respectibility... terribly overrated.