Black Books

Black Books is a British television sitcom, broadcast on Channel 4 and written and directed by Dylan Moran, Nira Park and Graham Linehan. The show has twice won the BAFTA for Best Situation Comedy (2001 & 2005) and has won a Bronze Rose at the Festival Rose d'Or of Montreux (Switzerland in 2001).

Episodes

There have been three series of Black Books, each with six episodes. Moran has hinted that there will be no more series http://www.sitcom.co.uk/black_books/index.shtml, whilst The Times reports the series has been "killed off" http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-1722168,00.html.

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Series 1 (2000)

• Cooking the Books - Manny pops into Black Books to pick up the Little Book of Calm in an attempt to thwart the office stress where he works as an accountant. An incident involving chunky soup occurs and he ends up in hospital where his doctor (Martin Freeman, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, The Office) explains he has absorbed the book into his system. Wandering the streets spreading calm he engages a group of skinheads who are ready for violence. Bernard is desperate to avoid doing his tax returns and having already paired all his socks, called his mother, discussed religion with door-to-door evangelists and made a smart casual jackets out of his receipts, discovers he can defer his returns if he is suffering from a short term illness. Spotting skinheads outside his shop he assaults them with a barrage of insults hoping they will incapacitate him and in doing so saves Manny who is more than happy to do Bernard's tax return. Fran, absorbed in discovering exactly what it is her shop is selling forgets all about being a birth partner.
• Manny's First Day - Manny accepts a job from a very drunk Bernard and gets a trial day to prove his worth in the bookshop. He gets on well with the customers and sells a lot of books but Bernard decides to let him go because "it's not that kind of operation". An offering of Wine from Manny and the threat of physical violence from Fran persuade Bernard to keep Manny on board and Fran tells Manny about the spare bedroom upstairs. Guest stars one of the writers, Graham Linehan, as the "I Love Books" customer.
• The Grapes of Wrath - Bernard and Manny agree to house-sit for a friend and mistakenly drink his expensive wine including a blessed bottle created from the miracle grapes of a rose due to be presented to the Pope. Bernard decides to create a replacement vintage with "a fraction of nature's resources" and a crippled idiot of an assistant called Manny.
• The Blackout - Manny stays up all night watching cop show The Sweeney and drinking espresso. When he sees an old lady getting mugged he pretends to be a cop in order to apprehend the criminal, only to ends up at the local police station helping detective Morris put the good cop, bad cop routine on a local villain. Bernard explains how going to a party eventually led to a broken arm while Fran describes the steps from seeing her boyfriend having dinner with another woman to being in hospital with a neck injury.
• The Big Lock-Out - Black Books gets a new alarm fitted but Manny fails to listen to the unlock code, distracted by a little Subbuteo player in the installer's (Nick Frost's) hair. This quickly results in Manny being trapped alone inside with only a bottle of Absinthe and dead wasps for company and Bernard outside with just enough money for pop-corn and a cinema ticket. Fran has taken the phone off the hook to listen to silky-voiced Hal Granger (Peter Serafinowicz) read the Shipping Forecast on the radio and is unable to hear Bernard's desperate calls. Bernard is left penniless, cold and wet on the streets of London and tries to take refuge with a pornographer before gaining employment at fast food parlour Mamba Burger to avoid the rain. Guest stars writer Graham Linehan as a fast food customer.
• He's Leaving Home - Bernard breaks the last straw - well, technically the last yo-yo string, and Manny decides to leave home but gets off to a shaky start involving a bee in a telephone box before finding himself on the streets. He is soon picked up by a photographer with a beard fetish and treated to a glamourous life of expensive clothes, coffee and silk sheets but high living comes at a high price.

Series 2 (2002)

• The Entertainer - Fran decides to learn piano and enlists the services of an elderly blind foreign tutor who refuses to let her give up. Manny discovers he can play the piano purely on instinct and against all expectations Bernard gets a date with a woman. Fran and Bernard bribe Manny to hide inside the piano, armed with only spoons, in an attempt to make themselves look good.
• Fever - Things are hotting up in London forcing Manny to warn everybody about his Dave Syndrome, a curious condition that triggers at 88 degrees. Bernard refuses to believe a word of Manny's "attention seeking nonsense" and tries to get Manny as hot as possible. Fran discovers the walls of her flat really are closing in as her unscrupulous landlord (Johnny Vegas) creates another flat in the recovered space. Bernard, pretending to be her lawyer, attempts to unsettle the new tenant but ends up showering her in flowers, poetry and truffles - the heat leading him to believe she is his girlfriend.
• The Fixer - Fran is in desperate need of a job and Manny calls an old friend (Rob Brydon) who agrees to get her a job in exchange for the bookstore hosting a reading of his nephew's new book. Alas Fran hasn't a clue what she is supposed to be doing at her new job and the nephew (Ricky Grover) is a hulking great illiterate whose ghostwritten autobiography details the pain he's inflicted on many others.
• Blood - Fran delves into genealogy to uncover her European roots and gets to know her newly discovered family (a cousin, 'Gregor,' was played by actor Mark Donovan). Meanwhile Manny and Bernard try to re-invent the shop, first trendy then, almost apocalypically, as a trendy new upscale restaurant.
• Hello Sun - Fran takes up Yoga with an old friend (Jessica Stevenson) while Bernard and Manny read the complete works of Freud and begin diagnosing each other with various neuroses.
• A Nice Change - Fran, Manny and Bernard decide to take a holiday when two weeks of loud round-the-clock building work starts next door. All packed and ready to go they realise Manny has forgotten to book the tickets and have to take a last-minute cheap deal instead.

Series 3 (2004)

• Manny Come Home - Manny decides to resign and take a job next door at the new Goliath Books after Bernard introduces his hand to a sandwich toaster. There he joins the sales team complete with psycho leader Evan (Simon Pegg) and his army of pale pastel-shirted followers. Armed with only a dootity-doo card and an endless supply of muffins things fall apart when Fran sets up camp in the children's playhouse and Bernard throws him out leaving him with nowhere to live.
• Elephants and Hens - Fran leaves for the weekend to go to her friend's (Lucy Davis) hen party while Bernard and Manny, inspired by their latest children's books event, decide to write and illustrate a book for children. Bernard's first effort at over 1,000 pages covers Stalin, a lens maker, a broken marriage, divorce and a journalist in search of the truth is possibly a little complex for kids. The subsequent masterpiece The Elephant and the Balloon could however lead them to international fame - and all the problems that come with it.
• Moo-Ma and Moo-Pa - Manny's parents (Annette Crosbie and Sam Kelly) unexpectedly drop by to stay after Bernard deletes Manny's answerphone messages. As if the inconvenience of Manny's parents, their songs and stories aren't enough it turns out Manny's letters home may have been somewhat exaggerated and needs Fran and Bernard to play along.
• A Little Flutter - After a small win on the Grand National Bernard gets addicted to gambling leaving Fran and Manny in competition to sell as many books as possible to fuel his addiction. Soon horses aren't enough and Bernard is lent money to take part in an illegal poker game where Bernard (now nicknamed The Gold Mine) loses all his money including that borrowed against his bookshop. Fran and Manny hatch a plan to come up with the money before they take Bernard's shop... or his legs.
• Travel Writer - Manny organises a book launch party at the shop with charismatic travel writer Jason (Julian Rhind-Tutt) and everyone starts falling for him and his stories of far-away adventure. Bernard however has other problems including getting rid of the cat upstairs who has now become the legal owner of the building after inheriting it from old woman who lived there.
• Party - Manny and Fran drag Bernard to a party where Manny wants to hook up with Rowena, a girl he likes very much. Manny arms himself with an array of items to leave about the house and Fran checks her perfect new hairstyle. What could possibly go wrong? They return much later armed with a bizarre selection of alcohol, messed up hair, and a desire to dance very very badly.