As Time Goes By - Pardon (Highlights)

Everyone is trying to convince Lionel that he is going deaf!

As Time Goes By is a British romantic sitcom which aired on BBC One from 12 January 1992 to 14 December 2005, running for nine series and three specials.

Starring Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer, it follows the relationship between two former lovers who meet unexpectedly after not having been in contact for 38 years.

The show was created by Colin Bostock-Smith,[3] but written by Bob Larbey, who had co-written both The Good Life and Ever Decreasing Circles with John Esmonde. In 2004, As Time Goes By was ranked No. 29 in Britain's Best Sitcom.

The series was produced by Theatre of Comedy Entertainment, in association with DLT Entertainment Ltd. for the BBC.

Second Lieutenant Lionel Hardcastle (Geoffrey Palmer) and Middlesex Hospital nurse Jean Pargetter (Judi Dench) met in the summer of 1953 and fell head over heels in love, but then Lionel was posted to Korea. When he wrote to give her his mailing address there, the letter went astray. Jean assumed he had lost interest in her and stubbornly refused to ask the army to locate him; he decided she must have lost interest in him.

After his war service Lionel emigrated to Kenya, became a coffee planter, and married Margaret, whom he later divorced due to "mutual boredom". Some time after his divorce he returned to England. Meanwhile, Jean had also married and borne one child, Judith (Moira Brooker). After her husband's death, Jean opened Type for You, a secretarial agency. Her daughter Judith, 35 years old during the series, is twice divorced (from Ken, who had "sad eyes", and Edward, who was "very clever") and, during most of the series, lives with her mother and also works at the secretarial agency.

Lionel, now writing his memoir, My Life in Kenya, hires a typist through Type for You, unaware that Jean owns the agency. He and Jean first meet again when Lionel picks up Judith for a dinner date. Although Lionel and Jean's reunion is full of missteps and miscues, their romance gradually rekindles. In the third series, Lionel moves into Jean's house in Holland Park, London; they marry during the fourth series.

Lionel's memoir is published by Alistair Deacon (Philip Bretherton), a go-getting entrepreneur much younger than Lionel. When pressed by Lionel, Alistair eventually admits that he only agreed to publish the book as a favour to Lionel's father, whose loan to Alistair's father was the foundation of Alistair's wealth; but he works hard for the success of the book and over time he becomes good friends with Lionel and Jean. Alistair is vain, and a ladies' man, and likes to call Lionel "Li", but he is also good-hearted and energetic, and proves resourceful enough to handle many situations that arise.