High Hopes

Slice-of-life look at a sweet working-class couple in London, Shirley and Cyril, his mother, who's aging quickly and becoming forgetful, mum's ghastly upper-middle-class neighbors, and Cyril's pretentious sister and philandering husband. Shirley wants a baby, but Cyril, who reads Marx and wants the world to be perfect, is reluctant. Cyril's mum locks herself out and must ask her snooty neighbors for help. Then Cyril's sister Valerie stages a surprise party for mum's 70th birthday, a disaster from start to finish. Shirley holds things together, and she and Cyril may put aside her Dutch cap after all.

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  Phil Davis

  Cyril Bender
• 
  Ruth Sheen

  Shirley
• 
  Edna Doré

  Mrs Bender
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  Philip Jackson

  Martin Burke
• 
  Heather Tobias

  Valerie
• 
  Lesley Manville

  Lætitia Boothe-Brain
• 
  David Bamber

  Rupert Boothe-Brain
• 
  Jason Watkins

  Wayne
• 
  Diane-Louise Jordan

  Chemist Shop Assistant
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  Linda Beckett

  Receptionist