Don't fear the Reaper
On the surface, sharp-tongued spinster Diana Trent - played by the wonderful Stephanie Cole - and retired accountant Tom Ballard - the equally excellent Graham Crowden - have little in common. Except of course, the futile inevitability of impeding death and the grim prospect of spending every afternoon playing scrabble. But thrown together by circumstance, they find themselves uneasy - and formidable - allies in their bid to squeeze the most from life before meeting their Maker.

A room with a Bayview
We know what you're thinking: 'sounds great! When can I check in!?' Well, hold your horses, because guess what? Bayview Retirement Village doesn't actually exist. As you may expect, the indoor scenes were shot in various BBC studios, but all exterior shots of Bayview were filmed at a rest home called "Oaken Holt". This is located on Eynsham Road, Farmoor, Oxfordshire - a few miles to the west of Oxford, while any other exterior filming was done in and around Bournemouth.

Surprise hit
The success of the came as a shock to Stephanie Cole, who once commented that "we never once thought that a sit-com set in a retirement home would be such a hit. Although we both loved the wonderful, witty scripts, we never for a moment guessed that the great British public would become so hooked on one completely loopy old man and a stubborn old boot of a woman." Yet, somehow it plugged into the national psyche and took off like a rocket. It also broke new ground: "Before WFG", Stephanie rightly remarked, "nobody had tackled subjects such as older people having sex."

Deceptively young
Stephanie Cole gives a great performance as lovable battleaxe Diana, even though she actually required extensive make up for the part; the character was a good twenty years older than her real self, as she was born in Warwickshire in 1941. But this was not the first time she had to play a character of advancing years; at the age of 15 Stephanie auditioned for and was accepted to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and she began her career at age 17 playing a 90 year old woman!


The man behind the misery
The series was created and written by Michael Aitkens, who's initial career was as an actor. He revealed in a recent interview that had always wanted to write but got waylaid into acting "as you got to meet really wonderful women and travel the world and get drunk and smash up restaurants and be bone idle for months". As for the inspiration for the characters, "initially the two leads were based on the sort of characters played by Bette Davis and Jaques Tati, but a lot of my own parents crept in as time went on and they started falling to bits." What a lovely thought.

Find out more:

BBC guide to comedy