French Fields
French Fields is a British television sitcom. It is a sequel/continuation of the series Fresh Fields and ran for 19 episodes from 5 September 1989 to 8 October 1991. It was written by John T. Chapman and Ian Davidson and was produced by Thames Television for ITV.
Cast
The series starred Anton Rodgers and Julia McKenzie as middle-aged, middle-class husband and wife William and Hester Fields and followed the series Fresh Fields, which ran from 1984 to 1986. French Fields resumes the story three years later as William accepts a position with a French company and the series follows Hester and William as they move from London to Calais. The pair were regularly visited by their daughter Emma and son-in-law Peter. Bird was the only other Fresh Fields actor to appear regularly, as Emma had only "appeared" via voiceover by Debby Cummings in the original show.Other regular cast members included their French real-estate agent Chantal Moriac, who was also the Fields' neighbour to the left, and snobbish English couple Hugh and Jill Trendle, the neighbours to the right. Hester and William also coped with Madame Remoleux, the unintelligible, ancient, and generally useless French cleaner who lived on and cared for the estate, "Les Hirondelles," where they all lived. Also popping in regularly were local farmer and mayor Monsieur Dax and his cheeky daughter Marie-Christine, to whom Hester did her best to teach English. Nicholas Courtney also appeared frequently as the estate's owner, the Marquis.
Ann Beach, who played Sonia in Fresh Fields, made a guest appearance in the final episode, in which Hester and William decide to return to their former UK home.
Episodes
French Fields had several different time slots on ITV:- Series 1 aired Tuesdays at 20:30
- Series 2 aired Mondays at 20:00
- Series 3 aired Tuesdays at 20:30
Exteriors were filmed in the northern French village of Hucqueliers.
DVD releases
All three series of French Fields have been released on DVD by Network. A 7-disc boxed set containing all episodes of both Fresh Fields and French Fields was also released by the company.The entire series was released in a single DVD box set by Acorn Media UK on 2012-2-28.
| DVD | Release date |
| The Complete Series 1 | 13 June 2011 |
| The Complete Series 2 | 25 July 2011 |
| The Complete Series 3 | 19 September 2011 |
| The Complete Fresh Fields & French Fields Box Set | 24 October 2011 |