Last Tango in Halifax (TV Series)

Episode #1.6 (2012)

Derek Jacobi: Alan

Photos 

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Alan : [at a rest stop cafe, approaching with hot drinks]  It's out of a machine, I don't know what it'll taste like. You... Could you do with something to eat?

  Celia : [softly]  No.

  Alan : He's a trouble-maker, that one. As I say, he'll have got hold of the wrong end o' stick. Or he's lashing out, saying first damned silly thing that's come into his head.

• Gillian : [over a pint with her dad]  What's up with Caroline being a bit of a dyke, anyway?

  Alan : Well, I did raise that question. Not quite in so many words.

  Gillian : And what did she say?

  Celia : [in flashback]  You'd not be saying that if it was your Gillian.

  Alan : I stopped worrying about who our Gillian slept with years ago. I had to. I'd have had a nervous breakdown if I hadn't!

• Alan : She reads Daily Mail, Celia. Did I tell you?

  Gillian : How long have you known this?

  Alan : Oh, first time I went over, I spotted one. She says she only buys it for telly page, but... I'm not convinced.

  Gillian : Jesus, Dad.

• Celia : She...

  [pauses] 

  Celia : When she was 18, she told me. Nineteen. End of her first year at Oxford. She came home. I hardly recognized her. Skinny as a rake. And she'd cut all her lovely long hair off.

  Alan : Told you what?

  Celia : I said, Well, for God's sake, don't tell your father. Or anyone else. Not 'round here. No, I didn't want folk pointing, saying things. Not for me, not for my sake. For hers. Some folks seemed to think she was enough of an oddity... Having a brain and getting in at Oxford.

• [last lines] 

  Celia : I went 'round to Kate's house last night.

  Alan : Kate?

  Celia : [nodding]  They're back together.

  Alan : [exhaling]  Oh!

  Celia : And you'll never guess...

  Alan : What?

  Celia : [in a flashback, at Kate's house]  You can play the organ?

  [Kate nods] 

  Celia : What, like the full, big...

  Kate : Grade 8.

  Celia : [at Alan's bedside]  So, I said to her, Oh, you'll know The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, then. That'll be coming in handy!