Dear John (British TV series)


Dear John is a British sitcom, written by John Sullivan. Two series and a special were broadcast in 1986 and 1987.
The sitcom's title refers to "Dear John" letters, usually written by women to their partners as a means of ending a relationship. John discovers in the opening episode that his wife is leaving him for a friend. He is kicked out of his home, while still being expected to pay the mortgage, and forced to find lodgings. In desperation, he joins the 1-2-1 Singles Club and meets other people, who have fared equally unfortunately in their romantic lives. The outside shots of houses were filmed in Melthorne Drive, South Ruislip.
In 1988, an American adaptation of Dear John was produced by Paramount for the NBC network, starring Judd Hirsch. That series lasted for four seasons.

Characters

Major characters

All episodes were thirty minutes in length, apart from episode 2.7, which was a 50-minute Christmas special.
Episode #TitleOriginal airdate

Title music

As with his other series, the title music was composed by the series' writer, John Sullivan. It was arranged by Ronnie Hazlehurst, the composer of music used in many BBC comedies and light entertainment programmes, Joan Baxter provided the vocals.

VHS and DVD

Dear John appeared on video in 1998, three cassettes with both series and the Christmas special, under Playback Entertainment.
Acorn Media UK released both series of Dear John on DVD in the UK in 2010. The first episode is shorter than the one originally broadcast on BBC1 as contractual edits have been made, namely the removal of Beatles music during and at the end of the episode. The subtitles still show "Day Tripper" being played as John enters the community hall and acknowledges some men dressed in Fab Four suits, but the music playing is actually muzak. And at the end John and Kate have an exchange where they discuss whether they will return the following week. Beatles music can be heard and silhouettes seen in an upper window of the centre. This scene has been totally removed.