Caption:
“Reggie Perrin, 46, senior sales executive. Bored, under stress. Has begun to behave oddly."
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Thursday night. Reggie and Elizabeth are in bed. Reggie is depressed, having failed to make love. She tells him he's overworked, and to ask C.J. for a holiday the next day. Their neighbours the Milfords return from the golf club, and Reggie shouts at them to stop making a noise. He apologises again for his failure to 'rise to the occasion', then chastises Elizabeth for being so understanding all the time. He turns his back on her and goes to sleep.
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Friday morning. In the hall of 12 Coleridge Close, Elizabeth hands Reggie his briefcase and umbrella as usual and reminds him to ask C.J. for some time off.
Reggie walks down Coleridge Close towards the railway station.
On the train, Reggie mistakenly thinks aloud about why his middle name is Iolanthe (he was born during the local amateur dramatic society's production of Gilbert & Sullivan's 'Iolanthe'). Also out loud, he remarks on the fact that if he'd been born the following year he'd be Reginald Pirates Of Penzance Perrin.
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Reggie walks to Sunshine Desserts. To the uninitiated, the company would now be anonymous, as the sign above the double-doors now reads ' HINE ESER '.
After the usual morning greetings with Joan, she reminds him that a colleague has commented that he's only entitled to a three-peg hatstand, not a four-peg one. He laughs off such petty hierarchical nonsense with a sarcastic remark about hanging himself from the minute hand of Big Ben. She also reminds him that Tony Webster and David Harris-Jones are due in for their briefing on the sales areas they are to explore for the new Exotic Ices project. Reggie has forgotten to work out their areas and quickly uses his waste paper bin and Joan's handbag to mark the two areas on the map. Unfortunately, Reggie has marked Tony's area as being twenty percent in the Irish Sea. Reggie thinks on his feet, and proclaims a whole new area of sales: dredgers, trawlers, car ferries and submarines. After dispatching the two salesmen, he continues with dictation, but fantasises about him and Joan on that desk in the middle of a field again. His dictated letter includes calling the recipient "a pompous illiterate baboon", and Joan asks him if he's alright. Reggie says yes, then no, and leaves for a check-up with Doc Morrissey.
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Reggie's knock on Doc's surgery door disturbs Doc Morrissey' perusal of an adult magazine. Reggie pretends his 'friend' has an impotence problem, describing his own symptoms as his friend's. The Doc tells Reggie that if it was him he could have given him a doctor's note for some time off, but as Reggie said it was his 'friend', he couldn't.
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Back in the office, Mrs. Peaslake the tea lady arrives. Reggie argues with her over a piece of reserved Battenburg cake. He ends up giving her five pounds for the whole tray of cakes. While tasting one of the pieces, Reggie again fantasises, this time of him and Joan picnicking in a field. Joan tells him she thinks he needs a holiday, and gets him to see C.J.
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"One, two, three, four, make them sweat outside the door. Five, six, seven, eight, always pays to make them wait. Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, COME!" Reggie enters the inner sanctum of C.J.'s office, determined to demand his four weeks holiday. C.J. stalls him by asking him about the falling sales figures. By the time he has finished, Reggie chickens out and turns himself down, asking for only a couple of days. C.J. compromises and gives him the afternoon off. Watch video
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Reggie has returned home early, looking forward to his afternoon off, but his brother-in-law Jimmy comes round, scrounging for food. Then his daughter Linda arrives to ask if they'll take her children Adam and Jocasta to the safari park the following day, as her husband Tom has crashed their car into a house he'd taken a client to look around.
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Saturday afternoon. On one of the hottest days of the year, Reggie drives Elizabeth, Tom, Linda, Adam and Jocasta around the safari park. Reggie is hot and in a foul mood. He remarks on how the animals are all parked and the cars are moving round in herds, and the children are more interested in starlings and rubbish bins than giraffes and yak. Adam then declares that he's "done biggies" and the car screeches to a halt. He insults Tom, blows a fuse when the car overheats and gets out of the car. Unfortunately, he has decided to go for a walk in lion country. He is charged by two of the beasts and the park ranger has to shoot them. Reggie returns to the car traumatised, and finally loses it when Elizabeth says she understands how he feels. Watch video
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