Dorien: Oh really Tracey, you are so basic.
Tracey: 'Oo are you calling basic? I've only ever been with my Darryl, I'm anogamous me. Unlike some people I could mention 'oo 'ave to 'ave tea time bonks cause their fellas are too young to stay out late.
— Tracey Stubbs calling out Dorien Green for her affairs with younger men.
- Date First Aired: 08/11/1990
As Sharon approaches her 30th birthday, she looks back on her life and realizes that she regrets her lack of education. She decides to pay a visit to her Edmonton council flat, where she meets Lisa, (who has lost all her money from her time selling fake perfume) and whose criminal partner does property business, and Sharon considers buying the flat. Tracey does not like the idea. Dorien, is more encouraging, however, and goes with Sharon to the flat. However, it's not long before Lisa's partner is soon sent to prison and Sharon then takes his place taking a holiday with Lisa to Benidorm with Club 18-30.
Tropes in this episode:
- A-Cup Angst: Sharon bemoans her lack of a chest in her youth.
- Birthday Episode: Sharon's 30th birthday to be specific.
- Cheating with the Milkman: Tracey manages to get out from Dorien that she was having a sexual tryst with the paper boy.
- Continuity Nod: Lisa has lost all the money she earned selling Aromatique perfume in "Sweet Smell of Success".
- Curse Cut Short: Happens to Sharon in the first scene of the episode.Tracey: Well, wha'd they say?Sharon: "Naff off you miserable old cow".Tracey: They never!Sharon: No, they never said naff, they said "F-".Tracey: I don' understand it.
- Deadpan Snarker: Sharon giving her opinion on newspapers and junk mail.Sharon: Last time I was up me flat there was a coupla hundred weight of freebie newspapers and junk mail on the mat. You know, to get ridda somma this terrible trees surplus that we got in the world.
- Disproportionate Retribution: One of Tracey's friends refused to took look after Garth anymore after he vomited down one of her dresses.
- Easy Come, Easy Go: After making lots of money selling Aromatique perfume, Lisa is right back where she started.
- The Ghost: Barry and Melanie Waterhouse.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Lisa's Aromatique employer gets done for GBH, having beaten up a customer simply because they complained about the rash the perfume caused. Then he nuts his brief for getting him a sentence of three years (the brief had told him to plead guilty in order to get him off a bad sentence regarding his Consuming Interest video being illegally shown in court).
- Malaproper: Tracey says "anogamous" when trying to say monogamous.
- Milestone Birthday Angst: Sharon is about to turn 30 and begins regretting her lack of an education.
- Mirror Character: As Tracey points out, Lisa and Sharon aren't as different as one would expect - they both have their boyfriend in jail by the end of the episode, both lived in council flats, have no jobs, and both are the same age.
- Mrs. Robinson: Tracey tells Dorien she has to have tea time bonks because her fellas are too young to stay out late.
- Never My Fault: Not said by Garth, but by Tracey on his behalf. When talking about how Cheryl Hawkins refused to look after Garth again after he vomited all over an expensive dress of hers, Tracey wonders why she'd worn it to a kids' party in the first place. Sharon says that Cheryl was going to another party afterwards, if only to show off the dress. Of course, since Cheryl could have changed her clothes in between parties, perhaps Tracey wasn't far off.
- Noodle Incident:
- Sharon and Tracey apparently played music pretty loudly at Linda Warren's party thirteen years prior, leading to the police coming three times because an old lady complained and Tracey putting on Bob Marley records and hanging the speakers out of the window (possibly, Tracey denies this despite what Sharon says) in a bid to get back at her.
- Garth was sick on Cheryl Hawkin's Jean Muir dress on his second birthday, leading to Cheryl never having him again.
- Marcus throwing a Surprise Party for Dorien, unaware of her toyboy upstairs.
- Tracey's 30th birthday, where she and Darryl had 30 guests, kissed 30 times, but didn't have sex 30 times as Darryl had 30 cans of XXXX.
- Pun: When Tracey finds out that Dorien was having a relationship with the paper man, she remarks "you were having your Daily MALE delivered then!".
- Rich Language, Poor Language: Tracey doesn't know what tryst means.Dorien: Well... oh God, it hurts to remember. On my birthday, we had an early evening tryst you see-Tracey: "Tryst"? Wass a "tryst"? Posh word for a bonk is it?
- Shout-Out:
- The title comes from the series thirtysomething.
- Tracey used to blast Bob Marley records at parties in her youth.
- Tracey comapares Lisa's boyfriend Les to Ronnie Biggs.
- Sharon jokingly calls Lisa and Les "The A-Team".
- Sharon spends her birthday at Club 18-30 in Benidorm.
- Show Within a Show: Consuming Interest, the show that killed Aromatique perfume sales.
- Skewed Priorities: While discussing a fellow inmates botched getaway, Darryl expresses more disappointment in the fact that he "didn't do the job properly" than the ineffectiveness of the getaway (though he does go into detail about it).
- Surprise Party: Marcus once threw one for Dorien, unaware that she had her toyboy Dominic upstairs.
- Take That!:
- Sharon compares the photo of Barry and Melanie Waterhouse in the newspaper to Esther Rantzen on uppers.
- Dorien claims a degree in English is a handicap in getting a job for British Newspapers.
- Sharon doesn't care for Vincent van Gogh.
- Title Drop: Tracey tries to calm down Sharon on the subject of being 30:Tracey: No it ain't, coz after a few years o' bein' thirty summink, it slowly dawns on you that the next big birthday's 40, and that put the wind up you so much that being 30 seems a doddle.
- Wild Teen Party: The episode starts with Sharon and Tracey trying to shut up one such party occurring off-screen, organised by their neighbour's children. Sharon makes a comment that the first thing they'll be doing next morning will be calling the French polishers.
