Ed takes over the task of seeking extra work – without success.

Radio Times: Emma is feeling low and Lynda is in a poetic mood.

Characters: Ed, Emma, Fallon, Lynda, Rhys, Tom

• Finding his head bitten off again, Ed wants to know what’s up. Emma admits that, after the call to Lower Loxley this week she had got her hopes up; she just wants to earn a bit extra to get by. Later she follows up some adverts – people looking for a cleaner – but to no avail. She tries an agency but they won’t let her take Keira. Maybe she could ask mum about looking after Keira.
• Look out: Lynda is going round the village recruiting for her show. She wants Jazzer to sing a selection of Elizabethan ballads and he will – provided that some of them are bawdy. She has signed Oliver up and Caroline is a definite maybe.
• Emma admits to Ed that she chickened out of asking Susan about having Keira. Ed has been thinking too: looking after the children is the most important work Emma can do; he doesn’t want other people doing that. So he should ask around for work; that’s what his dad has always had to do.
• Lynda is well pleased with Rhys and Fallon’s rehearsal and over coffee they analyse the scene: how Beatrice uses her wit to shield herself from deep feelings and give Benedick what he deserves, but if she really didn’t care, she wouldn’t be bothered with him; the opposite of true love is indifference. By the end of the scene, Rhys reckons the audience will be screaming at them to see what everybody but they can see – just get together. See any parallels here between characters and ‘actors’?
• Ed loses no time in calling on Tom at Bridge Farm. Alas there is no casual work there at the moment, though Tom will let him know if that changes.