Bayview Retirement Home – home of the all-time favorite British comedy couple?


By no means am I trying to influence the voting for favorite all-time British comedy couple, he says, but I happen to think this couple from a very, very underrated series deserves a shot. From a series standpoint, Waiting for God had a relatively long run on BBC One for five seasons.

The series dealt with numerous subjects, including alcoholism and adultery, that weren’t dealt with freely on television starting off with the continuous theme running throughout of two people thrown together by families that had no time or interest in them anymore. In addition, it was a comedy that empowered a lot of television viewers in the early ’90’s by showing an older age demographic as being funny, headstrong and clever as opposed to being nothing more than the butt of “age jokes”.

Couple #5 – Waiting for God

TomDianaBayview Retirement Home was never the same once Diana Trent (a retired photojournalist) and Tom Ballard (life-long accountant) moved in. Making life difficult for Harvey, the manager of Bayview, may have been their daily task, but it’s each others company that kept them on top of their game. They definitely were not ‘Waiting for God’.

She’s cynical and acerbic, he lives in a fantasy world much of the time. Their goal? To wreak as much havoc as possible on the younger staff to make like worth living at Bayview.

With that said, couple #5 – Tom Ballard (Graham Crowden) and Diana Trent (Stephanie Cole)

Bungee Jump anyone?


In: Actors/Actresses,Comedy

  • Pam Henry

    I vote for “Waiting for God” as best Brit com. I live in a retirement home and get a special kick out of the adventures of Diana and Tom. Luckily, we don’t have a Harvey Baines running Superbia Retirement Village. Thank you BBC.
    Pam Henry, retired OETA News (PBS) Oklahoma

    • Pam, thankfully, you refer to Waiting for God as a comedy and don’t view it as a documentary based on Superbia Retirement Home. How’s life “post-OETA”?