‘There is no age-limit on love!’: Lesley Manville and Peter Mullan on their heart-melting TV romance

Ten years later, the actors are stopped in the street to talk about their chemistry in the fantastic BBC sitcom Mum. The pair open up about joy, naughtiness and Tinder swiping

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Ten years ago, Stefan Golaszewski introduced us to 59-year-old Cathy in his sitcom Mum. It was the day of the funeral of her husband, Dave, in the chaos of her suburban semi-detached before setting off. Her dopey son, Jason, was there with his goofy new girlfriend, Kelly, as was Cathy’s pushover brother, Derek, and his snobby partner, Pauline. Dave’s parents were picking at nibbles, too, making borderline problematic comments. And there was a quiet, kind man, Michael, trying to reach Cathy in this mayhem to give her a bouquet of flowers.

Michael was an old friend of Cathy and Dave. Over the next three seasons, he slowly revealed his true feelings to Cathy. It started with a little hand grab. Then came the admission that, after Michael’s mum died, the last thing he talked to her about was, “You.” Garden centre trips followed (“We’ve been to three and you still haven’t bought any chairs!”) as did Cathy’s doubts (“What if I just miss Dave?”). Then, one day, she gave in to her feelings: “It sort of crept up on me.” After a final declaration of love in the rain, the pair walked off into the sunset with a bag of crisps and bottle of bubbly.