- Title: The Rector's Wife
- Date: 24th March 1994
- Summary: Patrick O'Sullivan's (Miles Anderson) housekeeper, Ella (Rynagh O'Grady), tells Peter Bouverie (Jonathan Coy), that she thinks Patrick is having an affair with his wife, Anna (Lindsay Duncan). The distraught rector leaves the house and drives off into the country. He soon dissolves into tears of grief, his mind in a turmoil. Suddenly, without thinking or looking, he turns at a function and fails to see the oncoming bus. The crash is fatal. At Peter's funeral Anna admits to her mother Laura (Joyce Redman) that she feels relief, especially for Peter. However, Peter's son Luke (Simon Fenton) confides in his grandmother that he feels guilt borne out of the fact that he did not really love his father. But Luke's guilt pales into insignificance compared to Ella who is convinced that she drove Peter to suicide by revealing the affair between Anna and Patrick. Anna forgives Ella and in doing so discovers that Ella is in love with Patrick but now plans to leave him. Luke has guessed that his mother is in love with Jonathan Byrne (Stephen Dillane) and heartily approves. Jonathan asks Anna to marry him but she explains that the last thing she wants right now is a husband, what she wants is a lover and she wants Jonathan to be that lover. Realising that they will no longer be able to live in the rectory, Anna sets about reorganising her life. The Bishop offers her a small house to tide her over but it is too far for Flora to travel to school and she no longer wants to be beholden to the church anyway. She has also had an offer of help from Colonel Richardson (Frederick Treves) but when she goes to discuss it with him he is out and she is left facing his wife Marjorie (Prunella Scales). It comes as a revelation to Anna that Marjorie has shared so much of the frustrations that she herself had experienced being married to Peter. Rather than the Church it was the army that had placed such a straightjacket on her existence over the years. Unlike Anna, she had been stoical about it but Anna could see the price Marjorie had paid. It comes as no surprise to Sister Ignatia (Mary Macleod) that Anna asks for a teaching job at St Saviours and she is delighted to offer her one. With a regular income Anna is able to buy a house in the nearby market town of Woodborough. It is pretty derelict but with the enthusiastic help of Luke and Flora they turn it into a home. Patrick O'Sullivan makes one more futile attempt to force himself upon Anna and learns for the first time that Anna is perfectly satisfied with her relationship with another man although she sees no necessity to tell him it is Jonathan. At last, Anna is at peace with herself and at peace with the memory of her former husband, Peter.
- Description:For twenty years Anna Bouverie has been the dutiful wife of a priest,submergingher will for the sake of the parish,until pressures at home force her to behavein a very unexpected and shocking way.
- Broadcaster:Channel 4
- Collection: Channel 4
- Genre:Documentary and Factual
- Producer:TALISMAN FILMS LTD
- Programme Episode:Episode 4
- Transmission Date:24/03/1994
- Rights:On Request
- Decade: 1990s