Brush Strokes - Premise

Premise

Jacko works as a house painter alongside his brother-in-law, Eric (Mike Walling), who was married to Jacko's sister Jean (Nicky Croydon). He lives with his sister and brother-in-law in a similar set up to Stan Butler's (Reg Varney) character in On the Buses. Jacko also shares an anti-authority humour. In this case the butt of his humour is his boss, Lionel Bainbridge.

Gary Waldhorn (later to star in The Vicar of Dibley) played Lionel Bainbridge. Elizabeth Counsell played his wife, Veronica, who naturally had a crush on Jacko. The Bainbridges had a daughter called Lesley who is a spoilt daddy's girl, and became Jacko's girlfriend during series one. She was played by two actresses during the life of the show: Kim Thomson in the first series and Erika Hoffman from series two onward.

Jacko is a ladies' man. Much of the humour comes from his attempts at picking up women whilst around town on painting jobs - much to the disdain of his sister, his boss, and his boss' secretary.

Jackie Lye played Sandra, the secretary at work who became Jacko's fiancée in series two (although the wedding never happened - but they still went on the honeymoon, because they'd paid for it). Other familiar faces that have appeared in episodes include Janine Duvitski, Tracie Bennett and Pippa Haywood.

The show is remembered by many for the slow-off-the-mark pub landlord, Elmo Putney (Howard Lew Lewis) who ran the pub where Jacko and friends took their lunch breaks. In later episodes, Jacko unsuccessfully started his own company, "Splosh" - changing the pub into a wine bar - losing all the regular customers without picking up any newer ones. Later Elmo leaves for Australia to set up another business in Alice Springs - which because of its name he thinks must be near a very large body of water. Elmo became a rich man after his dog discovered opals in Australia. Elmo returned and bought Jacko's failing company and turned it into a wine bar, where everything was decorated in pink. Jacko returned to Bainbridge's, where Veronica was now in charge after Lionel's death.