The Bottom Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Break

Summary[]

Break is the third episode of the third series. It was first broadcast on 20 January 1995. Richie and Eddie have booked a holiday, and spend the day fighting and bickering over what to do and take before they go.

Plot[]

Richie and Eddie arrive back home after a morning at the pub. Dick the barman caught them filling their glasses from the drip trays, and chased them into a back alley where they bumped into Bob McMayday, "the most violent travel agent in the world." Bob has sold them a two-week holiday to Bridlington for £4,000, which they have to pay up by Christmas or they will be killed. Richie disappears upstairs to try his new swimming trunks on whilst Eddie makes an obscene phone call.

Later on, Richie stumbles into the drawing room complaining that he can't get his swimming trunks off; they're so tight that not only can they not be removed, they are barely even visible. Eddie assists in their removal with at first a hammer and then a blow torch, much to Richie's extreme discomfort. After that crisis, they both set about improving their physique with the assistance of Oswald Richard's German Luftwaffe Exercise Manual. Determined to hit the beach "like two greased-cougars from the planet Big Bollocks," the boys try press-ups, sit-ups, vacuum-assisted liposuction (all horrifically unachievable and latterly detrimental to testicular health,) and finally some homemade weights and lifting machines consisting of the fridge attached to a rope and handlebars. Not even the prospect of a nude blackmail polaroid of Des Lynam sellotaped to the bottom of the fridge compels Richie to find the strength to lift it off the ground.

A short while later, an accident with a bicycle-powered treadmill causes Richie to cut Eddie's legs off with a chainsaw out of sheer annoyance. Eddie accidentally sews his legs on backwards, requiring assistance from Richie. As they both bicker about what to do to pass the time until they need to go to the coach station, Eddie decides to see how long it takes to get to the bus station, which takes him over three hours (having clearly been down the pub the whole time.) Richie decides to try and beat his record, and returns minutes later to find that Eddie has stolen the holiday money and gone back to the pub.

Back at the flat, Richie is busy chastising a very drunk Eddie, who denies having touched a drop. Eddie passes out on the sofa, leaving Richie's curiosity about the Des Lynam snap to get the better of him. Still unable to lift the fridge, he prays to God, and is amazed to find that he is able to lift it and secure the pull bar under the sofa. As he positions himself under the fridge, the alarm clock goes off waking Eddie, who rolls off the sofa causing the bar to slip and send the fridge crashing onto Richie's head. Eddie, now apparently sober, sarcastically commiserates Richie for the accident, and decides to give his holiday ticket to a sexy showgirl who was in the fridge the whole time. The episode ends with Eddie kicking Richie in the genitals.

Guest Stars[]

Jo-Anne Stockham as Voluptua The Showgirl

John Abbot as The Mormon

Quotes[]

Trivia[]

  1. The episode's plot largely plays upon the general restlessness and anxiety suffered by people on the days leading up to a holiday away from home.
  2. The episode hints at Richie's apparent bisexuality when he becomes excited at the prospect of seeing a photograph of Des Lynam's "todger". Richie's sexual ambiguity is revisited in the subsequent live shows.
  3. Richie throws the milk bottle out of the window because he doesn't want the milk to go off whilst they are on holiday.

Fluffs (read before adding to this section)[]

  1. When Richie gets launched out of the window by the treadmill, the flats visible opposite the kitchen window ripple revealing them to be a curtain with brickwork and a window painted on. In earlier series, the scenery outside the conservatory was a physical set.
  2. A BAFTA Award is briefly seen on the bookcase in the lounge at the beginning of the episode, but it has disappeared by the second act.
  3. Studio lights and screens are reflected in Eddie's glasses throughout the episode.
  4. In the second act when Eddie gets up to see how long it takes to get to the bus station, a boom mic is visible for several seconds above him.
  5. Richie's account of how his father met his mother is not consistent with his actual age. Assuming that in 1995 Richie was 37 [as was Rik at the time] then the idea that his parents met in the Second World War [1939-1945] would make him anything between 50 and 56 years old. 
  6. Bridlington is 62 miles from Doncaster, therefore roughly an hour and twenty-five minute drive, not 25 minutes as stated by Richie. This could however be dodgy information supplied by the travel agent.

Continuity[]

  1. Eddie's crudely written note about what he has done with the "holiday monkey" alludes to Eddie's general poor grasp of spelling which is referenced in several other episodes and live shows.
  2. Eddie's violent solution to removing Richie's ultra-tight swimming trunks is revisited in Bottom Live 2001: An Arse Oddity.

External Links[]

Break on the IMDB

Advertisement