Sink or Swim (1980 - 1982)

Sink or Swim is a BBC TV sitcom from the 1980s with Peter Davison as the lead character Brian Webber. Brian Webber lives in a flat above a petrol station in London. He's trying hard to make his way in the world, thus far with limited success. His girlfriend, Sonia, is a very serious minded young woman who is passionate only about things like vegetarianism and ecology. When Brian's younger brother, Steve, arrives in London looking for somewhere to stay, his lazy, cynical, noisy "Northern lout" attitude disrupts Brian's already messy life. Like Only Fools and Horses, Sink or Swim was filmed in Bristol doubling for London. It ran for three series between 4 December 1980 and 14 October 1982 and was written by Alex Shearer, who later wrote the Nicholas Lyndhurst sitcom The Two of Us for LWT from 1986 to 1990. Production of the sitcom overlapped the first two years of Davison also starring as the Fifth Doctor in Doctor Who, which imposed constraints on the recording schedules.