Pat and Margaret is a British television film written by comedian Victoria Wood. The story follows sisters Margaret, a cook, and Pat, a successful actress in the United States, after they are reunited on a television programme after spending 27 years apart. It stars Wood and her frequent comedy partner Julie Walters in the title roles, and features other past collaborators of Wood, including Thora Hird, Celia Imrie and Duncan Preston. First aired in 1994 on BBC One, the film was directed by Gavin Millar and produced by Ruth Caleb.
After gaining over 10 million viewers, it won a Broadcasting Press Guild award and was nominated for two BAFTA awards. It drew comparisons with northern English dramatist Alan Bennett for its complex characterisation and observational dialogue.
Plot
Margaret Mottershead works as a cook at a motorway service station. She joins her colleagues on a works outing to London to see a recording of Magic Moments, a Surprise, Surprise-style television series. Pat Bedford, the glamorous British star of an American soap, returns to the UK to promote her book on the show, unaware that the producers have planned to make her part of one of the surprises. During the show, Margaret is shocked to be invited onto the stage by the host Maeve and asked about her sister Patricia, whom she has not seen for 27 years. Backstage, Pat freezes in a panic when she hears the name "Patricia Theresa Mary Mottershead" and is invited on-stage to meet her long-lost sister Margaret. Attempting to remain professional, Pat embraces Margaret and feigns happiness. Afterwards, she tries to prevent the programme being broadcast, only to discover that it was live on air. The vain, beautiful Pat rejects Margaret, ashamed of her sister and fearing further damaging revelations about her past. Margaret prepares to leave, but the coach has left without her. Unaware of Pat's true feelings, her assistant Claire has arranged for Margaret to stay with Pat at her luxury hotel.
In the morning, a Magic Moments film crew arrives to follow the pair getting to know each other, and Pat resigns herself to staged bonding for the cameras. Margaret phones her boyfriend Jim to let him know where she is, but his disapproving mother does not pass on the message. Pat tries unsuccessfully to pay off an angry Margaret, who tells Pat she doesn't want anything from her. Once the newspaper articles come out, Margaret realizes that they have viciously misquoted her and her colleagues at the motorway service station and fears for her job. She stays though, when tabloid journalist Stella Kincaid, desperate for dirt on Pat, discovers a woman she thinks is Pat's mother Vera in a nursing home in Pat's home town. Pat and Margaret talk about how horrible their mother was and Margaret agrees to help Pat. The two head North, hoping to stop Vera talking to the press. In the car, Margaret shares a bit of her life. She mentions that she was once married and, soon after losing her husband, had a miscarriage.
Meanwhile, Stella digs up dirt on Pat by tracking down her old neighbours, discovering in the process that Pat had a child at the age of fifteen. She also hears insinuations that Vera had been a prostitute. The sisters find that the Vera in the nursing home is not their mother and continue on. Jim, believing Margaret has dumped him, has gone to London to find her. He meets Claire, and the two follow Pat and Margaret north. Stella, however, has managed to track the real Vera down, and after seeing photographs of her realizes she is linked to another storya timeshare scandal.
While hiding from Stella at a petrol station in the North, the glamorous Pat is accidentally hosed down with water by a power hose, leaving her soaking wet. This forces her to change out of her expensive clothes and expensive leather jacket. Having left all her luggage and credit cards and identification with Claire, Pat has to borrow money from Margaret to buy a cheap shellsuit at the petrol station. To add to her humiliation, Pat is unable to book into a hotel as, again, she has left all her credit cards and identification with Claire and the management state she isn't suitably dressed. Margaret asks her boss Bella to give Pat a bed for the night, but she is furious with Margaret over false claims in a newspaper article that Margaret is ditching her job and moving to Los Angeles.