“No Flowers by Request” is the third episode of the third season of Mind Your Language. It was first broadcast on the 10th of November 1979.
Plot
After taking Juan to hospital, Mr. Brown misses a step and breaks his leg so then he has to stay in hospital while Miss Courtney takes the class. Juan rings the hospital at tea break and asks for Mr. Brown but gives his name instead of Mr. Brown’s, and since he is told that John Brown has died Juan thinks that Mr. Brown is dead. The next day, Mr. Brown shows up at school to find that his students have gone to “his” funeral, so he and Sid go to the cemetery to tell them that he isn’t dead. While on a slope, they argue over who will push his wheelchair, and when Sid lets go it goes racing downhill and hits the curb. Mr. Brown falls into an open grave, breaking his other leg and one of his arms, and ends up in hospital again. The episode ends with the students coming to the hospital to visit Mr. Brown and bringing him flowers, which Juan assures him they didn’t have to spend money on because they’d already bought flowers for his funeral.
Quotes
(Taro is being asked about poetry.)
Mr. Brown: Who wrote “To a Fieldmouse”?
Taro: Sounds like a man who is crazy in head-o.
Miss Courtney: Now, I intend to find out how you’re coming along with your English.
Ali: We are learning very much the well English.
Giovanni: That’s right. I speak-a the English so good, nobodies knows that I’m Italian.
Miss Courtney: I find that very hard to believe.
Giovanni: You see? Even you don’t-a know.
Miss Courtney: Mr. Nadim. Name me two seasons.
Ali: Uh, salt and pepper.
Trivia
- This is the first time that Anna mentions “Mr. Right”. The second is in “Repent at Leisure”.
