Sink or Swim

Sink or Swim is a BBC television sitcom featuring Peter Davison as Brian Webber, who lives in a flat above a London petrol station as he strives to carve out a place in the world, with modest early success. His girlfriend, Sonia, is a down-to-earth young woman whose passions center on vegetarianism and ecology. When Brian’s younger brother, Steve, arrives seeking a place to stay, his lazy, cynical, loud Northern lout personality disrupts Brian’s already chaotic life. Like Only Fools and Horses, Sink or Swim was filmed in Bristol standing in for London. It ran for three series from 4 December 1980 to 14 October 1982 and was written by Alex Shearer, who later penned The Two of Us for LWT (1986–1990). The first two years of production overlapped with Davison’s role as the Fifth Doctor in Doctor Who, which imposed constraints on recording schedules.