Mapp and Lucia

Meet Mapp and Lucia - two of the most unpleasant, disgraceful women you're ever likely to encounter, in E.F.

Bensons carefully observed tale of 1930s village life and social ranking.

Emmeline Lucas (known as Lucia to her friends) is emerging from mourning following the death of her husband.

Pretentious, snobbish and down-right devious, she feels her home town of Riseholme offers no longer challenges and decides to holiday in the town of Tilling.

She rents 'Mallards' from Miss Mapp. The two women clash immediately. Miss Mapp is used to being top of the social ranking in Tilling and there is no way she is going to let a vulgar outsider claim her position.

So begins a battle of one-upmanship, peppered with queenly airs, ghastly tea parties and unnerving bridge evenings as the two combatants attempt to out-do each other to win social supermacy.

The pompous Lucia and malignant Mapp are characters you will love to hate, wonderfully penned by E.F.

Benson. Darkly comic and witty, it is soon to be a new BBC series written by Steve Pemberton.