I don’t know if Paul Abbott had Liza Tarbuck in mind all along for the lead role in Linda Green, but she did a fine job at bringing the character to life at the turn of the century in two seasons of the series for BBC1. Only the first has found its way onto DVD, and on seeing it in a charity shop I couldn’t resist the urge to buy: what with Paul Abbott writing most of the episodes, and other contributors including Russell T. Davies, with guest roles for Christopher Ecclestone and David Morrissey…anyone claiming they’re interested in writing for British tv would be a fool to pass up an offer like that.

So, who is Linda Green? Frankly, a breath of fresh air: a curvy woman in her 30s enjoying being single, and making the most of the opportunity to bed men who cross her path. She’s based on a friend of Abbott’s, though whether the real Linda works in a second hand car showroom and sings at a social club three nights a week, only the two of them know. The specifics matter less than the bigger picture.

What’s refreshing over the course of the series is that Linda doesn’t go the Bridget Jones route and whine. Instead, she takes life by the balls, and though she does experience some upsets in the ten episodes, doesn’t recourse to getting engaged or dieting to resolve her problems. It’s not that the series wrongfoots the viewer, just that interesting three dimensional women are in short supply on television.

Sexual frankness is something of an Abbott trademark. In the scope of the series, Linda’s best pals are enticed to a foursome, and later attempt to pick up a third party using the internet — a plan which falls flat and results in their house being burgled. Linda dabbles with bisexuality, only to discover that women are just as shit partners as men. Returning to men, she picks up a teenage virgin and instructs him in pleasuring her, only to tire of him and arrange to pass him off onto her much younger sister. When Linda’s mum comes to stay, she’s up for watching porn with the rest of her pals when they come round for their usual boozy Wednesday night catch-up. The only time when there’s shock attached to sex is when a friend mistakes what he sees when Linda is on her knees in front of her pants wearing father, and says social services will need to be called.

Linda is a fundamentally happy woman — it tends to be when she compares herself to others that she feels she falls short. The Russell T. Davies episode is all about this, centred on someone the friends went to school with, and whose funeral they attend as a joke of sorts. Only, it doesn’t really work like that, and they end up contemplating their own lives — the deceased made few ripples in her life, but can any of them say that their deaths will make any more impact?

Linda’s friendships are important to her in the absence of a partner and children; something that’s true of many people her age and even older these days. Her friends go back to primary school; they’ve grown up together, been bastards and bullies and treated lovers like shit and now settled down into something like maturity and responsibility. It’s this shared history that makes them interesting and sets them apart from the characters in Cold Feet, who appeal because of who they are hooked up with.

Linda Green was a series of quiet quality. It doesn’t draw attention to itself with the underclass antics of Shameless. Nothing much happens, frankly. But if you’re interested in well-written and portrayed characters interacting in ways that convince you of their lives, their dilemmas, their unforced humour, then this is viewing that will share its treasures every time you care to remind yourself of what state of the art tv was like in 2001.