Jude

Jude's what might be described as a 'part-time punk'. She dresses the part, has suitably lax care for hygiene and cleanliness, but otherwise doesn't much act it.

Chronically work-shy, she sees herself as a frustrated, restricted artist whose only failure is that she hasn't been discovered as yet. In fact, she's a rather nice, well-meaning girl, but just not very good - as her regular attempts to play the saxophone attest!

Mo

Mo's got a complex past. Raised by a Jewish mother after a short fling with a black man, she's never been able to fulfill her lone parent's wishes: "There aren't many honest Jewish black boys!"

She'd probably be described as having a bit of a guilt complex if she saw a psychiatrist, and after growing up as a mixed-race girl with a judgemental, cantankerous Jewish single parent, who could blame her?!

A fundamentally honest girl, Mo is distraught at the thought of being made redundant. It may be a horrible job in a factory producing glass eyes, but she's never been on the dole before and fears being sucked into the unemployment spiral Jude is in!

Bill

Bill is, to say the least, a bit grotty. He runs London's only high-rise scrapyard from the flat he shares with son Richard, and is often on the receiving end of stolen goods. Not that he'd do the stealing himself, you understand!

Together they're part rag-and-bone men, part odd-job boys, and part handymen.

Richard

Ray's a nice boy, raised by his single father in their high rise flat next door to Jude and Mo's. His mother ran off with a hi-fi warehouse manager from Milton Keynes when he was young, and he doesn't seem to have seen her since.

Ray's also gay, and whilst comfortable with himself, is not sure how to handle the matter with his loving but somewhat old-fashioned father.

May

May never quite got the concept of the loving mother. It's not that she was particularly cruel to Maureen, but she certainly wasn't what one might call caring or attentive!

May's lived for 25 years in the same flat, and has no intention of leaving, especially as that flat's above her beloved Washeteria, the launderette she has been manager of ever since it opened.