Barry is divorced and approaching 40. He is neurotic and obsessive (to the point of hoarding used matches), suffering from many phobias some verging on the ridiculous, although he is oddly unfazed by a real crisis. He seems bumbling and insecure, though his portrait from 1987 shows him as somewhat fashionable and confident. We learn that he joined the company as a graduate of Oxford Polytechnic and that Sharon was his secretary. They had a tentative romance which foundered when Barry got the venue of a date wrong; it takes them twenty years to discuss the misunderstanding. Sharon and Barry remain barbed and confrontational with each other.