ARE YOU BEING SERVED? & PORRIDGE
The BBC’s ‘Landmark Comedy Sitcom Season’ launches with new versions of two 1970s classics.
ARE YOU BEING SERVED?
✭✭✩✩✩
We begin with a remake of Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft’s camp sitcom Are You Being Served?, which ran from 1972 to 1985 and became the pair’s most successful export. This one-off special (or so they claim) was a decent tribute act. Half the fun was seeing each actor give life to characters we all know. Of particular note, Jason Watkins minced around as gay Mr. Humphries (a part made famous by John Inman), Sherrie Hewson got to make “pussy” remarks as Mollie Sugden’s purple-dyed Mrs. Slocombe, and Only Fools & Horses’ John Challis got a rare break from playing Boycie to take over from Frank Thornton as Captain Peacock.
One strange thing about “You Can’t Teach a New Dog Old Tricks” is that it was set only a few years into the original show’s future: 1988. (Or that show’s past, if you take 1990s sequel Grace & Favour into consideration.) I can only presume they opted to set in 1988 because shops like Grace Brothers don’t exist in 2016, and were a dying breed in the ’90s, but why they didn’t set it in 1978 is another question entirely. Perhaps the ’70s become too separate from modern-day attitudes now?
Already a stage play for am-dram companies to put on in community theatres, here was a chance to see professional actors put their spin on new Are You Being Served? material, written by Benidorm’s Derren Litten whose script kept the spirit of the original series alive. Lashings of innuendo, broad caricatures, and moments of slapstick. Unfortunately, a few anachronisms did slip through. I don’t think the colloquialism “fit” (i.e. sexually attractive) was popular in the late-’80s, for instance.
It’s hard to get too upset about Are You Being Served?, really. It did exactly what you’d expected for a Sunday night BBC audience. But it also reinforcing that times have changed. I’ll giggle at a well-delivered sexual innuendo because I’m not made of stone, but when two-thirds of the jokes revolve around ways to slip the words “pussy” and “balls” into dialogue, I’m glad humour has evolved. There was only really one genuinely good joke in this special that wasn’t low-hanging fruit — Mr Grainger’s (Roy Barraclough) anecdote about meeting his wife in the store elevator. I won’t spoil it here. It wasn’t comedy gold, but it had structure and a punchline I didn’t seem coming a mile off. A formula in short supply everywhere else, alas.
Tastes will vary with this old-fashioned to a multi-camera sitcom, of course. Mrs Brown’s Boys is the most popular comedy on British television right now, and that owes a huge debt to the era of Are You Being Served? The studio audience seemed to be having a great time at this recording, and practically wet themselves when Mr. Humphries got to squeal “I’m free!” for the first time. I imagine a full six-part series is already on the cards, given the probably availability of those involved. But if that happens, it’s a sad day for BBC comedy to be chasing nostalgia rather than creating today’s next hit.
PORRIDGE
✭✭✭✩✩
One of my favourite sitcoms is Porridge (1974–77), written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, starring Ronnie Barker as lovable criminal Norman Stanley Fletcher. Originating as part of a 1973 season of comedy pilots, the BBC commissioned a full series. The show was a hit that ran for three series, leading into a less-successful sequel about Fletch’s days outside prison, Going Straight, before a movie hit cinemas in 1979. The untimely death of co-star Richard Beckinsale (who played Fletch’s younger cellmate Godber) put an end to the show continuing, but by that time its legacy was assured.
Unlike Are You Being Served?, this was a straightforward sequel again written by Clement and La Frenais, so having the original writers involved gave it added cachet. The setup was exactly the same, with a few deviations and 21st-century updates, as Fletch’s grandson Nigel Norman Fletcher (Kevin Bishop) was imprisoned for computer hacking. Inside, there were familiar dynamics involving nasty Scottish warden Mr. Meekie (Mark Bonnar), the kindlier Mr. Braithwaite (Dominic Coleman), and a generational twist by having Fletch share a bunk with septuagenarian Joe Lotterby (Dave Hill).
The most notable update was having the younger Fletch be jailed for cyber crime, but it felt incongruous because Bishop’s Fletch is a cockney rascal mirroring Barker’s iconic portrayal. His character is given opportunities to speak lots of I.T jargon, and the plot itself comes to revolve around Fletch’s attempt to hack into the prison’s computer mainframe via a makeshift antennae, but it never seems plausible he’d be the kind of guy to know the first thing about the Internet. Sadly, it just comes across as a lazy attempt to make this Porridge appear more current (together with mentions of drones and viagra), at the expense of what’s a good fit for the character.
However, I found myself coming to enjoy Porridge. It was relatively humorous throughout, and Bishop was better than expected. Barker has big shoes to fill, and the Star Stories performer doesn’t come close to achieving the same quality of comic timing and natural charm, but he’s a likeable enough presence. The biggest failing was with the crucial dynamic between Fletch and Joe, which never once matched the chemistry between Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale. There wasn’t much time spent on their pairing during the half-hour, which was frustrating because Fletch being the younger man and Joe the aged veteran was this new Porridge’s biggest shakeup. Still, the episode was worth watching if only to hear canonical information about what happened to ‘grandad Fletch’, during which time you could hear a pin drop in the studio audience.
