Ronnie Barker

Open All Hours was a BBC sitcom written by Roy Clarke which ran for four series (26 episodes in all) between 1976 and 1985, with a pilot episode from the Seven of One series in 1973. In 2004, the series was voted eighth in Britain's Best Sitcom




Plot

The series centres around a small grocer's shop in Balby, a suburb of Doncaster in South Yorkshire. The store's owner, Albert Arkwright (played by Ronnie Barker), is a middle-aged miser with a stammer and a knack of being able to sell anything and everything to any passing visitor to his shop. His nephew Granville (played by David Jason) is the shop's put-upon errand boy, whose attempts at a burgeoning love-life (or, some might say, obsessions with local girls) somehow seem to fall flat. He blames his uncle, in particular for the fact that he has to be up at an extremely early hour of the morning in order to open the shop. Almost every mistake Arkwright makes is followed by a cry of "Ger-Granville! Fer-fetch yer cloth!". A recurring joke throughout the series revolves around Arkwright's claim that Granville's estranged father was Hungarian — an issue which is never resolved. Arkwright would also make cracks about the sexlife of his late sister (Granville's mother).
The shop is crowded and most goods can only be reached from behind the counter — allowing the smooth-talking Arkwright a chance to hawk more of his goods. The till is very old, and has a vicious spring on its drawer which terrifies both Granville and Arkwright, who is too much of a miser to buy a new one.
Across the road from the shop lives Nurse Gladys Emmanuel (Lynda Baron), Arkwright's long-standing (and still mostly chaste) fiancée; much of the old skinflint's time is dedicated to trying to convince her to make good on her promise to marry him, or at least sleep with him. Unfortunately Nurse Gladys has both her rounds and taking care of her elderly mother to occupy her. She is protective of Granville and tries to use her influence with Arkwright to get him a better lot in life. In the pilot episode, Nurse Gladys was played by Sheila Brennan with a decidedly Irish accent, and the character was considerably slimmer than the buxom creature she later became.
Other regulars to the shop included the early morning milkwoman (Barbara Flynn) for whom Granville had the hots for; Mavis (Maggie Ollerenshaw) a young woman who just could not make up her mind on what to buy; Mrs. Blewett (Kathy Staff), a gossip with a critical word for everyone; and Mrs. Featherstone (Stephanie Cole), aka the Black Widow, a sour-faced widowed woman who was also something of a miser and admired Arkwright for being likewise.
Episodes generally involve some plan by Arkwright to wed Nurse Gladys, save money or flog more stuff to the locals, and end with Arkwright shutting up shop for the night and praying as he walks round — mostly a matter-of-fact reflection on the day, addressed to God.
A few complaints were registered over the humorous use of a speech impediment but Arkwright was so amiable and the humour so good-natured that it was deemed by most people to be a portrayal without malice. The part was originally written without the stammer — Barker suggested using it in rehearsals and it became part of Arkwright's character. Similarly, the 'business' with the dangerous cash-register was created mostly by Barker.

Open All Hours Fan Site Link

http://www.flangelog.info/oahindex.html

Medal Winner!

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Radio Sitcom

Do you think radio is still important in the continued development of sitcom?

Radio was a very useful way to hear and advertise sitcoms back in the 1950's radio's were very successful as not many people had or heard of televisions. Nowadays people watch sitcoms on their televisions or computers, not many people listen to sitcoms on the radio because of digital television has become more popular over the years. Television sitcoms have taken over from radio sitcoms because of the lack of media entertainment, on a radio you can't see someone falling over a chair and you can't tell what the characters are wearing or what there facial expressions are like, where as on television you can see everything, you can see colour of clothing, facial expressions, props, characters and names or characters.

Back in the 1950's there were three main BBC radio stations:
- Light programme (music)
-Third programme ( Cultural, intellectual)
- Home service (News, speech, based)

This was very important in the 1950's because this was the only way of advertising other types of sitcoms. Also there were successful radio duos such as Burns & Allen and Fibber McGee & Molly. There were also two influential radio shows such as Sam and Henry, Correll & Godson. In 1926-27 Sam & Henry later became Amos and Any on TV (1951-53) argued to be the first sitcom on American radio.
Correll & Godson both white yet played black characters which had strong accents and both very stereotypical representations of "Negroes" popular at the time. Nowadays you would get criticized for calling someone a "Negroe" because this is racist and unacceptable.