 |
|
      |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
On the lookout If there was one thing that Ronnie Barker was always keen to try, it was new characters. Many of his series evolved out of episodes in anthology series in which he had starred. For instance, the character of Lord Rustless had survived various incarnations, both before and after the two series that featured the character. The basis of the Rustless character started off in the film Futtock's End, before transferring to an episode of The Ronnie Barker Playhouse: Ah, There You Are in 1968. As Rustless himself, he continued for 8 episodes in 1969, with a further 7 in 1970 in Hark At Barker, before taking a break while Ronnie concentrated on another anthology, Six Dates With Barker in 1971. But the character was never far away, and returned in 1972 in the series His Lordship Entertains. Even then, it was not the final outing of this Barker favourite, for he reappeared in the semi-silent 'grunt and groan' Two Ronnies specials, The Picnic ( 1976) and By The Sea ( 1982). Another character, which first appeared in the first of Six Dates With Barker: 1937: The Removals Person evolved over fifteen years later to become Ronnie's final comic creation, Clarence the short-sighted removals man. No one could say that these things should be hurried! But even when he had his favourites like Rustless and Clarence, Ronnie was always on the look out for new characters. The Ronnie Barker Playhouse and Six Dates With Barker had both produced, or had elaborated on, characters which would be potential series characters. After appearing in the Comedy Playhouse episode Idle At Work in 1972, Ronnie was keen to do a further anthology and see if his luck would hold in finding another successful sitcom vehicle. And sure enough, it did. Change of length Seven Of One actually came about because of the length of the run the BBC wanted it to fill. The original idea was to make it Six Of One, so that if a follow-up series was commissioned it could be given the title of Half A Dozen Of The Other! Whether this witicism failed to amuse the suits at the BBC, or whether they felt that a follow up shouldn't look guaranteed before the original had been transmitted is unknown, but Six Of One was given a seven-week run and thus a change of title. The first two pilots were, ironically, the most successful and ultimately went on to be commissioned and extremely popular. Both require more in-depth articles than can be\par featured here. But we must make mention of both as part of Seven Of One. They are, of course, Open All Hours and Prisoner And Escort, latterly to become known as Porridge. 'Gr-Gr-Granville! Fetch yer cloth!' Open All Hours, written by experienced writer and creator of the then-new Last Of The Summer Wine, Roy Clarke, featured the daily life of Arkwright, a miserly, penny-pinching old shopkeeper. Always out to make as much profit as possible out of his customers, he would go to any and all lengths to do so, usually at the expense of his nephew Granville's well-being. His mean nature even ran to giving formally squashed packets of ginger snaps and perforated tights as goodwill presents to the love of his life, the district nurse, Gladys Emmanuel, only to be rebuffed by her own, worldly-wise attitude and generous bosom. The pilot featured both Barker and David Jason in their respective roles as Arkwright and Granville, a role that Jason would still play for its third and final series in 1985 even after striking out on his own with the phenomenally successful Only Fools And Horses. The part of Nurse Gladys in the series was taken by Lynda Baron ( see this issue! ), but in the pilot she was played by Sheila Brennan and was a fiery Irish redhead instead of the dark-haired Yorkshire lass that Lynda would play. Open All Hours didn't immediately go to series, waiting instead until 1976 to begin its first run of episodes on BBC2, a scheduling error which wasn't righted until 1980 when the lack of new material from Barker and long-time partner, Ronnie Corbett, as The Two Ronnies, provided a repeat, and very successful screening on BBC1. After that, a further two series were made, in 1981 and 1985; the gap between the two down to the availability of Barker and Jason away on other projects. 'Ah, Mr. MacKay. Just voted you Man Of The Year, sir!' One of those other projects was Prisoner And Escort, which became probably Barker's most liked and remembered sitcom of all time, certainly with the general public. Revolving around the inmates of HM Slade prison, and in particular, that ageing recidivist Norman Stanley Fletcher, Porridge chronicled the day-to-day ups and downs of the 'lags' and the scrapes they got into under the noses of the prison officers or 'screws', such as the weak as ditchwater Mr. Barraclough and the authoritarian Scot, Mr. MacKay. Principle amongst the other inmates were Lennie Godber, Fletcher's supposedly 'temporary' Brummie cell mate and first-time offender, McLaren, the young negro Scot with a chip on his shoulder, Lukewarm, the 'gay' kitchen hand, Warren, the young Bolton thief who couldn't read and the less-than-savoury types such as 'Orrible' Ives, in for fraudulent conversion, Harris, the light-fingered sneak who'd squeal on anyone and Slade's 'Mr. Big', 'Genial' Harry Grout. But we're getting ahead of ourselves; in Prisoner And Escort, only Fletcher, Barraclough and MacKay featured. And it has to be attributed to both the strong writing and the performances of Barker as Fletcher, Brian Wilde as Mr. Barraclough and the late Fulton MacKay as Mr. MacKay that Prisoner And Escort, as Porridge, was green-Iighted for a series in 1974. In this pilot, as its title suggests, Barraclough and MacKay are escorting Fletcher from one prison, Brixton, to Slade; the only location ever given for Slade was Northumbria, although Fletcher, after falling off a ladder at MacKay's behest, did go to Carlisle General Hospital. 'and got plastered'. Initially travelling by train, Fletcher takes the advantage of a swap to a prison van and a bit of 'liquid sabotage' to maroon them out on the open moor. MacKay sets off for help, while Barraclough and Fletcher wait in the van, the con all the while working on the weak prison officer until he decides that with night drawing in, they'd better make for shelter at a cottage nearby. With Barraclough sleepily drunk, Fletcher manages to give him the slip and tries to get away, running across the moor all night until he comes to a desolate farmhouse. He breaks in, hoping he's finally got away from the law, only to be confronted by Barraclough; the con has been running in circles all night long! Considering it was broadcast on April 1st 1973, there were no fools present here. As a potential series, Prisoner And Escort was thought by the BBC to have the best chance of making it. For once, they were right. Three series and two Christmas specials followed, all from the pens of Dick Clement and Ian LaFrenais, who had previously created the popular Sixties sitcom, The Likely Lads. They also wrote the follow-up series to Porridge, Going Straight, about Fletcher's struggle on release from Slade, as well as the 1979 feature film of Porridge. Fletcher had a lot of mileage in him, and as a series, Porridge still plays to large audiences whenever episodes are reshown. The decision to run with Prisoner And Escort first, of all the potential Seven Of One pilots, was bang on. Old before his time... The third pilot, My Oid Man, also had a lot going for it. Written by Gerald Frow, it concemed the upheaval of the life of retired engine-driver Sam Cobbett, the last tenant to leave his house in a road condemned by the council to make way for new tower blocks. With nowhere else to go, he is forced to move in to and share one of the flats with his daughter and her family. As Cobbett doesn't get on with his son-in-Iaw, things do not bode well for the unwilling high-rise tenant. The lack of a garden and a decent pub also depress him, but things take a turn for the better when a fellow driver turns up and he has someone of his own generation to swap yarns with and share the local watered-down bitter with. When the self-same driver turns up at the flat with all the furniture Sam had to sell to move, infuriating his son-in-law still further, it looks like Sam's tenancy may be brighter than he expected. As a cross-generational sitcom, this would have worked very well, had the BBC chosen to pursue it at the time. The cast were good; Ann Beach playing the well-meaning daughter, Doris, Graham Armitage playing the long-suffering and irritated son-in-Iaw, Arthur, with their son Ron played by Gary Warren who had previously appeared in Catweazle with Geoffrey Bayldon. Sam's ex-colleague, Willie Price, was played with gusto by the late Leslie Dwyer, who on television would later become known as the grumpy Punch & Judy man, Mr. Partridge in Hi-De-Hi. So all the casting elements were there. The script had many good moments, with a large degree of pathos and wistfulness on Sam's side as his situation dawns on him, changing to jollity on finding new hope in old acquaintances like Willie. It would have made a good series for Ronnie. But sadly for Gerald Frow, this wasn't to be - at least on the BBC. Not to be outdone, Frow took My Oid Man to Yorkshire Television who were delighted with it. Clive Dunn, who has pretty well made a career out of playing men far older than his years, donned the mantle of Sam Cobbett and ran with it for three successful series. Coincidentally, Dunn's wife, Priscilla Morgan, who was fifteen years his junior, played Cobbett's daughter in the Yorkshlre series! There must be something about Seven Of One, as it would contribute to other successes in little ways too later on; for instance, Priscilla Morgan also had a role in the next pilot! 'Offer him money, offer him money!' This pilot, once again penned by Roy Clarke and called Spanner's Eleven, revolved around Albert Spanner, a local private taxi driver and team coach for Ashfield Athletic Football Club - dubbed Ashfield Pathetic on the ground's billboard. And that was the problem, the team were totally useless. Some wouldn't turn up, others only had the fairer sex on their mind and the rest, including the goalkeeper nicknamed Butterfingers for what should be obvious reasons, had no idea. The team hadn't won a match for months and Spanner was down on his luck, both as a coach and the hotdog seller! When the strong arm of the local council, Mortimer Todd, gives him an ultimatum; win the next match or he goes as coach In favour of mad team medic Horace the vet, Spanner has to use all his ingenulty to come up with a way to give the incompetent team a miracle. This he does by bringing the hospital bus, which he also drives, to the next game loaded to the gunnels wIth bandaged patients, making sure that the opposition are told that they were Ashfield's opponents from the previous week! As a pilot, it had a good degree of humour, but as a series it was probably too limited to have become either a popular or long-running success, despite the subject matter. Roy Clarke's script was above par, as were the performances from all the principle cast members including Ronnie. Morgan played Albert's wife, Vera, and gave good value as the frustrated wife of a manic football supporter, John Cater was suitably wacky as Horace the vet, who would bandage anyone who stood still for more than ten seconds and angled for Spanner's job with a zeal, and Bill Maynard, in his days before Selwyn Froggitt, gave Albert a real hard time as Councillor Todd, making sure he was in no doubt as to his predicament and the council's position. He couldn't stand Horace either, but was willing to give him a try after Spanner's terrible record. All in all, it was a brave attempt, but ultimately it was a one-joke premise that couldn't really sustain a full series. A good one-off, but that was the best that Spanner's Eleven could really ever hope to be. The same could be said for the following pilot, except that it was probably only one of two of the 'pilots' that really were never meant to be more than the single episodes they turned out to be. 'Hmm,hmm!' In Another Fine Mess, ex-pat American Harry Norvel had married a G.I. bride and was now living in England. The story begins with the death of his mother-in-law and her wake, where all the female relatives and friends are sitting around saying how wonderful the old lady was and how useless Harry is i.e. it's all his fault that the old lady 'she was a saint, you know' has died. He wants to get away from the wake and go down to the pub for the talent evening with his friend, Sydney Jefferson, but his wife locks all the doors and he can't get out. Sydney 'helps' him to escape via the window and they set off, but because of an act of charity on their part, they are waylaid by a drunken woman who insists that not only do they give her a lift home, but that they join her for drinks. While waiting for Edwina to 'slip into something more comfortable' - and unable to escape the house as she screams every time she hears them trying to leave! - they accidentally manage to demolish the entire front room. This might not have been so bad, except that Edwina's husband comes home unexpectedly with his twelve-bore shotgun and finds them with his wife! Sydney manages to escape, but runs straight into Harry's wife and her friend, who spotted them on her way home and went back to get her. Breaking the bedroom window as a diversion to make everyone think they've escaped that way, Harry and Sydney\par finally escape, pursued by the husband brandishing the shotgun! If this sounds a bit like the sort of situation that Laurel and Hardy got into in their heyday, you'd be absolutely right Stanley! From the title, if nothing else, you'd probably guess that this episode, for it could never really be a 'pilot', was meant as a homage to Stan and Ollie. Ronnie took the role of Harry Norvel, the Oliver Hardy character, with the late Roy Castle as an excellent foil as Sydney Jefferson. With their make up, expressions, hair style and dress it was never actually said, but their turn at the talent night was to be as Laurel and Hardy impersonators, so they were dressed accordingly and the pair gave an excellent account of themselves in the style of the famous duo. The rest of the cast also give good performances, although most bar Avis Bunnage and Margery Mason were restricted to the wake scenes. They included Pearl Hackney, who had been around on screen and on radio for many years in series such as Waterlogged Spa. The scene in the drunken woman's apartment worked like clockwork, with the domino effect of one breakage leading to another, culminating in a shelf tipping and launching a model ship into a fish tank where it sinks, and is a tribute to the BBC's visual effects department. Another Fine Mess was an excellent homage to Stan and Ollie, carried out beautifully. But it could only ever be a one-off. And so was the next 'pilot'; but for different reasons. Food, glorious food... Going back to the change in length imposed on the series, it seems likely that a filler episode had to be written at short notice. And who could write it for Ronnie better than Ronnie himself? So the next 'pilot' turned out to be written by Jack Goetz, one of Ronnie's psuedonyms. With everyone often calling him and Ronnie Corbett 'Big Ronnie and Little Ronnie', maybe it was inevitable that the idea of dieting became the subject of One Man's Meat. Alan Joyce is put on a crash diet by his wife, Marion, who then leaves him at home for the day. He immediately intends to break the diet with a nice meal, but Marion has removed not only all the food in the house - including all his cunningly-concealed snacks! - but also all his trousers so he can't go out! His first plan to get hold of some trousers doesn't work; while his feigned burglary does indeed bring trousered policeman to his flat, he is unsuccessful in getting hold of theirs, but almost ends up on a charge of wasting police time when he confesses to the hoax. He does manage to procure clothing - in the form of coat and skirt! - from the daily woman when\par she arrives, and indulges down at the baker's shop. When he retums, Marion is already home, but he thinks he's got away by changing before she sees him. Too late; she's already found the poor woman sans skirt, as well as a Chinese meal and waiters that he ordered, but thought wasn't going to be delivered! She assures him not to worry about breaking the diet; she'll be home all day tomorrow, where she can make sure that not a single morsel passes his lips! A well-written show from the simple premise, with plenty of humourous touches that Ronnie would employ similarly in many Two Ronnies sketches written by him. The cast was excellent, possibly too good for a total one-off. Prunella Scales, famous for her roles in Marriage Lines and later Fawlty Towers as Sybil Fawlty, played Marion. The 'daily woman', Mrs. Dawkins, was played by Joan Sims, a veteran of the Carry On films and many other series, and the 'police presence' was provided by Glynn Edwards and Sam Kelly; the latter would reappear again in Porridge as 'Bunny' Warren. One Man's Meat was another good episode, but was certainly only that; it never had the potential as anything else, and it's doubtful it was written as such. The next, and last Seven Of One maybe could have lasted a series, because there were possibilities in the concept. 'It must be in the coffin!' I'll Fly You For A Quid concerned the vice of gambling, and that done by the Owen family. Based in a Welsh mining village, where everyone will bet on anything from the length of the Vicars sermon on the subject to the hymns chosen for the service, Evan Owen is distraught when his father dies - both played by Ronnie - because of what he finds out at the wake. His father had a winning 'treble' bet on the horse racing the day he died, netting a not-inconsiderable sum of money. Both Evan and his son, Mortlake, are really pleased, until Evan's wife points out that they don't know where the betting slip is. Turning the house upside down, they come to the conclusion that it must by in Grandpa Owen's clenched fist - and he's currently in the coffin in the front parlour! They both creep down separately in the night to make their peace with the old fella - and to remove the slip from the coffin - but when one finds the other, they can't do it any more. The funeral is performed, and the Rev. Simmonds asks to speak with Evan. He is on the horns of a dilemma; Grandpa gave him the slip on his death bed and he wonders what he should do with it. Should he give it to Evan, or should he keep it to boost the ailing church's restoration fund. To Evan the answer's obvious, but not to the Vicar. There's only one solution; they cut cards for it- and Evan loses! Written by Clement and La Frenais again ( and originally meant to air first ), this could have gone to a series. The cast, especially Richard O'Callaghan as Mortlake, who could have made a good Godber in Porridge, and Emrys James as Rev. Simmonds, were good value, and the setting was original as well as unusual for a sitcom. Ronnie would come back to the valleys later as The Magnificent Evans. But for now, Norman Stanley Fletcher
would be his first port of call. Seven Of
One produced a result - as Ronnie hoped
it would. And the rest is history... article copyright PPS / M.Hearn 2000 |