Original subtitles

On the way to Limerick, three men go to Ireland at eight here on BBC Two.

Now, though, the story behind a comedy classic.

The family could be watching it and roaring with laughter, and the children

would think, well, that's just, you know, I don't know what they're laughing

but it does seem to be funny.

Now take the customer into the changing room, Mr Granger. Put his clothes on a

coat hanger and come straight back, mister.

It was fun, and it was playful, and it was good natured, and it was sort of

innocent.

Oh, Mr Brown, that was very naughty.

It was a big show. Everyone would sit and watch it for years. It ran for

It was a big event.

This play went to a lot of trouble with that animal.

Port -A -Range.

David Croft had to fight every year to get them to... Oh, couldn't you get

Thames to do it? It's a bit down market for the BBC.

We were a breath of fresh air with comedy at that particular time.

Are you free, Mr Lucas?

No, I'm sorry, Captain Peacock, this lady's looking for something large in

runs.

Got such an audience reaction, they said, hello, we've got a success on our

hand. I'm free!

Are You Being Served first aired in 1932 and became a firm family favourite

running for 13 years on BBC One.

Chock full of innuendo, dodgy lifts, and the occasional cussing. Now do you care

to see the shorts?

Are You Being Served told the story of life on the clothing floor of Grace

Brothers department store.

It ran for ten series, sold across the globe, but it was a show that the BBC

never really wanted. They all wanted to give you the sack except Mr Lucas.

Dear boy.

Yeah, he wanted to send you to the knackers, you know.

From the word go, it was a struggle, dreamt up out of financial desperation

the writer and performer Jeremy Lloyd.

He'd just given up his career in America to be with his new wife, Joanna Lumley,

back in the UK.

Bobby! Oh, come on, the party's over.

Oh, darling, what are you doing here?

Well, I live here. I'm trying to get you to go home.

I came back and I'd spent most of my money.

And Joanna said, write about something you know.

I said, well, I know about... You know, Simpsons. I said, well, there you are,

Simpsons, closed right about the store.

And I said, well, that's a rather good idea.

During Jeremy Lloyd's youth, he'd worked at the department store Simpson of

Piccadilly. He lasted only two and a half years, but it gave him enough

to put pen to paper.

I met David Croft when he and I were called in to help with a show that had

written by Jilly Cooper.

It's awfully bad for your eyes, darling.

Starring my...

Ex -wife, I think, at the time, Joanna Lumley. He mentioned this show and we

agreed to sort of meet and talk about it. He'd already sold it in point of

to ATV, I think.

I said, look, if you can get it back, I'm glad to work with you and produce

David Croft is a genius, there's no doubt about that when you consider his

background. David Croft was a producer at the BBC at the time, working for Head

of Light Entertainment, Bill Cotton.

and was the department's golden boy after creating the hit sitcom Dad's

I am wearing a toupee.

A wig, if that makes it any clearer.

So if any of you want a good laugh at my expense, now's your chance.

Because I'm going to show it to you.

The reason it was commissioned is that the BBC wanted six comedy pilots.

In those early days, the BBC used to do a series of pilot shows under the banner

of Comedy Playhouse, and they were half -hour pilots.

that people had thought might have a bit of mileage and were worth exploring

with a view to running into series.

And so they'd all be shown, and according to audience reaction of the

went, they'd say, yeah, I think that's the one we're going to go for this year

and give it a try.

Comedy Playhouse was an idea that was designed to keep successful comedy

Goulton and Simpson at the BBC.

They'd come up with Steptoe and Fun, and Croft wanted to get in on the act.

David, who was very popular at the BBC, said, well, I've got one.

And they asked what it was. They said, well, just write it.

I had no list to answer to particularly. Bill Cotton liked the idea.

There were other shows on at the same time, like On The Buses, My Wife Next

Door.

Nobody had ever written a show about a store.

So it was original and unique.

Opening time.

Stand by for the stampede.

Tie, Mr Lucas?

Yes, of course, Captain Peacock. Anything in particular, sir?

Straighten your tie.

It was just an outline of what the people said and the departments and the

of conversations that I remembered and the floor walkers and everything like

that. And they were all based on characters that actually were at

you were troubled to read the memo from the accounts department, you would know

that they prefer ballpoints.

Correct, Mr Humphrey?

Ballpoints, Captain Peacock.

LAUGHTER Captain Peacock was Major Huskisson.

who was a director.

Major Huskisson always wore a carnation, red carnation in his buttonhole, which

was delivered to his office by a local German street florist every day, every

morning. I was a Catholic in my early days, yes, and I was a corporal for a

weeks. They were exaggerations, obviously.

And Mrs Slocum was Evelyn Whiteside, who had immaculate white hair.

She was...

But similar in build to Mrs Slocum, she always looked as though she'd just come

from the hairdresser every day. Of course, it's for madam to decide.

It's either cold and interesting... LAUGHTER ..or warm and safe indeed.

She wouldn't suffer fools, though, but she was a great lady.

You listen to the artist, like, yep?

Mm -hm.

LAUGHTER Ooh, you're as common as mud.

We had a pecking order.

and that was the man with the carnation, who was the floor walker, who was

usually an ex -major, would point to assistants to say, are you free, and

pecking order would be depending how well off the customer looked. Mr

are you free?

I'm very sorry, I'm afraid I can't help you with Captain Peacock. If the head

assistant didn't think he was going to spend very much, he'd pass him on to the

second. Are you available for a clip -on bow tie?

I have never been available for a clip -on bow tie.

The second would pass him on to the third. Mr Lucas will attend to the

Forward, Mr Lucas.

Finally, it might even get to me.

I would usually find somebody who looked very badly dressed who wanted to spend

a fortune, which annoyed everybody.

Let me serve him. I didn't make any commission last Friday. You sold that 38

long. I know, but the man brought it back again. His wife didn't like it. It

didn't fit her. Go on, please, let me have it.

It's Granger's first. Well, he hasn't seen him.

I'm going to serve him. Well, don't mess it up.

Simpsons would deny to their dying day, if any of them are still alive, but the

thing about putting their knee into the armhole of a jacket... And you pull

until you break all the stitches.

If you listen, you can hear them go.

to make it seem larger and then bring it back to the customer. I've found one

that's slightly larger. You must try this on, but don't wave your arms about

much. Well, the trick in this, Mr Lucas, is to make sure that the customer gets

it home before the sleeves drop off.

I never saw it, so I don't know. But if he says it's true, then it must be true.

I am just about to find the other pair of trousers.

We don't need trousers, Mr Lucas.

Don't we? No.

Well, you might have told me before.

By hook or by crook, you were going to make that sale. So if you had to jam the

jacket onto the person, which I did frequently, if you literally had to pull

on, drag it around his waist and just get his, you know, belly in. It's you,

sir. Definitely you, don't you think so, Mr Lucas?

Yes, it's definitely the customer.

It seems a little tight to me.

We are being warm tight this year, sir. You played on the vanity to secure the

sale.

With the speed of an idea in a basic plot Crofton Lloyd set about fleshing

the script David had an extremely good idea, which was to which was to put the

ladies' and gentlemen's department on the same floor. Whoever heard of a

department on this floor?

It's been men's ever since I was a boy.

That Mrs Pankhurst really started something.

That really made the show, I must say, because there was all the conflict

between the ladies and gentlemen.

Mrs Slocum didn't like to take down your trousers without asking you.

I think that if Mrs Slocum wants to make any further inroads into my department,

she had better inform me personally.

David actually is brilliant at casting.

We all worked together at some time or another, I think, except for young Mr

Grace, of course.

Young Mr Grace I saw in Pantomime, in Gold and Green, I think.

He was very, very old, and I rung up one of his fellow artists and said, look,

do you think you can learn it all right? And they said, oh, yes, he'll be all

right. You've all done very well.

Thank you very much.

David has this phenomenal brain. It's like a casting

filing system in his brain. And he'll see you in a small role or something

and he'll file it away in there.

Down Berwick Road, 35.

Berwick Road.

I live with my dad. He's 643, so don't you start getting any ideas.

But then when he gets an idea for something new, because his writing is so

he'll know exactly who is to play whatever role.

And so then it'll be your turn to be one of the main characters.

Oh, gosh, my suspender has gone.

You're not wearing suspenders.

That's what I mean, they've gone.

Don't get back at me!

They knew us all, they knew what we could do, they knew how to write for us.

So it fitted like a glove.

They were all people who'd done a lot of things before, a lot of shows before.

Trevor Bannister, for instance, had done an awful lot before.

Trevor Bannister had also worked with Croft and Lloyd, but he was the only

person in the cast to be well -known to the public, having been in a huge ITV

hit that just been made. Joe Soap, the public, he was more well -known than the

others. I mean, the others had done a lot of other stuff.

But they hadn't been on a weekly series in the same way that Trevor had. I'll

need a very demanding social life.

Doing what?

Dirty pig.

I'm a sex symbol.

Highly irresistible to the feminine gender.

Every housewife bin I empty. They can't help it, you see. They all want to

undress me.

As for John Inman, he was just a jobbing actor at the time and was not really

known, apart from occasional stage and TV work.

When John Inman...

join the cast i think he was working selling hats at austin reeds and he he

in for the interview and never went back to austin reeds although he'd been

doing lots of things before then but when actors are not working they have to

and do something else you know that's not acting so when david croft offered

the part of mr humphries he was only going to give one answer yes of course

would uh because john was out of work with the cast in place work started on

pilot and its aim was to replicate the success of a gang show sitcom that Croft

had initiated with Dad's Army.

I didn't realise until recently, but apparently my claim to fame is that I

actually the very first customer to walk through the doors of Grace Brothers.

What size are you, sir?

Well, as a matter of fact, I was looking for the gents.

The trouble with pilots is that it's new, and the actors are a bit uptight,

course, and you don't quite know how it's going to go.

Look, what's the meaning? He not having a baby got to do with him not taking his

trousers down.

The original character was only supposed to appear in the pilot.

Their idea was that they needed Rumble to introduce people and that they

wouldn't need Rumble after that.

But, and I took his rather nice compliment, they decided that they did

Rumble after all.

So there I was throughout the whole thing.

Did you and Mrs. Rumble have a nice holiday?

Oh, yes, thank you. Yes, we went to the Coconut Island. Oh.

Also, Croft and Lloyd felt the store Mr Rumbled was to manage would need to be a

bit more down -market than the one it had been baked on.

It was a kind of old -fashioned shop, if you know what I mean, in a funny sort

of way, because shops were changing at that time.

Don't worry about me, I don't wear them.

Hard, I mean.

I'm sure it's against staff regulations.

Still, I'm always prepared to look the other way. Yeah, you could have fooled

me. The set we had, actually, was a sort of down -market Simpsons. It was a sort

of bon marché type of set, and we didn't want it to look too upmarket, and it

certainly didn't.

I would have thought more like garages, actually, you know, because it was such

a sort of a muddle. Probably punting some barkers.

Could have been similar from where they acted.

That's better.

Oh, look what you've done to the nose!

Oh, you've ruined it!

No, I haven't. I haven't ruined it.

Well, I mean, they always look too perfect, these models, anyway, don't

I mean, people do have crooked noses, you know.

Somebody might come in one day with a crooked nose, look at that dress and

I'll have that dress, it'll go with my crooked nose.

It does make me laugh when you see...

interviews with the writers and they talk about how they actually worked in

shops like that and, you know, all their research was based on their real -life

experiences. There was never anywhere like that, ever. This is from our kung

range.

Quite a little relaxing thing it is. Plenty of room under the arms for

I get quite carried away when I put one of... Some people would say that it was

supposed to be set at the time it was actually filmed.

And some people would say it was set earlier.

I think the look was based on a sort of 50s look with

Art Deco design put into the set itself.

Even though cast and crew felt the pilot had potential, the BBC decided it

wasn't for them.

They didn't show it because they didn't like it. They didn't think it was any

good. It was looking like only a miracle would save value being served.

Instead, it was a tragedy.

The Olympics of serenity have become the one thing the Germans didn't want them

to be, the Olympics of terror.

It was during the 1972 Munich Olympics when terrorists kidnapped and murdered

members of the Israeli team.

The games were postponed as a mark of respect for the dead.

The Olympic Games stand still.

The flags in the stadium.

at half -mast.

Suddenly, the BBC found themselves with a gap in their schedules.

The BBC were desperate with the blank screens to put something on, and they

a shelf with tapes on.

They said, well, we've got that third -rate comedy playhouse thing, we'll

that on. As a result of that exposure, it got a very large audience.

Oh, blimey, women drivers.

That'll do, Mr. Mash. Instead of standing there making your sarcastic

you could give us a hand.

They said hello. We got a success on our hand.

Having trouble with Mrs. Slocum? Oh, that woman's lip's gone to her head,

Oh, I hope not. If she burns her bra, we'll have to call out the London Fire

Brigade.

Bill Cotton, who was the head of the BBC comedy department at the time, said,

get rid of John Inman. We'll take the salesman. I don't want the poof. There,

there, Mr Granger. Now, you mustn't upset yourself.

We're right behind you, aren't we, Mr Lucas? Go right up to the old... And we

said, no, he's marvellous, you know.

And if you could bottle his charismatic charm, it would be of industrial

strength. She's got a nerve.

What's the matter now? She wants to remove my shirt and put a bra there

So we went into series and did another half dozen, I think it was, to go out as

the whole package.

One major development from the pilot was Mrs Slocum's hair.

Molly Thunton felt her character would give Grace Brothers hairdressing

department a run for their money.

When David rang and said it was going to a series, I thought, well, I've got to

do something about my hair. And that's when I got the idea.

And so I just, when I turned up for the first rehearsal, I suggested that would

it be a good idea to have different coloured hair every week? And David's...

Which I took to mean yes.

That was a very funny idea. It was a damn useless idea because it meant that

you wanted to do a retake, you had to make your mind up rather than make the

scene was over.

It was during the first series that John Inman began to make his mark on the

gang show comedy.

I wasn't aware that he'd suddenly shine out in the way that he did, but I think

the first time people would laugh to us was when Captain Peacock said, Are you

free? Yes, I'm free, Captain Peacock.

He had an extraordinary walk as he walked across the floor, which got a

tremendous laugh, so we kept that in. It actually came from a shop assistant in

Austin Reeds, who had metal bits on his heels.

Gradually, his part built up just because of his charismatic character, I

say. What is the reason for this masquerade? I just want it to look like

average man in the street.

The mannerisms came, and he...

into this full -blown figure, which is, you know, I'm free, Mr Humphreys, you

see. Yes, I'm free, Mr Drake.

You've never deliberately written a catchphrase because you don't know

going to take off.

But when one does take off, you hear about it afterwards.

Probably everybody's playing it. I'm free.

I'm free, Mr Duke. The gentleman wishes to try on a dress.

I'm free.

It did catch on very quickly because it was something that everybody said.

I'm free.

I'm free.

I'm free. I'm free.

I'm free.

I think the viewers appreciated series two onwards more

purely because they were more aware of the characters, the idiosyncrasies of

characters. Your customer is approaching, Mr Lucas.

Carry on, Mr Lucas.

Just my luck.

None of the characters actually liked each other very much.

It's rather strange. We used to find that the public would say, oh, you all

as if you're such a team, you get on so well. We didn't get on well. We were

stabbing each other in the back all the time.

Ernest, I've just had a complaint from Mrs Slocum about young Mr Lucas.

Go on.

Apparently he allowed one of his customers to appear in full view of her

department in a state of undress.

It's the friction between two people.

that makes it comedy.

Where are you going, Mr Lucas?

I was just stretching my legs, Captain Peacock. Back to your own area?

Sure.

Blimey, it's like being in Poland.

There were always subplots, and, of course, Mr Lucas was always keen on Miss

Brahms and would occasionally fire the odd note with an elastic band over to

her, saying, I don't half fancy you. Captain Peacock would pick it up, hand

to Mrs Stokholms and thought it was from him, that sort of thing.

Dear sexy knickers.

There was always something that happened. Mr. Grace's birthday.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday, Mr.

Grace. Happy birthday.

I mean, there's always a plot, and that's all you needed, just the basis of

plot to hang all the words on. It even had industrial relations from time to

time. The unions were very strong at that time, and people were having a lot

lightning strikes.

Air out!

Traffic, chaos!

Up the workers!

Particular years in the 70s, 72, 73, 74, and again at the end of the 70s, during

the winter discontent, there were great surges of strike action on a scale that

had not been seen since the general strike 50 years before.

Strike, the experience of being on strike, the experience of suffering from

strike as a consumer, were very familiar to people who were watching RE being

served in a way that they wouldn't be to viewers now.

One of the ways of bringing our grievances to the attention of the

to bung up the news with Plaster of Paris.

We did have Mr Masc, who was head of the union, calling everybody out on strike.

It has everything to do with me, Brother Slocum.

I am shop steward, and in that capacity, I am convening an emergency meeting in

accordance with section 23 of the rule book.

Mrs. Stokum said, I'm not a brother. He said, you're a brother now because

you're in the union.

Your tea should start when you sit down and actually dip your biscuit in the

cup.

You definitely speak well.

Thank you, brother.

I'm now about to put a motion on the table.

Some of the phrases are strange.

You could take that as a double entendre or not as you like.

And one of the most iconic things Are You Being Served was famous for was its

double entendres.

You all right, sir?

Well, it's not very often an 81 -year -old man stuck in a lift with a 19 -year

-old secretary.

Of course I'm all right. Shut the doors.

The family could be watching it and roaring with laughter, and the children

would think, well, that's just, you know, I don't know what they're laughing

but it does seem to be funny. Don't let Peacock see you fraternising over there,

otherwise you'll get the rough edge of his tongue.

And I can tell you, it isn't very pleasant.

I don't think David and I thought it was risky humour, because it was our sort

of humour. I never have any trouble in getting up in the morning. My puss is

just like an alarm clock.

If all the pussy jokes are about a cat, you do understand, any other inference

is entirely in your mind.

You're lucky to have me at all, Captain Peacock. I had to thaw my pussy out

before I came.

Molly never played it with anything but truth and sincerity.

Oh, Mr Rumbled, I hope this isn't going to take long. My pussy's been locked up

for eight hours.

I'm afraid it's just not convenient.

I think it was obligatory to have at least one pussy joke, yes, per episode,

yes. All totally harmless and above board.

Well, the central heating broke down.

I had to light the oven and hold my pussy in front of it.

Having worked for David Crouch in many productions, you don't chip in with

ideas. You can suggest something, possibly, and one in 100 might get

It's in the life of a job worker to invent.

Lions, it's our job, so this was not encouraged.

However, real -life experiences of the actors would sometimes get a hearing and

find their way into the scripts.

Thank you very much, sir. Don't worry about the sleeves. You'll find they'll

ride up with wear.

I'd gone to my local little tailor and I bought a corduroy

jacket off the peg.

I put it on and it was a bit like this.

And I think the sleeve's a bit long.

But he said, it'll ride up with wear.

I thought, that's a good line. We misused that. And we did.

Don't worry about the sleeves, sir. They'll ride up with wear.

They'll come down, sir, with wear. They'll ride up with wear.

Don't worry if the wig is a little loose, madam. You'll find it will ride

with wear. They'll ride up with wear.

Don't worry, madam. They'll ride up with wear. Everything does.

And sometimes the script would require something a little bit different.

aided and abetted by the props department.

The special effects department loved doing the show because they could invent

things and anything I asked them for, they would just make it that much

It was an exploding cat, for instance.

They were like a lot of schoolboys, and they loved doing the show.

I remember the Father Christmas one that opened his raincoat.

Ho, ho, ho, little boy, have I got a surprise for you.

We used to look forward to Friday.

When the special effects men came, what are they going to do?

However wayward your figure, the flexi -bra will cling to it and control it.

What worked less well were Grace Brothers' famous lift doors.

Give me a hand, I've got Mrs Slocum in here.

and um but even so they'd get stuck in acknowledgement of your mr luke's the

buttons sometimes we'd be stood in there for ages while they messed on with the

lift doors but

Because, I mean, there weren't really such things as retakes then, and we had

do that, because otherwise you wouldn't have got the cast out and on the floor.

They were a wonderful cast. I mean,

the thing is, they'd rehearse in the morning, they'd go up for lunch and have

drink in the local pub, and sometimes they'd come back in the afternoon.

And on studio days, lunch became a production in itself.

You know, I can't remember whether this is chicken soup or vegetable.

Well, tasty.

Well, that's not going to make any difference.

The canteen was more or less shut then.

It was a very small attendance, so we used to have a sort of picnic in the

dressing rooms.

It was probably Wendy initiating good food.

And she would do the main course.

John would do the dessert.

Trevor would do the crisp.

and the biscuits.

Poor Molly would be having her hair done, which was so ornate for the most

We used to look in the script at the beginning of the week to see if there

any canteen scenes, so we could nick the cutlery and china.

We always used to put it back, wash it up, put it back afterwards. It was

always in my room.

Usually, after lunch, whoever wasn't back first had to do the washing up, but

had to do it in the bath.

They have bathrooms.

As you do, yes.

As the series developed, the cast fast became household names.

and would often be in demand on the entertainment shows of the 70s.

Pay a visit to this absolutely diddy -falurious new store in Blackpool, Grace

Brothers, where all the cast say, are you being served?

However,

John Inman began to outshine the others.

He was a very funny man, easy to exploit his talent.

He did become terribly popular. Let's have a big hand on his entrance, if you

please, ladies and gentlemen, for that wayward Peter Pan from Men's Outfitters.

Please welcome Mr John Inman. Are you free?

John sort of came to the fore and didn't eclipse the others, but was the main

focus a lot of the time. I shall warm the end for you. Oh, please do.

That's all the big fun stage gear you might have. Now then!

We were doing the summer season of Are You Being Served Up in Blackpool, and

John's a Blackpool boy, walking along the street with him, and I was just a

bit behind him, but looking at people's faces as they walked towards him, they

were all so pleased to see him. I mean, they really loved him. The BBC's

television personality of the year.

Forward, Mr Rindman!

In some of the episodes, obviously, they relied on him,

Some of them were a bit flat.

Oh, it started me leg off.

This hasn't happened to me since I was a prefect in me primary.

Is there anything we can do to stop it? No, it's all right. It'll turn to

hiccups in a minute.

I told you. Now what do we do?

Well, my teacher, Miss Haswell, she used to get one of the boys to creep up

behind me and give me a surprise.

John was such a hit that in the middle of the series, he was offered a job

running a rock factory by ITV, I think, and he had sort of abandoned it for a

short while.

And this is what I want.

Hundreds of them coming off the assembly line. We must keep going like we did

before, keeping the wheels of the little Hampton rock factory turning faster

than ever.

Turn the wheel and let's get cracking.

It was quite inevitable that certain people in the cast would have their own

shows afterwards, like Molly and John Inman.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. He was offered so much more

he would sign an exclusive contract.

I mean, David Croft, I don't think it's any secret, was very annoyed. He just

said, that's all right, we'll just replace him.

Or we'll get somebody else to fit in that part.

But the BBC said, to everyone's surprise, you can't do it without John

So for 18 months, we didn't do it. And then, of course, they did This Is Your

Life.

I think I said to him, how's the rock factory going?

As I was congratulating him, he said, don't ask.

With John Inman not available, Croft and Lloyd signed Molly Sugden up for her

own series on the BBC.

We wrote a thing called Come Back, Mrs. No, which is an idea of Davies, which

was Britain's first spaceship, which she's won a knitting competition, and

the first person to be shown round it, and it accidentally, she presses a

and it takes off.

Now, can I go to the little girl's room?

Often unfairly described as the worst sitcom ever. It wasn't really. It was

quite funny.

In those days, I thought the special effects weren't really up to scratch.

You could, if you look carefully at the screen, you could see the wires

supporting her in the air.

Mrs Noah didn't come back, and John Inman's rock factory closed.

The phase that he went into was a complete disaster.

Sad to say.

And so he then came back and he then went on with his driving test.

So John Inman returned to the BBC in his role of Mr Humphreys, only to have to

deal with problems off screen.

Whilst the series was very popular, John Inman got a lot of flack from gay

organisations saying that he was taking the mickey out of gay actors.

Are you free, Mr. Granger?

I couldn't see what they were objecting to personally. He was portraying a

character that I've certainly met.

I've met actually being served by characters like that in big stores.

Mr. Humphries, Mr. Lucas, are you free?

Yes, we're free, Captain.

Wayne Ember wrote him as a homosexual.

I thought he was very like people I'd worked with at Simpsons who were, you

know, just rather sort of slightly a feat.

Mummy's boy used to put his slippers in the oven at regular four to be switched

on just before he got home so they'd be warm.

Yes, of course I'm still your little boy.

No, I haven't changed a bit.

Well, not much.

I think he's fun. I think he's funny. And don't tell me that gay men like that

don't exist.

They absolutely do.

Just think of the thousands of inside legs at that.

The only time...

I do have a problem with it, is when you see the writers of Are You Being Served

claiming he's not gay.

What sort of a school did you go to, Mr Humphreys?

Mixed. Oh, yeah, girls and boys?

No, just boys.

Then I simply have to shrug and say that a writer does not know his own text,

because Mr Humphreys is absolutely a gay man.

Oh, it's the mass changer.

Take my body, but leave my jewels alone.

I was in New Zealand.

playing a club, a cabaret club.

And I got there and there were pickets outside saying,

don't go and see this.

They thought that Mr Humphreys was a homosexual, which I fought against.

For most of the series, you know, I've always said, unless you see him doing it

over the counter, then how do you know? You know, I'm surprised you didn't wear

the whole uniform.

Oh, well, I used to, but people kept wanting to touch my collar for luck.

I bet you met a lot of nice girls that way. I did.

Not to mention a roving reporter, a trendy bishop, a string vestite and a

dustman with a very interesting tale to tell.

That camp and camp itself is very much part of the show business tradition.

And people enjoy it, and it's not even to do with your sexuality, it's to do

with camp.

I'd like to make it quite clear that being of an affectionate nature, I have

many friends of all shapes, sizes and sexes.

Even this morning I had some amorous advances from a rag and bowman's horse,

which I repulsed.

You can see in John Inman that development of Kenneth Williams in Round

Horn, Julian and Sandy, all the Polari and stuff like that. It's all sort of...

carnivore language, I think, that gay men would use the secret code. We do our

own edition of Shakespeare, don't we? Yes.

We've rewritten it ourselves in up -to -date Polari.

Includes such things as Much Ado About Nanty, Old's Boner That Ends Boner, Two

Homies of Verona, and As They Like It.

It's like smuggling things in on the mainstream television.

Mr Humphrey would step on from that then in terms of... And actually was more

overt. He didn't need Polaris so much. He didn't need to speak in code.

He is a sense that things are getting better.

Ah!

What are you doing, Mr Humphrey?

There's a mouse round my drawer.

Fellow cast member Wendy Richard was also doing battle with outside elements.

Only these were closer to home.

I was aware that Wendy had some...

Joe Often, a PA on the show, would often stay with Wendy Richard after the

recordings. I mean, you'd hear the arguments and other worse things and so

mean, there was one particular...

Sort of thing, and then I heard her saying, oh, don't hit my face,

don't cut my face.

You know, and what do you say?

She'd come, perhaps, and talk to me about it, and I'd understand.

So maybe, I hope, that the...

I reciprocated. What she gave me, I was able to give her something back.

Wendy did talk about those things.

One was sympathetic and so on, but that was within our little confines.

I do hope I'm not too late.

I'm afraid Mrs Granger failed to rouse me this morning. Oh, that's

understandable, Mr Granger.

Then, in 1978, Are You Being Served? lost one of its most popular characters,

the wonderful Mr Granger.

He's such a lovely character and so important in the show.

He eats the knack, you know.

Arthur Brough, who played Mr Granger, was a very dear friend and it was very,

very sad when we lost him.

An irreplaceable colleague.

Yes, indeed.

One of nature's gentlemen.

And from then on, of course, they wanted to find someone to fill that niche.

And various people took over. James Hayter came in, lovely James Hayter. Mr

Tibbs was also 18 months in soft furnishings. Yes, and resigned when they

introduced beanbags.

He sadly died later on too, and then...

Alfie Bass came into that character.

Wouldn't you rather split the commission three ways at the end of the week? No,

thank you, no. This is the way we've always done it and this is the way we're

going to carry on, right, Mr Lucas?

Entirely, Mr Humphreys. So be it.

And it's awful to say, but he sadly died too.

So I... This is to do with the fact that all the people we're talking about were

of reasonable ages when they were employed.

There must be something in there. Keep on trying.

If I'd known my verticals had lasted this long, I'd have treated it better.

I'll get my other machine.

Mr Grace?

Mr Granger, can I say that I stopped another pair of tights? Well, only I've

just caught these on my desk and I've landed them, look.

The public would always say, of course, you've had no changes of cast, have you?

It's exactly the same people.

We had constant cast changes.

Just as Croft and Lloyd were trying to fill Mr Granger's shoes, another

came up for grabs in the men's department.

We sadly lost Trevor Bannister because it didn't fit in with some of his...

Acting dates.

I suppose the gentleman couldn't come and stick his leg up on the counter and

could do it for him.

It's unfortunate.

He was sort of tumbled books, as it were.

No, I suppose I couldn't.

I had been offered a tour of a play just finishing in London. It was very

difficult then to suddenly find that, oh, they're now going to do another

series. And you say, well, I'm sorry, I can't do the series.

What do you mean you can't do the series? Well, I'm sorry, because you'd

change your dates.

Well, no, I'm not giving up my job. What do you mean? I've got to give up my

job, which pays 20 times more money than you're going to pay me for doing seven

weeks' work.

So that was basically what happened.

It was just sort of a liaison between the agency and the... his agency and

the...

On the BBC, perhaps, and maybe in my department.

Mind you, I'm still behind him. Oh, yes, we're all behind him.

Only not so close.

I'd done it for eight years anyway, and I espied one or two jokes that we'd

already done.

I'm right behind you, Captain Peacock. I'm right behind you, Mr Lucas.

I'd rather you were behind Captain Peacock.

If you're the top of the bill and suddenly you find that someone who's not

top of the bill is getting all the laughs, it can be difficult.

Are you being sad, sir?

Good. Give me the right to love you all the

while.

Mr Lucas's position was hastily filled by pop singer Mike Berry as new boy Mr

Spoon.

I've got to be very honest, but the first script I got, it still had Mr

it, but it scrubbed out Mr Spooner, and that's how the odd Mr Lucas was left in.

And if Trevor had been given that script, having done all the episodes

done, I must say I would probably have turned it down too, because there wasn't

much to do.

It didn't matter to me, I mean, to me it was a big break, and I thought, wow,

yeah, fantastic.

I want you to welcome your new assistant to this department, Mr Spooner.

I'm sure you're all aware that Mr Spooner has already served time in the

department, bedding and sports.

Now, you'll be under Mr Humphreys, who's under Mr Grossman, who's under Captain

Peacock. I see. Like the bottom bun on a triple hamburger.

I was terrified. I can't tell you. They probably didn't realise how terrified I

was. Because this was a series I'd admired and loved and laughed.

You'd have to fork out a few, Bob, if you expected me to sit on your knee.

I agree. I'd want danger money.

If you sat on my knee, I'd want danger money.

Not to mention scaffolding.

I went along to read for Jeremy and David. Trying to keep my lips from

to my teeth while I was reading wasn't easy.

But I was very pleased to get it. Well, let's see how comfy the bed is.

I suppose Mr Grace used to ring for his secretary when he wanted her to take

something down in Arry.

They were brilliant.

Wendy, bless her, said to me that when she spoke to John, his praise of me was,

he can do it.

And that was all I needed to hear.

Even with a full cast in place, the BBC were never that keen to recommission the

show. It was popular with the audience, but this was not the case with

management.

It goes back to the general distaste that the BBC had for IU being third.

David Crofts had to fight every year to get them to do it. Couldn't you get

Thames to do it? It's a bit down market for the BBC and so on, you know.

In the last two years, they suddenly realised that they'd got something

good on their hands.

For what you are about to receive, may you be truly grateful.

Surely, sir, you mean for what we are about to receive, may we be truly

grateful. No, no, for what you are about to receive.

We're lunching at the Savoy, aren't we, dear? I think everybody was surprised.

We thought it had gone.

And they decided they needed a comedy series quite quickly and there they were

all coming back.

Thanks for the lift.

This is most irregular.

I was only using my initiative. I knew that the outside of the building was

being painted, and after a little light banter with the workmen every morning, I

took the advantage of their kind offer of a lift.

There's white paint on the back.

In the last couple of series, we were writing Are You Being Served? and I said

to David, I've seen a psychic who's... very, very good, and he tells me that my

partner's about to have a heart attack.

I said, as you're my partner, it must be you, you'd better go and be checked. He

said, look, I'm with Bupa, I have one every six months, and I've got another

three or four months before I have one. I said, look, I'm not going to write

unless you go and get checked out.

You know, he said, really difficult.

So I think he went the next day, and as he lay on the table being checked out,

he had the heart attack. So it saved his life. So he was out of action for a

bit, so I think I had to finish off the last 12 Are You Being Sirs Without Him.

And suddenly, all the pussy stuff wasn't there.

And my dirty lines weren't there.

And so we thought, oh, you know. And then suddenly David came back for the

run -through, or early run -through, and suddenly all the lines came back to be

like, ah, you're the one with the dirty lines.

Come and sit next to me, Mr Humphries, and give me a baby.

As it got more successful...

So the fees of the artists went up, so the costs went up.

By now in its ninth series, as popular as ever and with more money, Grace

Brothers opened its doors to more and more outlandish plots and elaborate set

pieces. Then you say trouble. You don't know the meaning of the word.

I think perhaps Jeremy was finding it a little difficult to come up with stories

of things that could probably happen in a big store.

And so it began to get a little bit more fantastic.

You must lower me over the edge and I'll go and get the police.

A little bit risky.

I must do it. If I'm not home by one o 'clock, my mother locks the door.

I remember watching it and once they started, Mrs Slocum having a crush on Mr

Humphreys. And that was the whole episode's plot that then got forgotten

next week and you sort of thought, that's running out of story, slightly.

They did everything. They simply did everything, and it ran out of steam.

It's karma!

It's kismet! It's kismet!

The bigger and bigger things got, it was because they'd run out of ideas.

Ivy, so, was bordering more on light entertainment, really, than on

comedy drama.

It was sort of...

very revealing, but we all were.

It was a bit sort of stretching it,

you know, to imagine that the staff in a store like that would do that kind of

thing.

When we got to the very end...

We shot this big musical number, thinking, well, if this is the end,

out with a bang here.

But we didn't really know whether it would be the end.

Nobody quite knew it was the very, very end, so there wasn't that

feeling of we'll never meet again sort of thing.

It was maybe we'll see each other next spring.

I think, to be honest, that the BBC decided that enough was enough.

And therefore, I think you'd have to say, OK, let's move on.

I think there comes a time when you know it's time to stop, really.

You've just run out of plots.

People seemed very reluctant to let it go, really, but they went along with the

idea that when we said we'd done enough, that was about it, you know.

Grace Brothers finally closed its doors on 1 April 1985, when times were

changing.

You were beginning to see, even in the mid-'80s, alternative comedy arriving.

In fact, I think it was probably 87 that you would have seen French and Saunders

appear on television.

Haven't I seen that dress somewhere before?

No, it was specially made for me.

I've seen Marty Kane wearing this on his show. That's not my dog.

So a new generation was beginning to emerge.

However, Alan Yentob, then controller of BBC One, decided to give the characters

another go in 1992 in a comedy called Grace and Favour, which transported the

action to a country house hotel.

Perhaps you'd all like to sit down. We're not in the store now, are we? This

all quite informal.

Are you free, Mr Humphries? I'm free!

They were so well known for being in are you being served you can't say it

really worked out in another situation Although mrs. Stoker was very funny

playing cricket

It's

tough to reinvent things and to move them on in that kind of way and although

did okay, I mean it never really

It never really worked well enough for one to say, yes, let's persist and

persevere beyond the two series that we gave it.

Despite the lack of desire for grace and favour, both series remain hugely

popular in America to this day.

They'd have Mrs Slocum look -alike contests, and about 20 gentlemen would

up dressed as Mrs Slocum with a stuffed cat under their arms.

Are You Being Served became truly international, with the show selling

worldwide.

Australia even made its own version, importing John Inman in a starring role.

And in

Britain, the theories may not get

repeated as often, but the stars are still remembered affectionately by the

public and will always be resolutely British.

People watch it because it was funny. It's very short notice.

There's my pussy to consider.

We remember because it was fun.

Programs like Are You Being Served, they're timeless because they're wholly

inoffensive.

And when David and I are not here, they'll still be making people laugh

things we thought of.

Mr. Humphrey! Don't talk to me!

It'll never end, you see. They'll never age.

They'll always be the same age on television.

They'll never fade away.

And they'll always be there.

Luckily for those fans of Are You Being Served, all 68 episodes still exist

today in full, glorious Technicolor.

Oh, no!

Apart from the pilot.

Oh, is that the best you can do, Miss Bluff? It's not my job, is it? I'll try

again. Are You Being Served at that time was transmitted on what we call two

-inch videotape, which is an enormous tape.

And it was very, very expensive as a medium to record on. So what happened

those tapes were used over and over again.

In the past, the BBC only kept television copies of programmes they

historical importance, and comedy shows were not deemed significant enough to

keep. Never mind, come along!

But fortunately, the pilot episode of Are You Being Served had been kept in

black and white for international fails.

Because we didn't keep the two -inch tape that... Are You Being Served was

transmitted on, what we did actually do was record the programme off -air onto

film, which is how this whole process of restoration has occurred.

Now, unfortunately, people thought the colour was lost on this black -and

copy, but the actual means in which this film recording was made...

meant that the colour information was actually accidentally preserved in the

film as a pattern of dots.

Before I was involved, a couple of the other people who were working on it had

already managed to recover quite reasonably convincing -looking colours,

they weren't the full set of colours. For example, there were no blues, there

were no greens, but there were yellows and there were reds.

And if you didn't know what the original colour should be, they actually looked

quite good.

But when you compared them, that was one of the advantages of having the tape

available at the top of the top. When you compared them, you realised that

were several colours missing.

So my contribution really was to work out a way of finding these extra

The software that I wrote then sort of examines the picture and it looks for

these characteristic patterns of lines and dots, which is the residue of the

original colour.

And from those, it works out both what the colour is and it works out its

intensity.

So that the end result was a full telepathy.

Get me Mr Rumble's office.

Hello, could I speak to Mr Rumble's, please?

Well, I'm sorry, Mrs Slocum, but I'm afraid Mr Rumble's still with young Mr

Grace at the moment.

Oh, hang on a second, I think he's just leaving.

So now the pilot episode has been restored to its former glory and has

pride of place back on the shelves with all ten series of Are You Being Served?

Yes, we're free.

I thank you.

I will not have rough workman's hands inside my bra.

Pontus Twit.

Oh, yes, we are. Yes, we are.

We are. We are free, Mr. Hufford. Yes.

Five minutes ago, we wouldn't have been free, would we, Mr Humphrey? We would

not have been free, no.

But I never told him that these would ride up with where.

And a real New Year's Day treat for you next here on BBC Two. You can see that

pilot episode of Are You Being Served from 1972 and for the first time on TV

colour.

This weekend, get unprecedented access to The King, starting with Elvis by the

Presley. Tomorrow from 8 on BBC2.

Survivors starts Tuesday the 12th of January on BBC One.