Are You Being Served?: Secrets and Scandals
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Are You Being Served kept a delighted audience in smutty innuendo for an incredible and appropriate 69 episodes.
00:09It was pre-Watershed film.
00:11Well, if I'm not home on the stroke of six, my pussy goes mad.
00:17Giggles and laughs and all the innuendos that went on that you'd never get away with now.
00:23But despite the show's huge popularity with the audience, it never really tickled the BBC's fancy.
00:29I don't think the BBC wanted them to do it. That's not the type of thing we do.
00:32We'll reveal the series of extraordinary events which kept TV's most outrageous sitcom running for 13 years.
00:39The scenery's been destroyed and he said, no it hasn't, it's in my barn.
00:43The moments that threatened the cast's incredible bond.
00:46There was always a little bit of sort of vines to who would be top billing.
00:50The off-screen tragedies behind the on-screen laughs.
00:53Wendy didn't want to be alone, so she rushed into this first marriage, but the second one absolutely rung to the core.
00:58And the behind-the-scenes secrets that have been buried for decades.
01:01And after 44 years, nobody knew it was my fault until now.
01:06Tonight, we rifle through some drawers to uncover the shocking secrets and scandals of the show the BBC couldn't kill.
01:13I mean, are we not filming this?
01:16It's 1972 and Britain is suffering through a painful minor strike.
01:26Mass power cuts and the government declaring a national state of emergency.
01:31And events on the international stage also take a tragic turn.
01:35However, the drama of the athletic competition is soon overwhelmed by a calamity unfolding in the compound which houses Israel's team.
01:43Figures seen in the windows by gathering throngs are those of Arab guerrillas holding Israeli athletes hostage.
01:498th of September, 1972, the Munich Olympics were going on.
01:55And there's a group called Black September.
01:58Eight members of Black September kidnapped members of the Israeli Olympics team.
02:04Killing two of them, tragically.
02:09So the BBC coverage of the Olympics was curtailed for about three or four days.
02:15With the wall-to-wall Olympics footage now cancelled, suddenly there was a completely unexpected and large gap in the schedules.
02:23With hours of blank screens to fill, a resourceful member of staff at the BBC found a tape that had been languishing, unbroadcast on the shelves.
02:32It was from the comedy Playhouse series of pilots, although not one which had been deemed good enough to show.
02:38And they were desperately trying to find what we've got on the shelf. Oh, that'll do.
02:41That tape was the pilot of Are You Being Served?
02:44And that day was only the first of many unlikely triumphs for this extraordinary sitcom.
02:50And that's what enabled the first episode, the pilot episode, which the BBC weren't even keen on originally showing,
02:57to be shown because they had no other programmes, because the Olympics weren't on.
03:02On the 8th of September, 1972, a tired and shell-shocked country got their first glimpse through those malfunctioning lift doors at Grace Brothers department store.
03:20Anyone got a ladder?
03:22A larger-than-life workplace that sold much-needed good times, along with some cosy seaside humour.
03:28The upper part should be obscure.
03:30I'm sorry, Mr Granger.
03:34How long have you been with Grace Brothers, Mr Rook?
03:37One month, Mr Granger. I'm still sort of feeling my way around, as you can see.
03:43Although a certain famous catchphrase was yet to be coined.
03:47Are you free, Mr Humphrey?
03:49At the moment, yes.
03:51Sometimes you can see tedious escapism, and I guess that's what it was, for people to kind of get away from things that were happening,
03:58because there were some dreadful things happening in society in terms of, you know, the three-day week, the miners' strife,
04:05and there were many strikes within that period.
04:08The audience loved it, but despite the pilot's healthy viewing figures, the straight-laced BBC was still far from convinced about committing to a series.
04:17I don't think the BBC wanted them to do it. They wanted Thames to do it.
04:21Yeah, it's like On the Buses or something. It's a nice little type of thing we do.
04:24ITV was doing great business with On the Buses, full of cringingly inappropriate borediness and crumpet.
04:31She's a cracker.
04:33You're right, she's a right dolly bird, ain't she?
04:36Yeah, come on, let's get up the canteen.
04:37Save her a seat, eh?
04:38Yeah.
04:39But that kind of thing wasn't very BBC.
04:43Luckily for us, the show was co-written and produced by David Croft of Dad's Army fame,
04:48who was held in very high regard at the BBC,
04:51and lounging like the legend that he was in the literal corridors of power,
04:55he was in the right place at the right time,
04:57when the new head of Light Entertainment, Bill Cotton, discovered that another sitcom wasn't going to be ready in time.
05:04The thing about David Croft, he was very thick with the BBC.
05:08He'd been working for the corporation for 10, 15 years, a very safe pair of hands.
05:13Croft helpfully pointed out that a series of Are You Being Served was cheap and could be ready in six weeks.
05:19With the magic words uttered, the Beeb was on board.
05:22Well, almost, as John Inman himself recalled with surprising candour in this 1999 interview.
05:29David went to see Bill Cotton, who was then head of Light Entertainment,
05:35and he said, oh, yeah, yes, well, we'll have some of those, but get rid of the poof.
05:40And David, and thank you, David, said, if the poof goes, I go.
05:46A hugely offensive comment today, but also a potentially catastrophic decision
05:51that would have cost the show its most iconic character and most famous catchphrase.
05:56I am free!
05:59So it was purely because BBC and Bill Cotton in particular trusted David Croft so much that they got the series.
06:06Alongside David Croft was writing partner Jeremy Lloyd,
06:09who had come to him with the idea of Are You Being Served in the first place.
06:13He'd just returned to the UK after a spell performing in a bizarre psychedelic American sketch show.
06:19He was in America at the time, the late 60s, early 70s, in Ronan Martin's Laughing.
06:24Jeremy! Yes, lovely hen.
06:26My uncle used to work in a pot factory that made toy guns.
06:33I didn't think it was that funny.
06:35What happened to him?
06:37He blew his cork.
06:40He came back from America desperate to try and get some scripts commissioned as a writer.
06:46Lloyd had returned from the States to make a go of his ill-fated marriage to Joanna Lumley,
06:51but he was struggling to find any work as a writer back in the UK.
06:55Jeremy Lloyd was frustrated.
06:57Smoking after smoking after smoking cigarettes, cigarettes, cigarettes,
07:00and pulling his hair out saying, well, what do they want?
07:02What do they want from me?
07:03You know, they've had, you know, sitcom.
07:05They've had police.
07:06They've had buses.
07:07They've had hospitals.
07:08They've had factory floors.
07:10What, what do they want?
07:12Luckily, Lloyd's wife Joanna spotted an opening,
07:15remembering the amusing tales he'd told her of one of his former jobs.
07:20He wanted to do it about the gentleman's outfitters,
07:22because Jeremy, years before, had worked as a salesman at Simpsons in Piccadilly,
07:27and it was his then wife, Joanna Lumley,
07:30that gave the idea to Jeremy to write something about a department store.
07:34So the pilot was shown, the series written, Mr Humphrey stayed,
07:38and with viewing figures of 12 million,
07:40by series two, the BBC undeniably had a hit on their hands.
07:45It was a comedy phenomenon.
07:48It became one of the biggest shows on British television,
07:52certainly one of the most loved shows.
07:54But despite its enormous popularity with the audience,
07:57a series of secret BBC memos throughout the 1970s
08:01revealed the BBC remained, well, let's just say, tepid about the show,
08:05with Bill Cotton saying the second series was
08:08doing what it had been placed in the schedule to do,
08:11and later that the show would be better if it was
08:13twice as funny and half as smutty.
08:15It was funny.
08:18It was a studio-based miniature carry-on film, most depths, really.
08:22It seems the attitude of the BBC
08:24wouldn't have been a surprise to the cast,
08:26as Nicholas Smith, also known as Mr Rumbold,
08:29frankly revealed in 2010.
08:31It goes back to the general distaste that the BBC had
08:34for RU being so.
08:36David Croft had to fight every year to get...
08:38Couldn't you get Thames to do it?
08:40It's a bit down-market for the BBC and so on, you know.
08:44Coming up, we reveal the secrets behind the show's
08:47infamous feline innuendos.
08:49I was the first one to show Mrs Slocum's pussy.
08:53And the behind-the-scenes gaffes that nearly derailed the show.
08:57It was a complicated 30-second sequence,
09:00which sometimes went horribly wrong.
09:04It's 1979.
09:06Margaret Thatcher has become Britain's first female prime minister.
09:10Russia invades Afghanistan.
09:12Sir Waltman is launched.
09:14And the unsuspecting British public
09:16are about to get their first glimpse
09:18of one of the most iconic characters in television history.
09:21It might have been exactly the kind of lowbrow innuendo
09:24the BBC didn't like,
09:26but the show's now 16 million regular viewers
09:28were very fond of Mrs Slocum's much-loved
09:30and proudly talked-about pet.
09:32It's a wonder I'm here at all, you know.
09:35My pussy got soaking wet.
09:38I had to dry it out in front of the fire before I left.
09:42You know, if you're thinking of the smutty interpretation of pussy,
09:46then you're an awful, outrageous person.
09:48You shouldn't be thinking that at all.
09:50What we're talking about is a cat.
09:52And in what's probably a world exclusive,
09:54we've tracked down the man
09:56who finally brought the famous feline to life.
09:58I was the first one to show Mrs Slocum's pussy.
10:03I believe, actually, it was called Tiddles.
10:06Visual effects maestro Matt Irvin
10:08has agreed to spill the on-set secrets
10:10behind the long-running gag.
10:12We got a cat basket.
10:14And inside, my colleague Charlie Lum,
10:17he fitted a motor.
10:19And out the front, we can see it's been cut away there,
10:21we fitted a tail.
10:23And here's that expert craftsmanship on show.
10:25Mrs Slocum, there is a strict rule
10:27that staff may not bring pets to the stall.
10:30Well, you know how clumsy those removal men are.
10:33I'm not having a mangle in my pussy.
10:39Actress Molly Sugden clearly had no qualms
10:41delivering the raunchy humour on-screen.
10:44Off-screen, it made things painfully awkward
10:46for her young family.
10:48I being served was in that era
10:50when things weren't politically correct.
10:53You could have the double entendre,
10:56and some of them were actually quite risque.
10:59And as you can imagine,
11:01I was, you know, first of all,
11:03primary school when mum started.
11:05And then actually, I being served
11:07went right the way through
11:09going to secondary school, O-levels, A-levels,
11:12actually joining the army.
11:14And all through that period,
11:16myself and my brother had to pretend
11:18that we hadn't become aware
11:20of what certain jokes were.
11:22For instance, the pussy jokes.
11:24What, you mean these kind of perfectly innocent references?
11:27Mr Rumble, I hope this isn't going to take long.
11:30My pussy's been locked up for eight hours.
11:33I'm afraid it's just not convenient.
11:36For mum, it became increasingly difficult as well.
11:39And it was one of those things where both parties
11:42had to pretend to be stupid
11:44and had to pretend not to understand what the joke was,
11:47both knowing that the other party
11:49probably did understand the joke.
11:52So it was one of those that really wasn't mentioned at home.
11:56The BBC may have written off the show
11:59as down-market and smutty,
12:01but an audience research report from 1974
12:03found that Are You Being Served?
12:05was considered good, clean fun
12:07and a good laugh by most,
12:09with audiences enjoying the comedy's
12:11British seaside lineage.
12:13The audience couldn't get enough,
12:15and as the series went on,
12:17Are You Being Served? kept on giving it to them
12:19harder and harder.
12:21Oh, sorry, it's catching.
12:23But I mean, look at this, really.
12:26Captain Peacock, I do not respond to any man's finger.
12:34Yeah, it was pre-Watershed filth.
12:37It was just innuendo, double entendre.
12:40It was full of innuendo,
12:42which is the comedy of the day, innuendo.
12:44I think innuendo is glorious.
12:46It's the bedrock of British comedy, really.
12:48So how on earth did the show get away with it?
12:51Well, Lloyd and Croft were artists
12:53of an old comedy writing trick,
12:55the self-cleaning joke.
12:57Before we go any further, Mr. Rumbold,
12:59Miss Brahms and I would like to complain
13:01about the state of our drawers.
13:03They're...
13:05Put it in its grace.
13:07Your what, Mrs. Slukem?
13:09Our drawers, they're sticking.
13:11It's all the same in damp weather.
13:13As seen here, the self-cleaning trick
13:15meant the cast became experts
13:17in delivering very rude lines
13:19in a perfectly innocent way.
13:21They send up a man who put beeswax on them...
13:26If you're old enough to get the joke, you're old enough.
13:29And if you're not, you don't get the joke.
13:31It's one of them, your mum and dad laugh
13:33and you go, why are you laughing?
13:35They go, I don't know, it doesn't matter.
13:37We'll tell you when you're older.
13:39In fact, the double meanings were everywhere,
13:41if you knew where to look.
13:43I don't know if it's true, but I figured
13:45it was mainly Jeremy's doing,
13:47but everybody had a name that suited the character.
13:49Spooner was a stirrer, I figured.
13:51And there was Mrs. Slocum,
13:53read what you will.
13:55If you think about some of the names,
13:57Mrs. Slocum, Slocum,
13:59Inman.
14:01No, that's not his name, he's Mr. Humphreys.
14:03Inman.
14:05Sorry, that's his real name, isn't it?
14:07That's a bit of a faux pas, isn't it?
14:09I thought that was deliberate.
14:11As the show went on,
14:13the writers became more confident
14:15in ever more smutty jokes,
14:17like this gay visual gag.
14:19Gather round, everybody, the flexi-brown model
14:21has arrived.
14:23LAUGHTER
14:25LAUGHTER
14:27LAUGHTER
14:29LAUGHTER
14:31LAUGHTER
14:33One episode I remember
14:35that my mum and dad
14:37roared at, and I did too,
14:39was a flashing
14:41Father Christmas.
14:43It was like a mannequin that flashed you.
14:45In this episode, the store's electronic Santa
14:47was supposed to open his arms
14:49in a friendly embrace,
14:51but a technical error led to much more
14:53near-the-knuckle humour.
14:55Ho, ho, ho, little boy,
14:57have I got a surprise for you.
14:59LAUGHTER
15:01LAUGHTER
15:03LAUGHTER
15:05LAUGHTER
15:07LAUGHTER
15:09We roared in our house
15:11at that episode, roared,
15:13you know.
15:15TV critics had also spotted the smut factor
15:17being turned up to 11.
15:19In 1979, the Evening Standard
15:21noted that the show was pandering
15:23to the lowest common denominator.
15:25And the Guardian's TV listing
15:27described it as increasingly sleazy.
15:29Could it be the clips of elderly men
15:31gawping at scantily clad nurses?
15:33That's right.
15:35Now, this is the battery for the spare
15:37charger, and it plugs in here.
15:39BUZZER
15:41BUZZER
15:43BUZZER
15:45But as the show got raunchier,
15:47families still gathered round their sets
15:49in their millions, and the character
15:51that quickly became the fans' favourite
15:53was the most outrageous staff member of all,
15:55menswear maverick Mr Humphreys,
15:57with his iconic catchphrase,
15:59an unmistakable walk.
16:01Mr Humphreys. I'm free.
16:03LAUGHTER
16:05Good morning, sir.
16:07John Inman would get letters from around the world,
16:09from mainly women,
16:11who wanted to mother Mr Humphreys.
16:13The general public,
16:15ladies,
16:17married women,
16:19they loved that type of performer.
16:21Ooh! Ooh!
16:23They loved it.
16:25In a 2003 interview,
16:27Wendy Richard fondly recalled her own experience
16:29of John Inman's broad popularity.
16:31Walking along the street with him,
16:33and I was just a tiny bit behind him,
16:35but looking at people's faces
16:37as they walked towards him,
16:39they were all so pleased to see him.
16:41I mean, they really loved him.
16:43My nan loved camp men,
16:45and a lot of nans loved camp men,
16:47and my nan adored John Inman.
16:49I'm free, you!
16:51And Inman had his own particularly apt
16:53ways of dealing with his new notoriety,
16:55charmingly revealed in this early interview.
16:57I love my life so much,
16:59but I can't go out into the street so easily anymore,
17:01because occasionally I get a...
17:03WHISTLES
17:05Are you free?
17:07And I say, well, I'm not free, but I'm reasonable.
17:09And it's very exciting, really.
17:11The public are very, very nice to me.
17:13Incredibly,
17:15neither the writers nor cast
17:17seem to be sure about Mr Humphrey's sexuality,
17:19as Molly Sugden thoughtfully ponders
17:21in this interview on the subject.
17:23A lot of people have asked me,
17:25was Mr Humphrey's gay?
17:27And I don't know.
17:29It's very difficult to say.
17:31He's never
17:33completely outed
17:35in the show.
17:37I mean, it's all pretty obvious he's gay.
17:39But
17:41he's camp, which is a very
17:43different thing.
17:45It's a tradition of Kenneth Williams and Larry Grayson
17:47and Frankie Howard and that heightened reality
17:49of a gay man in comedy.
17:51John Inman played gay
17:53and camp so much
17:55he made it an art form.
17:57Mr Humphrey's,
17:59you're standing like that again.
18:01Like what, Captain Peacock?
18:03Like that.
18:05Would you believe it?
18:07You know I had five rolls of wallpaper
18:09under there.
18:11But interestingly, in one episode,
18:13when Mr Humphrey's is propositioned by a man,
18:15he turns him down,
18:17leaving even more question marks over the character.
18:19What else is money for? I'm rich.
18:21I live alone.
18:23Perhaps you'd like to come up to my place
18:25and have a drink?
18:27Oh, I don't think I could afford it.
18:29In fact, the sex lives
18:31of all the characters were kept decidedly
18:33off screen. This was 1970s
18:35Britain, where sex was absolutely
18:37not to be discussed openly.
18:39Which suited an innuendo-driven
18:41show like Are You Being Served? down to the ground.
18:43So,
18:45if the BBC bigwigs weren't fans
18:47of the show, didn't like the main character
18:49and didn't approve of the smut,
18:51what did they like?
18:53Well, it was cheap.
18:55The only sex they had, really, were the shop floor,
18:57Mr Rumbold's office
18:59and the canteen. Occasionally,
19:01you might see them in the kitchen
19:03or maybe
19:05in another department, but you never saw them
19:07outside of the store, apart from the one
19:09episode they went to Downing Street, supposedly.
19:11In fact, a 1975
19:13BBC internal document
19:15specifically applauded the show for its
19:17economic use of the studio.
19:19High praise indeed.
19:21So, how else were they saving money?
19:23Are You Being Served?
19:25Of course, it had lots of extras.
19:27The girls in the lift, lots of
19:29other people pretending they work there,
19:31all were shoppers. So, sometimes
19:33we didn't have as many extras as we should
19:35because that saved us a couple of hundred quid
19:37and we could have something else instead.
19:39Obviously, one of the signatures of Mrs
19:41Slocum was the different coloured hair.
19:43And there could never be
19:45two episodes in a
19:47series where the hair was
19:49the same colour. And in the
19:51early days, I don't think the BBC
19:53had quite the costume budget it has
19:55today. And they couldn't afford
19:57wigs. So, it was up to Mum
19:59to dye her hair.
20:01And it was actually, in those days, pretty much
20:03DIY dye your hair. So,
20:05she would do rehearsals during the
20:07week, that was fine, hair could be normal.
20:09But when it came to record
20:11at the end of the week, she had to dye
20:13her hair. And then, she
20:15had to get her hair back to a normal colour
20:17and then to a different colour in a
20:19week's time. So, it was always
20:21a bit of a trauma.
20:23And some of the hairdos
20:25she turned up at school with, you know, when she
20:27was collecting us from school, were
20:29interesting, to say the least.
20:31The need to balance the books even led to
20:33some very creative measures when it came
20:35to making sure there weren't any losses incurred
20:37between shows.
20:39One of the dummies on the floor with the suit
20:41on, and I happened to look
20:43at the back, and the whole
20:45back of the jacket was cut in half.
20:47It's true! To stop
20:49any prospective shoplifters in their tracks,
20:51Grace Brothers were peddling damaged
20:53goods. One thing a lot of people
20:55don't realise, when they look at that set of
20:57Are You Being Served, it's beautifully put together, isn't it?
20:59All the clothes there, every
21:01single item of clothing, every single
21:03garment, is purposefully damaged
21:05because the BBC didn't want anyone
21:07working on the show taking home a pair of
21:09trousers. So, the Are You Being Served
21:11production team ran a tight ship.
21:13And David Croft's technique for getting
21:15the show in the can was equally efficient.
21:17David's shows were always run
21:19as if they were theatre pieces.
21:21You'd rehearse, rehearse, rehearse all day,
21:23get the lines right, get the
21:25actions right, get the effects right,
21:27get any of the props and other things right,
21:29changes of costume, whatever.
21:31Go to supper,
21:33come back, the audience would
21:35have been in by then, and you'd get yourself
21:37up and you would run it, more or less,
21:39like a theatrical production.
21:41So, if we could,
21:43David would go through a show without stopping.
21:45David Croft hated
21:47doing retakes,
21:49because you never got the same reaction from the audience
21:51twice. It was just done slick,
21:53then all the laughter
21:55and hilarity, then on to the next take.
21:57Time to the second
21:59in a studio, so they just
22:01had to sort of get it right first.
22:03The actors knew their lines,
22:05didn't fluff them. If they did,
22:07they usually got around it.
22:09And the audience,
22:11the audience reactions you got was genuine.
22:13Showing an audience something
22:15once, twice, three times,
22:17the laughter gets smaller and smaller
22:19each time. And the actor tended
22:21not to perform it as well, twice.
22:23So, therefore, he would, even if
22:25something technically wasn't quite
22:27correct, he nearly always went for
22:29take one. Are You Being Served was
22:31allowed to get away with mistakes no other show
22:33could. Blink and you'll miss them,
22:35but it was riddled with this kind of thing.
22:37Captain Beagog,
22:39are you free? You just
22:41can't get the right sort of people
22:43for this job nowadays. Yes, and he's worked
22:45here for 35 years.
22:47He never worried about a boom
22:49microphone coming in
22:51slightly into shot. Well, look,
22:53I'll take this, he's so cack-handed.
22:55Just a minute, let me get in position.
22:57Right, Mr. Grace, now I do your speech.
22:59It may not be technically
23:01the best take, but
23:03the reaction or the performance was
23:05the best. And this pressure to get
23:07it right first time didn't let up
23:09even over the famous end credits
23:11sequence. The show was sometimes
23:13quite easy to shoot, and strangely
23:15one of the hardest things was the end.
23:17You had been watching, and quick
23:19cuts from actor to actor.
23:21Oh, that's right, oh God, some of those were
23:23embarrassing. You'd pull this stupid face
23:25to try and be Mr. Spooner
23:27or whatever. And the cast
23:29had to get it right, they had to know
23:31when they were to wave at the camera or smile
23:33or whatever they were going to do. And
23:35it was a complicated
23:3730-second sequence, which
23:39sometimes went horribly wrong.
23:41Yes, that You Have Been Watching
23:43segment was performed live, timed to the
23:45second, and fraught with chances to go wrong.
23:47And one member of the crew has
23:49a decades-old secret to get off his chest.
23:51As a camera assistant, I was given
23:53the opportunity by the operator to do
23:55the You Have Been Watching sequence.
23:57They were done in one take.
23:59The cameras would have their shots
24:01of the right artists,
24:03and then the vision mixer would cut the camera
24:05and the caption at the same time
24:07so that the right names appeared with the right people.
24:11I did my shot of Molly Sugden,
24:13I quickly got
24:15my shot of Alfie Bass,
24:17and then went hurtling off to do my shot
24:19of the two gentlemen in brown coats.
24:21Everything fell
24:23apart. The camera before me was
24:25blamed. We reset,
24:27and we did it again. Molly Sugden,
24:29Alfie Bass, the men in the brown
24:31coats. It all fell apart again.
24:33The camera after me got blamed.
24:35From a doorway, I saw
24:37Arthur English, smiling.
24:39I'd missed him out.
24:41And that's why the whole thing fell apart.
24:43Thankfully, Arthur English was lovely
24:45and didn't dob me in.
24:47And after 44 years, nobody
24:49knew it was my fault, until now.
24:51And on that bombshell,
24:53coming up, the secret battle for top billing.
24:55There was always a little bit of
24:57vying between John Inman and my mother
24:59as to who would be top billing.
25:01What really went on at rehearsals?
25:03Champagne. Champagne.
25:05Champagne, you know.
25:07It's 1977.
25:09The Queen celebrates her
25:11silver jubilee. Virginia Wade
25:13wins Wimbledon. Concord starts
25:15regular supersonic flights from London
25:17to New York. But once again,
25:19Britain's pluckiest sitcom
25:21is under threat.
25:23John Inman had been cast in a new
25:25ITV sitcom, Odd Man Out,
25:27in which he played the lead role of a man running
25:29a factory making sticks of rock.
25:31Producer David Croft was happy
25:33to carry on making the show without Inman.
25:35But in a U-turn that would
25:37give even government ministers whiplash,
25:39the BBC, who had previously
25:41wanted Mr Humphreys out,
25:43now insisted that he stayed in.
25:45They quickly realised that he
25:47was the pivotal character.
25:49It became his show, really.
25:51John Inman stayed, but it was clear
25:53that he'd become the show's breakout star.
25:55When the series first started,
25:57Trevor Bannister and Molly Sugden
25:59shared top billing, leading to a
26:01very diplomatic game of swapsies
26:03between who appeared first in the famous
26:05You Have Been Watching end credits.
26:09Round four for Fumery, Stationery
26:11and Leatherwood. But as the
26:13series progressed and Mr Humphreys
26:15became a fan favourite, friction
26:17began to creep in, leading to
26:19some scandalous manoeuvrings with
26:21a publicity poster. Of course, there
26:23was always a little bit of professional rivalry,
26:25and there was always a little bit
26:27of sort of vying between John
26:29Inman and my mother as to who would be
26:31top billing. And I think, secretly,
26:33they both considered themselves the star
26:35of the show. And
26:37I remember it sort of not coming to a head
26:39but actually being most visible
26:41when they did a summer season where they
26:43took Are You Being Served On The Stage
26:45at the Winter Gardens in Blackthorne.
26:47It was agreed that Mum would
26:49be top left, and traditionally
26:51top left was the top billing
26:53on our poster.
26:55But this poster was specially arranged
26:57so that there was Molly top
26:59left, Frank Thornton top right,
27:01but John Inman slightly higher
27:03and in the middle. And I remember
27:05there being a little bit of sort of
27:07spitting about that.
27:091976 was a bumper year for Inman,
27:11being named both
27:13BBC TV Personality of the Year
27:15and TV Times Reader's Funniest
27:17Man On Television. And his growing
27:19profile meant he was able to get away
27:21with a spot of on-set misbehaviour.
27:23There was a fair bit of improvising
27:25in rehearsals. The odd line would
27:27go in, or a move
27:29that was not in the script but was
27:31a funny thing to do. So actors
27:33would, particularly John, would want
27:35to try something in the rehearsal room
27:37and we'd keep it in. It was either
27:39John or Molly Sugden,
27:41and they would be so ridiculously
27:43funny that no one could speak. We'd spend
27:45half an hour just hysterical,
27:47laughing, falling about,
27:49and then suddenly they'd be off and into
27:51character like that. Occasionally
27:53he'd try it on the crew run
27:55because he knew he'd keep it in
27:57and you'd get a laugh from everybody.
27:59John used to make
28:01the odd fluff, and I was never
28:03too sure if it was on purpose
28:05because the audience love it when you
28:07fluff, but he was just
28:09naughty.
28:11Naughty but nice.
28:13In 1980
28:15the show took another break to allow Inman
28:17the chance to star in the Australian
28:19version of Are You Being Served? without
28:21his colleagues. Jeremy Lloyd
28:23and John Inman went
28:25over. Jeremy Lloyd is obviously a co-writer
28:27and sort of executive
28:29producer to make sure it was all
28:31done properly. And John Inman, they wanted
28:33John Inman, but then they surrounded John Inman
28:35with an all Australian cast.
28:37And it's an interesting
28:39experiment.
28:47That's true. He's taking it
28:49seriously. Even a senior salesman's
28:51Homburg. Bet that set him back a bit.
28:53Oh, you look very
28:55smart, Mr. Humphreys. Oh, thank you,
28:57Mrs. Crawford. When I left this morning, my
28:59landlady burst into tears on the doorstep.
29:01Oh, I expect it was because she was so proud
29:03of you. Yes, that, coupled with the fact that I'd spent
29:05the rent on a new act.
29:07It didn't quite work out because, you know,
29:09the dynamic is not
29:11there. There's a sort of Captain Peacock's
29:13type character. There's a
29:15Mrs. Slocum type character.
29:17But without Frank Thornton and Molly Stoughton,
29:19it doesn't quite hang together.
29:21But no, it's an interesting experiment
29:23and just proof
29:25positive of the international appeal
29:27of the show. Inman returned
29:29for another four series back in Britain.
29:31But despite the odd bit of
29:33professional friction, there was no doubting
29:35that Are You Being Served was always a team
29:37effort. Are You Being Served
29:39was an ensemble piece, which was very much
29:41David Croft's sort of forte.
29:43And he's very keen on the morale of the
29:45cast, that it should be good.
29:47And it always was with him. In fact, the cast
29:49had their own unique ways of dealing with
29:51any difficulties which arose.
29:53I recall that
29:55when they were recording the German
29:57during rehearsals, Frank Thornton
29:59used to have to slap my mother
30:01as part of the dance. And I think
30:03he was getting a bit enthusiastic and
30:05slapping maybe a little bit more vigorously.
30:07So one day my mother put some
30:09tic-tacs in her mouth.
30:11And when he slapped her, she spat them out
30:13like she'd lost a couple of teeth.
30:15And I think he got the message after that.
30:17It was a bit less vigorous.
30:19At first, the tic-tac tactics seemed to work.
30:21Although, those slaps
30:23are looking pretty realistic by the end.
30:25Wait a minute!
30:27Wait a minute!
30:29You don't do it like that!
30:31You're supposed to be gentle.
30:33I was gentle.
30:35I just went like that. You did not.
30:37You went like that.
30:39I did not go like that.
30:41Well, next time I shall go like that.
30:43In that case,
30:45I shall go like that.
30:47Two can play at that game.
30:53There's mutual respect for their own
30:55expertise in terms of
30:57playing that high-octane
30:59comedy farce, really.
31:01And there's a real love for
31:03each other. They all got on so well.
31:05They were, to a fault, a lovely gang.
31:07They were very close-knit.
31:09And I think that's one of the secrets of
31:11David Croft's skills,
31:13that he manages to get a well-knit cast.
31:15According to show insiders,
31:17this camaraderie
31:19continued when the cameras weren't rolling,
31:21including some legendary
31:23behind-the-scenes parties.
31:25When they weren't working,
31:27they met up, usually in
31:29John Inman's attic, which was called
31:31his party room.
31:33It had a bar in one corner.
31:35I mean, they were great mates.
31:37And they became friends.
31:39And, you know, they socialised with each
31:41other. You know, my mum and dad
31:43were very, very good hosts, and they used
31:45to have parties in their home.
31:47And, invariably, the cast of Are You Being
31:49Served would turn up.
31:51Wendy Richard and Molly Sudden had birthdays
31:53very close to each other, so, you know, they'd take
31:55it in turns about who would get the champagne and the cakes
31:57organised and that sort of stuff. And it was a family.
31:59Despite their
32:01enormous fame, the big-name stars
32:03made sure to make newcomers feel
32:05welcome. When I went the
32:07first day, I can't
32:09really describe it, except it was like
32:11going into somebody's front room
32:13with all the family there, because everybody
32:15knew each other, and
32:17I was terribly nervous, you can imagine.
32:19And they all knew each other,
32:21and it was just another day at the office.
32:23But for me, can you imagine what
32:25it was like being with all these iconic
32:27actors? There was John Inman,
32:29Frank Thornton, Nicholas Smith,
32:31Wendy Richards,
32:33and I was just in awe, and I thought,
32:35my God, how am I ever going to open my mouth and say
32:37anything? And on screen, here's
32:39Louise's character getting a typically
32:41over-friendly welcome. What's your
32:43name? Virginia Edwards.
32:45That's a nice name. You're a lively
32:47little thing. Would you like to
32:49see my curriculum vitae?
32:51Not at 10.30 in the morning.
32:53Come and sit on my knee.
32:57Good.
32:59You're not too heavy.
33:01Has anyone got the number for HR?
33:03Everybody was so nice
33:05and chatty and friendly,
33:07and I just sort of fitted
33:09in. It was fantastic.
33:11When you join a show that had
33:13been running for a long time, they all know
33:15each other, so you're the new kid on the block.
33:17So therefore, you have to stand back, and you have to
33:19sort of fill the room, really.
33:21There was no starriness about any of them.
33:23You became part of the gang, which was actually
33:25very lovely. And we can disclose that
33:27one guest star narrowly avoided
33:29complete on-screen humiliation
33:31thanks to an eagle-eyed crew member.
33:33Seventies pop star Jess
33:35Conrad made a memorable appearance
33:37as a golf pro in some criminally
33:39tight trousers. Look at him
33:41swinging those big shoulders.
33:43Oh, and he's got such a lovely smile.
33:45I love a man with a lovely smile.
33:47He's so handsome.
33:49When I guest starred
33:51in it, I played sort of
33:53Jess Conrad, the glamorous Jess Conrad.
33:55You know, the tight trousers, and
33:57the teeth, and the bonnet,
33:59and everything, and all the glam.
34:01Jess Conrad in the show played a professional
34:03golfer. Jess looked absolutely perfect.
34:05There was one thing wrong,
34:07is that Jess didn't know how to swing
34:09a golf club. I'm supposed to know all about
34:11golf. I didn't, really.
34:13He'd said he played golf
34:15at the audition. I remember it.
34:17I'm just a sort of poser. I know I look good
34:19in the gear, and that's kind of where it ends.
34:21Costume, not knowing whether he was
34:23left-handed or right-handed, had bought two gloves.
34:25I was offered a black glove and a white glove.
34:27And I've got the white glove on,
34:29and we're just about to
34:31do a take when
34:33a chippy walks past
34:35and he went, Governor, that's what he's called
34:37the director,
34:39your so-called golf pro
34:41has got his glove on the wrong
34:43hand.
34:45Show business. Ding!
34:47Crisis averted,
34:49Jess was able to show Mr. Humphries
34:51a thing or two about swinging.
34:53Control yourselves.
34:55Have you ever been down a golf course?
34:57No, once or twice.
34:59And he then took the cast and crew for a quick
35:01thank-you drink, which revealed a thing or two
35:03about Wendy Richard's preferred tipple.
35:05Actors love to drink.
35:07Actresses love to drink.
35:09And I asked Wendy
35:11what she wanted, and it wasn't a pint,
35:13it was champagne. What would you like, darling?
35:15Champagne? Oh, yes, of course.
35:17Yeah, she drank champagne like it was going out of fashion.
35:19Only a few bottles, sir.
35:21Oh, fine, fine, that's fine, fine, yes.
35:23And it kept coming and kept coming
35:25and kept coming. Champagne.
35:27Champagne. Champagne.
35:29That was lunch.
35:31And we were all thinking,
35:33how much is this costing? John Inman's going,
35:35how much are they paying him?
35:37So that was a lesson well learnt,
35:39but she was well worth it. I mean, she was a great girl.
35:41Sadly, Wendy Richard's
35:43upbeat performance masked a tragic
35:45and difficult personal life.
35:47Well, she didn't want to get married the first time.
35:49She had no intention of getting married, but she had been...
35:51Her mum wasn't well, and she was...
35:53Wendy was running her B&B
35:55for her. And when her mum
35:57passed away, she just
35:59didn't want to be on her own.
36:01So she rushed into this first marriage.
36:03I think it lasted a matter of months, and that
36:05was over. But the second one, they used to
36:07knock her about constantly.
36:09She told me about it, and it was
36:11horrible.
36:13Thankfully, Wendy was able to
36:15share her suffering with her friends in the cast and crew,
36:19including the makeup department,
36:21who were sometimes called on to disguise
36:23her injuries. She used to have to go
36:25even onto the set, covering up
36:27the bruises, so no one would realise
36:29what she'd been through.
36:35Coming up,
36:37new ideas are out of stock at Grace Brothers.
36:39I remember John Inman saying,
36:41oh, we've done this, and we've done this.
36:43A cunning plan to disguise the lack of
36:45fresh plots. Suddenly,
36:47all of the cast would do a
36:49song and dance number at the end of each episode
36:51for no particularly
36:53brilliant reason.
36:55It's 1985.
36:57Britain's first mobile phone network is
36:59launched. The Live Aid concerts take place.
37:01And as Are You Being Served?
37:03enters its final series, there's
37:05no denying that Grace Brothers belongs
37:07to a vanished world, despite some
37:09outlandishly hair-raising attempts to stay
37:11apparent.
37:23I think a lot of people feel like
37:25the sitcom outstayed its welcome
37:27because it went on
37:29for an incredible number of series.
37:31Are You Being Served? had truly
37:33become the show which the BBC just couldn't
37:35get rid of. The commissioning of series
37:37nine is one of the most astonishing
37:39pieces of wheeling and dealing in sitcom history.
37:41There was a gap in the schedule.
37:43So David Croft went to
37:45the head of comedy and said, why don't we do
37:47Are You Being Served? in this gap.
37:49And he said, well,
37:51you'll never get the actors. And the cast were
37:53all available, luckily.
37:55You'll never write the scripts. Oh, we've got four of them already.
37:57They hadn't, but...
37:59And then the head of comedy said,
38:01well, the scenery's been destroyed.
38:03And he said, no, it hasn't.
38:05I bought it from the BBC. It's in my barn.
38:07So we had the scenery,
38:09we had the actors, and we were filling
38:11this gap at quite short notice, really.
38:13And the actors were astonished
38:15because three, four years earlier
38:17they thought they'd done the last ever episode.
38:19People still loved it. People still
38:21adored it. It's still got good viewing figures,
38:23but it did become repetitive.
38:25I remember John Inman saying, oh,
38:27we've done this, and we've done this.
38:29They were running out of ideas. They were
38:31coming round, and John was
38:33one that picked up on it first.
38:35By the time it got to something like series nine,
38:37they were reusing
38:39a lot of plots that had been in the
38:41original episodes.
38:43Certainly some of the jokes were being recycled.
38:45And free teas.
38:47Which is which?
38:49The teas is the one with the froth on top.
38:51Is this coffee?
38:53I thought it was tea.
38:55No, the teas is the one with the froth on it.
38:57And reviewers also
38:59noted the lack of fresh ideas.
39:01In the show's final year,
39:03Today Express lamented that
39:05it served the BBC well for years,
39:07but as the plots grew thin,
39:09it became a parade of pantomime
39:11personalities.
39:13Even David Croft admitted in his
39:15autobiography that plots were getting
39:17far-fetched, or else were thinly
39:19disguised rehashes of previous shows.
39:21Where happy days jumped
39:23the shark, are you being served
39:25souped the frog?
39:27In an episode where the shop staff, for some
39:29reason, trade places with the canteen staff,
39:31visual effects supremo Matt Irvin
39:33worked his magic for a plotline that
39:35required a pretty major leap of the
39:37imagination for viewers.
39:39There was a petstobob, a frog escapes,
39:41apparently, and he ends up in
39:43young Mr. Grace's soup.
39:45Here's your soup, Mr. Grace.
39:47Real turtle.
39:49Oh, well, good. I like something with a bit of body in it.
39:57And incredibly,
39:59the technology he created still works
40:01after all these years.
40:03So we can reveal some of the behind-the-scenes
40:05magic that went into creating
40:07this memorable moment.
40:09We have a bowl we fill with soup.
40:11Here, we had a basket
40:13which had the bread rolls
40:15hiding, what you can see here, the radio control.
40:17Inside the bowl,
40:19we had
40:21the frog, and
40:23on cue, it would
40:25pop its head
40:27out of the soup
40:29and then back down again.
40:31The bowl is very full. Don't drink all of it
40:33or you won't have room for what's to come.
40:39Hey, I'm operating the frog
40:41and the frog's pretty, you know,
40:43and he gets a laugh from the audience. He gets a laugh from the audience.
40:45Even better, he gets a laugh from the camera crew.
40:47That's even better.
40:49I've done that before now. I've got a laugh from the camera crew.
40:51I won that one.
40:53As the plotlines grew increasingly
40:55bonkers, like a surreal
40:57storyline where Mrs. Slocum loses her
40:59memory and reverts to her childhood self,
41:01the cast and crew were
41:03pulling out all the stops,
41:05including Molly Sugden,
41:07who, in the fine tradition of Tom Cruise,
41:09gamely did all her own stunts.
41:19Hello, P.D.S.
41:25Desperation is a theory.
41:27You know, what can you do
41:29to make it different from the episode
41:31previously? So let's go
41:33more outrageous. Let's do this. Let's try that.
41:35As the show entered its final
41:37three series, not even the introduction
41:39of a new character in the form of
41:41pop star Mike Berry was enough to lift
41:43the increasingly outlandish plots.
41:45You'd think I'd been going for seven years
41:47before I even joined it.
41:49I must have been really fed up with it.
41:51But they weren't, you see.
41:53When Mike Berry came in
41:55and played Mr. Spooner,
41:57he was a breath of fresh air,
41:59a really accomplished actor, but also an accomplished
42:01singer. Unfortunately,
42:03they skewed a lot of the plots
42:05to become musicals,
42:07so suddenly all of the cast
42:09would dom these funny costumes
42:11and they'd do a song and dance number
42:13at the end of each episode
42:15for no particularly brilliant
42:17reason.
42:23Four!
42:25And by the final
42:27episode, the Grace Brothers staff,
42:29whose original purpose had been to run a
42:31clothing department, were attempting to break
42:33into the pop industry. I've just
42:35had a call from a record company
42:37and apparently they're considering signing
42:39Spooner up. So, of course, we'll
42:41reinstate him. This could be very good
42:43publicity for our department. When the
42:45doors to Grace Brothers finally closed
42:47in 1985, the long-awaited
42:49climax, seriously now,
42:51come on, that's enough, was a surreal
42:53musical performance featuring the whole
42:55cast.
43:05I think I being survived for so
43:07long because there was something
43:09for everyone. Click in,
43:11forget your troubles and just, you know, be entertained
43:13by these wonderful comedy
43:15actors. It was a fantasy land, so
43:17therefore you could get away with lots of things.
43:19In the face of scandalous
43:21demands, secret snobbery
43:23and plenty of behind-the-scenes shenanigans,
43:25the whopping
43:27ten series of Are You Being Served
43:29were a victory.
43:31It was just fabulous, fabulous
43:33fun and great times.
43:35Halcyon Days, a British sitcom, just one of
43:37them, really.
43:39I'm just sorry it ended, but it had to.
43:41It just had to end. I loved every
43:43minute of it. It was just like a holiday,
43:45really, with your mates.
43:48Their sole intention
43:50was to amuse us.
43:52It was to make us laugh, and they did.
43:54They did it in a way that we can't do it now.
43:56If you or someone
43:58you know has been affected by any of the
44:00issues raised in tonight's programme,
44:02please go to channel5.com
44:04slash helplines for information
44:06and support. And Mrs. Slocum
44:08and the gang are off to the Costa Blanca
44:10for some holiday fun in the sun next
44:12in Are You Being Served, the movie.
44:17Are You Being Served?
44:19Are You Being Served?
44:21Are You Being Served?