Comedy Playhouse

All Gas and Gaiters is a British television ecclesiastical sitcom which aired on BBC1 from 1966 to 1971. It was written by Pauline Devaney and Edwin Apps, a husband-and-wife team who used the pseudonym of "John Wraith" when writing the pilot. All Gas and Gaiters was also broadcast on BBC radio from 1971 to 1972. All Gas and Gaiters, predominantly farcical in nature, was set in the close of the fictional St Ogg's cathedral and concerned various... intrigues and rivalries among the clergy. "Gaiters" in the title refers to part of the traditional dress of bishops and archdeacons. The bishop was easygoing; his friend the archdeacon was elderly, tippling, and still appreciative of attractive women; and the bishop's chaplain was naïve and accident-prone. Their wish to live a quiet bachelor life was continually threatened by the overbearing dean, who tried to bring by-the-book rule to the cathedral. The series initially aroused some controversy because of its portrayal of senior clergy as bungling incompetents, although some clergy quite enjoyed it. In the opening credits, St.
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Are You Being Served? is a British sitcom broadcast from 1972 to 1985. It was set in the ladies' and gentlemen's clothing departments of Grace Brothers, a large, fictional London department store. It was written mainly by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft, with contributions by Michael Knowles and John Chapman. The idea for the show came from Lloyd's brief period in the early 1950s working at Simpsons of Piccadilly, a clothing store which traded for... over 60 years until 1999. The inspiration for the store has also been credited to Rossiters of Paignton department store from the time Lloyd and Croft spent there, and the former Clements of Watford. Over the course of its 13-year run, only Frank Thornton, Mollie Sugden, John Inman, Wendy Richard and Nicholas Smith appeared in all 69 episodes, and all later featured in the sequel television series, Grace & Favour . In 2004, Are You Being Served? came twentieth in "Britain's Best Sitcom".
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Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom written by Roy Clarke that was broadcast on BBC One. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse on 4 January 1973 and the first series of episodes followed on 12 November 1973. From 1983 to 2010, Alan J. W. Bell produced and directed all episodes of the show. The BBC confirmed on 2 June 2010 that Last of the Summer Wine would no longer be produced and the 31st series would be... its last. Subsequently, the final episode was broadcast on 29 August 2010. Repeats of the show are broadcast in the UK on GOLD and Yesterday. It is also seen in more than twenty-five countries, including various PBS stations in the United States and on VisionTV in Canada. Last of the Summer Wine is the longest-running comedy programme in Britain and the longest-running sitcom in the world. Last of the Summer Wine was set and filmed in and around Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, England and centred around a trio of old men whose line-up changed several times over the years.
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Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old Ned", was composed by Ron Grainer. The series was voted 15th in a 2004 BBC poll to find Britain's Best Sitcom. It was remade in the US as Sanford and... Son, in Sweden as Albert & Herbert and in the Netherlands as Stiefbeen en zoon. In 1972 a movie adaptation of the series, Steptoe and Son, was released in cinemas, with a second Steptoe and Son Ride Again in 1973. The series focussed on the inter-generational conflict of father and son. Albert Steptoe, a "dirty old man", is an old rag and bone man, set in his grimy and grasping ways. By contrast his 37-year-old son Harold is filled with social aspirations, not to say pretensions. The show contained elements of drama and tragedy, as Harold was continually prevented from achieving his ambitions.
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