Open All Hours

7.9
197630m

Open All Hours is a BBC sitcom written by Roy Clarke and starring Ronnie Barker as a miserly shop keeper and David Jason as his put-upon nephew who works as his errand boy.

Seasons

6 Episodes • Premiered 1976

Still image for Open All Hours season 1 episode 1: Full Of Mysterious Promise

1. Full Of Mysterious Promise

10.0

Arkwright buys a load of damaged goods. The snag with them is that they are tinned goods without labels! He then tries to foist them off onto his customers.

Still image for Open All Hours season 1 episode 2: A Mattress On Wheels

2. A Mattress On Wheels

10.0

Granville is fed up with having to do his rounds on his bike and tries to talk Arkwright into buying a van. Granville hopes that a mattress in the back of it will help his love life - and maybe Arkwright's, too!

Still image for Open All Hours season 1 episode 3: A Nice Cosy Little Disease

3. A Nice Cosy Little Disease

10.0

Arkwright tries to find the perfect disease to pretend to go down with in order to get the attention of Nurse Gladys Emmanuel who he feels has been neglecting him.

Still image for Open All Hours season 1 episode 4: Beware Of The Dog

4. Beware Of The Dog

10.0

After a bungled burglary on his premises, Arkwright decided the time is right for a guard dog for the shop. However, instead of a real dog, he tries to fool everyone with just the sound of a dog! Meanwhile, Granville thinks he could be the father of Maureen's baby, Eric!

Still image for Open All Hours season 1 episode 5: Well Catered Funeral

5. Well Catered Funeral

10.0

Parslow, an old friend of Arkwright dies and Arkwright handles the catering for the funeral, hopefully with a large profit coming his way!

Still image for Open All Hours season 1 episode 6: Apples and Self Service

6. Apples and Self Service

10.0

Arkwright starts a sales drive to try and get rid of a large stock of apples that he had over-ordered.

Cast

More Like This

Reviews

G

CinemaSerf

It took the BBC a couple of years after the end of "Porridge" to find another suitable sitcom for the considerable talents of Ronnie Barker, and so in 1976 they reunited him with producer Sydney Lotterby and "Last of the Summer Wine" creator Roy Clarke to portray "Arkwright", the stammering Yorkshire store keeper whose miserliness could give "Scrooge" a run for his money. He is enamoured of the well-endowed local nurse "Gladys" (Lynda Baron) whilst trying to keep his live-in nephew/dogsbody "Granville" (a wonderfully skilful series of performances from David Jason) from succumbing to the evil - and extravagant - ways of the world. With a few additional contributions from Barbara Flynn as the lady who delivers the milk - and sends "Granville" into spasms of sexual apoplexy at the same time; the equally frugal Stephanie Cole ("Mrs. Feathestone") and Kathy Staff ("Mrs. Blewett") the tightly cast team play well off each other, with strong, amiable, characterisations that thrive off the back of the Northern (English) stereotypes upon which the stories are based. Nowadays, the humour falls a little bit foul of changed attitudes, but Clarke never wrote from any perspective other than one that ridicules sexism, racism and agism in a thought-provoking fashion, whist still allowing both Barker and Jason to do what they do best - elicit a laugh. This was must watch television for almost ten years, and is still great today.

You've reached the end.