Can You Keep A Good Idea Down?
Sounds like a game show but just this week we’ve heard about the return of Fawlty Towers. In recent years there’s been a string of re-works so we thought we’d have a look at some of the comedy that’s sort of made a come back.
In no particular order
Hancock’s Half Hour
Many of the original radio episodes are missing from BBC archives so back in 2014 Kevin Mc Nally took on the role of Tony Hancock in a brilliant recreation of some of the missing episodes
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Steptoe and Son
In 2005 one of the original writers, Ray Galton, alongside John Antrobus brought the popular sitcom back for one last encore. Steptoe and Son, Murder At Oil Drum Lane was a stage play and told the story of how Albert was finally murdered by Harold. Clearly the original actors had passed on so Jake Nightingale and Harry Dickman took on the starring roles.
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Celebrating 60 years of Hancock’s Half Hour
To mark Hancock’s Half Hour 60th anniversary the BBC ran a series of special shows. As well as a second series on radio of the Missing Hancocks there were four special episodes of classic BBC sitcoms, although to be fair with the exception of Hancock’s Half Hour they might as well have not bothered.
Sitcoms featured were:
Hancock’s Half Hour, The New Neighbour
Steptoe and Son, A Winters Tale
Dad’s Army
This hugely popular sitcom has had a number of comebacks and re-works and surprisingly all successful
In 2016, Toby Jones took on the role of Captain Mainwaring in a new Dad’s Army film
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The film was a success. In 2019 UKTV’s GOLD channel took on the challenge of recreating three missing episodes from the TV series, under the umbrella title: Dad’s Army, The Lost Episodes.
Another success.
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Are You Being Served?
Whilst the re-boot for the Lost Sitcoms season was clearly a disaster, not so in 1992 when the surviving cast of the original show reunited for two series of a spin off show “Grace and Favour” written by original writers David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd.
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Open All Hours
Ronnie Barker’s grasping grocer remains an all time classic comedy character and Open all Hours a classic sitcom. In 2013 excitement began to build as the BBC announced plans for a special comeback looking at how Arkwright’s nephew was getting on. Still Open All Hours was a Boxing Day smash with audiences and went on to run for 6 series.
Looking back to the news Fawlty Towers was returning many are unsure, but as we’ve seen with a few exceptions generally re-works and comebacks are well received.