Open All Hours

This is a great comedy where all the characters are perfectly cast and the gags are inventive. It's a fantastic comedy! Ronnie Barker is really funny in this with his s-s-sss-s-stutter and David Jason is great as Arkwright's nephew Granville. Although overall I prefer Only Fools and Horses, this is light-hearted, down-to-earth, everyday fun with plenty of double-meanings and an overall bright sense of humour in which you'll really delight. Great fun!

"Open all hours" is as close to real life in the north of England as it can get. Tight fisted penny pinching corner shop keepers.The acting was based on a simple formula and perhaps a low budget at the start, which may have been expanded as the series went on. The series was carried by the main actor but eventually the others became as important as Barker and Jason. Every story proved totally enjoyable.

I fail to understand how anyone can watch even a single episode of 'Open All Hours' and label it 'quaint', 'gentle' or 'twee', yet I've come across these descriptions time and time again. Personally, I consider its humour, if not its situation, to be among the darkest (and the deepest) of any British sitcom. For example: ' She's a dear, frail old lady. Of course you can leave her. Just stick her on a park bench and run for it.' Or 'I wouldn't give you tuppence for his kidneys. How much is your boiled ham?' Or Arkwright's deducting the price of a crate of ale from the money he spends on his best friend's funeral wreath. Hardly sentimental, is it? In fact, it's downright callous at times, and all the more impressive for it.

a great comedy series set in the north of England about a miserly old shopkeeper who dreams of getting saucy with Nurse gladys across the road,who looks after his hapless worker nephew It's a fairly simple plot but the imaginative pairing of Ronnie Barker (The Two Ronnies) and David Jason (Only fools and horses,A touch of frost) made this sitcom what it was. It's not laugh out loud funny,the humour can be quite subtle and it's nearly always set in the corner shop which some people might find tedious,but not me, in my opinion it's one of the better sitcoms BBC sitcoms from the Mid 1970's to 1980's, and it's such a shame that Ronnie Barker retired from acting a number of years ago because his presence in this sitcom at the better Prison sitcom 'PORRIDGE' without him they would not have becomne the classic sitcoms they now are

Rating 8/10

G,gggranville, very capably played by the very naive David Jason, playing as the assistant to Ronnie Barker, playing the tight fisted, finger on the scales "Arkwright" whose life revolved around nurse Ggggggladys and cast with the most amazing cash register come man trap the producer could find. The series showed northern England in its Blackest humour. Granville's dreams about even hold a woman in his arms were so sensitively acted. Good clean fun with no violence, filth or malice. A great show.