Are You Being Served?

I could only bear to watch the opening few minutes before it was painfully obvious this was less a reboot so much as a sad parody.

Mr Humphries? Please. Yes, he was gay in the original, but he certainly did not go around lifting men's jackets to look at their ass. From what I've read, this "reboot" is just a far cruder version, which completely trainwrecks the intent of the original.

I"m sorry, but no. This is just sadly pathetic. If it gets made into a series, then God help us all because the writers will not have anywhere near the wit of the original staff. This thing will go down in flames (real ones, not those acted by the Imam-wannabee) — and deservedly.

A soulless parody that lacks everything that made the original good. The writing is terrible. I love the original and enjoyed AYBSA spinoff but this reboot is painful to watch.

ARE YOU BEING SERVED? was a much-loved sitcom running throughout the Seventies and early Eighties that made a star out of John Inman and greatly enhanced the careers of established character actors such as Frank Thornton and Mollie Sugden. Basically a ragbag series of jokes and doubles entendres, it spawned a series of catchphrases including Inman's "I'm free!" and Sugden's numerous jokes about her pussy.

The series was part of a venerable tradition of camp comedy stretching back through the CARRY ON series of films back into the variety work of Max Miller. It was the product of a society constrained by Victorian tradition, wherein sexual matters were not to be discussed in public but only alluded to, chiefly through humorous means.

How times have changed. Camp comedy has been superseded by a much more overt strain of humor that might appear offensive to some but draws huge ratings. Comparing ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS or THE OFFICE with the less in-your-face style of ARE YOU BEING SERVED? is like trying to parallel chalk and cheese; each possesses their own comic style, the product of very different eras.

The passage of time has not been kind to ARE YOU BEING SERVED? In this "reboot" as the BBC likes to describe it, the well-loved characters are played by different actors: Roy Barraclough does a creditable stab at Arthur Borough's Mr. Grainger, while John Challis makes a passable Captain Peacock, even though his screen persona comes across as a lot less refined than Thornton's. Some of the other impersonations are just plain embarrassing; the less said about Sherrie Hewson's Mrs. Slocombe, and Justin Edwards's Mr. Rumbold, the better.

But perhaps the most embarrassing aspect of the whole enterprise is the script, written this time by Daren Litten. Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft's original efforts contained a fair share of bawdy humor, but there was always a certain innocence underneath, almost as if the characters did not quite understand the implications of what they were saying. Here the humor is defiantly in-your-face: each joke is telegraphed by the actors looking at one another and then at the camera, as if prompting us to erupt into gales of unrestrained laughter.

Some of the jokes are downright offensive, especially the references to "seamen" on deck, or Mr. Conway's (Kayode Ewumi's) efforts to prevent Captain Peacock from choking on a lobster bone by coming up behind him and maneuvering himself in a sequence which, to those not in the know, might seem like an homosexual act. When Mr. Grace (Mathew Horne) enters, this is precisely what he assumes. The studio audience erupt into paroxysms of mirth, but as they have been cackling away at almost anything during the previous twenty-six minutes, we might suspect that they are simply a laugh-track dubbed on to the final cut.

Produced to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of the sitcom genre on television, we are clearly meant to approach this reboot with affectionate nostalgia. In truth, watching this farrago of nonsense makes one fear for its future; perhaps television needs to be led kicking and screaming out of the past into something more innovative, just like Mr. Grace wants to do to the much-loved store he owns.

Missed this first time round, caught it by chance when UKTV ran it instead of one of the original episodes. My first thought was how awful it was. Which was also my second thought. Why bother remaking an old favourite if the actors - some of them well known from other shows - simply attempt to impersonate the original cast? Why set it at a time which contradicts the original show's sequel? John Inman's Mr Humphreys was never as camp as Jason Watkins' version. Arthur English's Mr Harman was never as boorish as Arthur Smith's portrayal. Writer Derren Litten appears to have depended entirely upon second-hand memories of the original show for his inspiration rather than going back to the original episodes and seeing how they were put together for himself. And what on Earth is the audience on? Hysterical shrieks of laughter for some mildly amusing aside? God help them if they ever get to see an original episode, there'd be mass coronaries everywhere.

Why can't anyone just leave the classics alone? You can't copy them, you can't replace them, you can't.....you can't.....you can't!!!

Although there were SOME funny bits in there, it wasn't the same.

It would have been better to have it modern day, with all new characters.

I'm so sick and tired of classics getting dragged through the mud and corporate greed!

Out of all the billions of books out there, with billions of stories, and billions of scenarios.............movie and show makers just can't stop degrading the classics!