'Open All Hours' to return after 30 years for a Christmas Special

Skid X

Not sure about this one at all

Sir David Jason will reprise his role of Granville for an Open All Hours Christmas special.

Lynda Baron and Maggie Ollerenshaw will also return as nurse Gladys Emmanuel and Mavis in the 30-minute one-off episode Still Open All Hours ...

Granville will be seen running the grocery store with his son, having inherited it from his uncle Albert Arkwright (Ronnie Barker).

Roy Clarke, who wrote the original series, will return for Still Open All Hours.

http://www.digitalspy.ie/tv/news/a521620/sir-david-jason-to-star-in-open-all-hours-christmas-special.html

Open All Hours without Ronnie Barker will be like ... Porridge or The Two Ronnies without Ronnie Barker. Any thoughts of a remake should have ended when he died. And David Jason's last outing as The Royal Bodyguard was awful.

I could be wrong (as happens quite often) but it seems like a bad idea. Hopefully it will be half decent and won't be a sad footnote to what was an enjoyable programme back in the day.

RayM

Sounds like it'll be a load of sh... sh... shi... shi... rubbish.

Jiggers77

I reckon they should leave it dead and buried. It can never work without Ronnie Barker. A real danger of a classic being spoiled!

markomuscle

a bad idea altogether, 28 years since it ended, are the BBC struggling that much for decent shows?

FloatingVoter

Will David Jason get his extremely talented act together and do something entertaining. There's an entire generation growing up thinking Ricky Gervais is funny - this needs sorting. Open All Hours was a mildly funny distraction for Ronnie and Dave at the best of times...not the be all and end all.
That said if Ronnie Barker comes back from the dead first, it'll surprise the hell out of the Jesus and Elvis nuts out there.

Skid X

RayM wrote: »

Sounds like it'll be a load of sh... sh... shi... shi... rubbish.

I'll bet hard cash that there won't be a single line in the remake anywhere near as good as this!

Patty O Furniture

They done the same with Peter Bowles & Penelope Keith reprising their roles on To The Manor Born, although i dont know how long it was off tv.

But the classics are the classics you cant remake them, maybe add to it & let them how to do it right like Arkwright

jimmyw

Did anyone see this on tonight? Not good, in my opinion but I suppose you cant expect it to be.The late great Ronnie Barker and David Jason were the two actors who made this show great so not having RB, it was never going to work.

Some of the original actors were in it, such as er........Maaaaaavvvvvvvvis, nurse EEEEEEmmmmmmaaaanuel, and Mrs Fetherstone aka Stephanie Cole.Johnny Vegas made an appearance too.Arkwright was a crafty bugger so he was LOL!

Leave it alone I say.

monkeysnapper

I didn't like it, but I did watch mrs brown last night and I don't really like it and found it quite funny so what ever!

Max Headroom

Not really suprised at the lack of feedback to this thread tbh....most on here are too young to remember it first time around...the humour of the original is still funny to this day but only because of RB...Jason was never a match for Barker in that particular show....
Last nights episode showed how out of touch Roy Clarkes writing has become..ner a mobile phone to be seen or heard...deliberate maybe ??...he seemed to be writing for Arkwright and not Granville....i found it a bit sad tbh...there were glimpses of hope though, but possibly only because of Vegas and Cole...also found there were too many characters appearing in a 30 min show....they must have been q'ing up to get in the show.....

Skid X

It wasn't terrible, but I don't think it has any real potential for more episodes. David Jason's performance just wasn't as good as Ronnie Barker's.


There is a programme about the 'making of' this show on BBC1 at 1.25pm today (buried in a lunchtime slot, which probably says something about what the BBC thought about it)

http://www.locatetv.com/tv/open-all-hours-a-celebration/8410682

A documentary looking at the enduring appeal of the classic comedy, following the cast and crew as they returned to film the new Christmas special at Arkwright's original shop in Doncaster, South Yorkshire - with scenes also fine-tuned at MediaCity in Salford. The programme includes interviews on set, including the thoughts of David Jason, Lynda Baron and writer Roy Clarke, and captures the communal excitement as the show returns to town for the first time in 28 years

GERMAN ROCKS

anywhere online that I can watch it now. only saw the first 5 minutes of it and then had to go out.

jimmyw

Max Headroom wrote: »

Not really suprised at the lack of feedback to this thread tbh....most on here are too young to remember it first time around...the humour of the original is still funny to this day but only because of RB.Last nights episode showed how out of touch Roy Clarkes writing has become..ner a mobile phone to be seen or heard...deliberate maybe ??...he seemed to be writing for Arkwright and not Granville....i found it a bit sad tbh...there were glimpses of hope though, but possibly only because of Vegas and Cole...also found there were too many characters appearing in a 30 min show....they must have been q'ing up to get in the show.....

I never saw it when it was current, only ever on the "GOLD" channel.

Roy Clarke mentioned in the doc that "if the original was not broke", why fix it so he wanted to keep it as close to the original as possible.

You CANNOT beat the original

GERMAN ROCKS wrote: »

anywhere online that I can watch it now. only saw the first 5 minutes of it and then had to go out.

Which one, the remake or the doc about the remake?...:P

If you have the software to override the non UK viewer, here they are.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03n2r55/Open_All_Hours_A_Celebration/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01my79b/Still_Open_All_Hours/

GERMAN ROCKS

jimmyw wrote: »

I never saw it when it was current, only ever on the "GOLD" channel.

Roy Clarke mentioned in the doc that "if the original was not broke", why fix it so he wanted to keep it as close to the original as possible.

You CANNOT beat the original

Which one, the remake or the doc about the remake?...:P

If you have the software to override the non UK viewer, here they are.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03n2r55/Open_All_Hours_A_Celebration/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01my79b/Still_Open_All_Hours/

its the remake I want to see. I don't have the software for over riding