British Comedy Guide

Porridge

Porridge is in my top three comedys of all time.Great comedy with quality cast crammed full of funny characters.Ronnie Barker was supreme as experienced lag Fletch who is put in a cell beside first time offender Godber (played by the late Richard Beckinsale).Keeping a beady eye on them is hard task-master Mr. McKay (played by the late Fulton McKay) who has many hilarious run-ins with Fletch.The softer more gullible 'screw' is Mr.Barraclough who Fletch can wrap round his little finger.

Other great characters are the sneaky convict Ives,dyslexic 'Bunny' Warren,homosexual Lukewarm (played by Christopher Biggins),hardman Grouty (played by Peter Vaughan),a coloured Scot (played by Tony Osoba) and even a cameo role for David Jason as old lag Blanco.

They don't make them like this anymore.

I really liked it... since I'm not from UK, I probably missed some great humour because of murmuring and the accent, but I still loved it.
The movie wasn't half bad either - and featured Gordon Kaye, of course ;-) As a baddie :)

Its a classic sitcom and yes the film was very good as well.

The measure of how good it was is that I can watch it time and time again but it never loses its appeal and comedy genius Ronnie Barker is at his best in this sit-com surpassing his performances in Open All Hours,The Magnificent Evans and Clarence.

yes porridge is a great sitcom eventhough i havent seen the movie ill shall try and hunt it down. both the ronnies are genius but this has to be one of his best preformances.

The Porridge movie is probably the best of the sitcom-movies from that era. It stayed pretty consistent with the normal show.

just found it on amazon and it looks funny is it worth the money, also fletcher tring to break is most be funn.

Definitely worth the money but I'll bet many many places have it cheaper than Amazon.

http://www.find-dvd.co.uk/ <3

Love all Ronnie Barker comedies. apart from His Lordship Entertains which i have never seen.

So much Ronnie B. stuff I've not managed to lay my eyes on yet!

...But I did get to his last ever recording, The Two Ronnies Christmas Sketchbook, which I will never forget.

Ronnie Barker's genius shone through in Porridge.Like many of my other all-time favourite sit-coms it was full of hilarious characters not just one or two lynch pins holding them together.

Loved the episode that started with Fletch singing the theme from Born Free.

'Born Freeeee until somebody caught me.' :D

Quote: Aaron @ November 6, 2006, 6:04 PM

http://www.find-dvd.co.uk/ <3

nice. i'll be exploring it later.

The problem however is that not all of UK online vendors ship to Latvia. I once stumbled upon a pretty well known vendor which gave a list of countries it was shipping the DVDs to and accompanied it with the text that "all the rest of countries are deemed unsafe", blah-blah, something to that effect.
I just couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Kenya and Tansania on that list, but Latvia, along with several more EU countries, was missing ;) Well, their loss.

OK, *rant mode off*.

I've seen Ronnie Barker in Porridge and Open All Hours only. Any other things I should check out?

Haven't seen it yet but he was supposedly very good in Clarence and The Magnificent Evans.

Also Seven of One, from which Porridge and Open All Hours came. :)

Re delivery, that sucks. I can only suggest going through and checking them all from cheapest upwards.

For anyone interested, the movie is on later today (immediately followed back-to-back by the second series of Phoenix Nights).

FILM: Porridge
On: more4
Date: Monday 24th March 2008
Time: 19:15 to 21:00

Ronnie Barker, Richard Beckinsale and Fulton Mackay star in this superior spin-off feature from the much-loved TV sitcom. Cell-mates Fletch and Godber find themselves on the wrong side of the bars when they're inadvertently bundled out of Slade Prison during someone else's escape. Somehow they've got to break back in before warder Mackay notices their absence.
(Subtitles, Audio Described, Repeat, 1979, PG, 3 Star)

Director: Dick Clement
Starring: Ronnie Barker, Richard Beckinsale, Fulton Mackay, Brian Wilde, Peter Vaughan, Julian Holloway

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