Parental control needed to watch Porridge on Gold. WTF?
Porridge Page 9
Grouty is scary though.
Racist and homophobic themes. Ban it.
Is poof that offensive? The Young Ones use it all the time... By a curious coincidence I've been rewatching this on BubeTube and I'm amazed how well it stands up. The perfect sitcom - strong characterisation, logical plots, high laugh count. I like it more than Only Fools and Horses. Going Straight doesn't work as well for me, but I went there.
Looking forward to the anti-PC backlash... Incidentally, do black lives still matter? I haven't read it on FB lately.
Quote: john tregorran @ 16th April 2021, 1:23 AMGrouty is scary though.
That's Mel B.
Quote: Chappers @ 15th April 2021, 7:33 PMParental control needed to watch Porridge on Gold. WTF?
I'd be surprised if anybody under forty or fifty even watches Porridge nowadays.
I've read the pilot script of Porridge (where he's being taken from London by train to Slade prison, in the wilds of Northumberland) so many times, and it's just perfect. I advise any hopeful sitcom writer to do the same. It reflects the huge amount of work and myriad drafts that go into a pilot.
Just three characters - Fletch, Mackay and Barrowclough - and by the end of the episode we know them all inside out. Masterly!
But why wasn't it shown as Episode One? Even in the continuous re runs on Yesterday or Drama the pilot Prisoner & Escort which serves as a great intro has never been added to the series. I have a very vague idea that this may be because the main plot from it was reworked into Ep4 A Day Out but this is only after reading the Pilot blurb on IMBD, as I can't remember if I've seen it or not although so much of it seems familiar from A Day Out and even the film which had a similar failed escape plot. Am I right or way off? 
Quote: TheBlueNun @ 8th March 2015, 6:39 PMI found it interesting that they stopped after three series and a Christmas special. Great timing in my opinion. I suppose the series of 'Going Straight' kind of counts, but hey.
The writers didn't want to stop, it was Barker's decision, as he had so much else going on and offers coming in for other things, but was persuaded to do Going Straight and the Film as I think the send off for his role.
The film's fairly crud though. And Going Straight suffers by comparison.
I think the film's really good myself, it's a great script, but like all sitcom films it suffers from being drawn out to three times the length and without the laugh track, so they always look and feel a bit stretched and not as funny as their TV versions. I've watched this loads and enjoy it more every time because the script is every bit as good as the TV series.
But on first viewings it looks so different from the tight, gag packed half hour we see on TV. I've learnt you have to adjust yourself for sitcom Films, expect a looser feel without the atmosphere a laugh filled classic sitcom episode will have. I think it's a belter of film version now, but probably needs a few viewings like they all do.
You're absolutely right. I wrote an article about this for Chortle but won't clog up the thread.
Anyone know which church was used in the Porridge series A Day Out?
Quote: MAXINE HAWKER @ 20th April 2021, 8:13 AMAnyone know which church was used in the Porridge series A Day Out?
In the book Porridge by Richard Webber, published by Harper Collins in 2008, Paul Angelis, who played Navy Rum, remembers that the episode was filmed in Merthyr Tydfil. IMDB narrows it down further to the prison work party site being in Penderyn in the county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf, which is some nine miles from Merthyr. It is quite possible therefore that the church may have been somewhere in that vicinity.
You pipped me by a minute!
Quote: MAXINE HAWKER @ 20th April 2021, 8:13 AMAnyone know which church was used in the Porridge series A Day Out?
According to Wiki.......................
"The 1974 episode "A Day Out", which features a prison work party, was filmed in and around the Welsh village of Penderyn, the prisoners' ditch being excavated by a JCB"
Or this might help...............
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TTMHDRO2Z0
Or you can check all (!) the churches here on Google Maps..............
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/search/penderyn+church+wales/@51.780018,-3.5645947,11z/data=!3m1!4b1
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 18th April 2021, 9:21 AMEven in the continuous re runs on Yesterday or Drama the pilot Prisoner & Escort which serves as a great intro has never been added to the series.
I would bet it's down to the nature of BBC licensing terms and packages. P&E comes with 7 Of 1 and is probably not sold separately.
If anybody hasn't seen it, the mockumentary Life Beyond The Box: Norman Stanley Fletcher has surfaced online. It's a strange little programme, interesting that Clement and La Frenais are only listed as Script Consultants, they must have written Barker's dialogue at the end about being "a portrait of a recanted recidivist". I'm not sure it all entirely works, but the final minute or so of seeing Barker play Fletch is gold.