Last of the Summer Wine tops repeats with 10 days of TV

Last of the Summer Wine is the most repeated show on British television so far this year, clocking up ten days worth of continuous viewing already, a survey from the British Comedy Guide has revealed.

Final episode aired of Last Of The Summer Wine

The curtain fell on the world's longest-running sitcom, Last Of The Summer Wine, last night but without any escapades involving a bathtub.

Last of the Summer Wine, BBC One, review

Michael Deacon reviews the last ever episode of the Last of the Summer Wine (BBC One).

The Weekend's TV: The Very Last of the Summer Wine

Hardly a vintage ending.

Last of the Summer Wine finale attracts 5.4m viewers

The final episode of long-running sitcom Last of the Summer Wine attracted 5.4 million viewers, according to overnight figures.

We are amused

Last of the Summer Wine draws to a close tonight. We feel sure that the royal family, all firm fans, will be watching.

Ever since its debut in 1973, Roy Clarke's genial sitcom has revolved around henpecked husbands and embittered wives, so it's only fitting that the climax should concern itself with a wedding. The occasion allows for a gathering of the major characters including - through the use of some canny editing - Truly and Clegg, both of whom have rarely been seen outside of their homes of late. Plus we also get a resolution to the saga of Howard and Pearl, whose marital strife has dominated this last run of episodes. But as a series finale, it lacks the required sense of poignancy, mainly because it wasn't known for sure at the time of filming that there were to be no further outings. And Summer Wine can do touching when required - long-standing devotees will recall Compo's funeral and the trip to Dunkirk, for instance. These are the fans who'll be left wishing Clarke had been given the opportunity to pen a more fitting send-off.

Last of the Summer Wine final episode airs

Farewell to Clegg and co as BBC TV series that ran for 37 years and 295 episodes ends tonight.

The holy trinity - Foggy, Compo and Nora - have long departed, sadly, but original cast member Peter Sallis remains to provide continuity down the full length of Last Of The Summer Wine's 37 years. Unsurprisingly for a show whose whole purpose was to illustrate the equanimity it might be possible to have with the later stages of a quiet life, tonight's very final episode is gentle stuff. As the gang assemble for a wedding, Howard is left in the cold by Pearl, who may not even let him have his best suit. You may want to be in that number as the last bathtub, so to speak, is precariously rolled down the hill.

It's the end of an era, as the cork comes out of the bottle of Britain's longest-running sitcom for the last time. Roy Clarke's beloved tales of a group of hapless old men in a West Yorkshire village first appeared on our screens in 1973, but the show has gone on to carve a host of indelible characters, such as Bill Owen's Compo and Kathy Staff's Nora Batty, onto the television landscape. Tonight, Howard (Robert Fyfe) despairs of being allowed back into the marital home to retrieve his wedding suit.