You can't have your sitcom and eat it

I would argue that a decent mainstream sitcom will last longer than almost any reality show. Most of these reality juggernauts run out of steam after eight years or so, and then limp along for a couple more. A sitcom can last so much longer.

Sitcom season will bring plenty of criticism & viewers

One-off returns for shows like Are You Being Served?, Porridge, Keeping Up Appearances and Goodnight Sweetheart could lead to big audiences and probably some full series, says Mark Jefferies.

The danger of constantly celebrating the past

Nostalgia. Easy promotability. A blend of old and new. Low risk. Lots of press. And a brand new half hour to be written by Clement and Frenais, writers of the near-perfect Porridge. What's not to like? As a consumer of comedy, I'm fine with all of the above obviously. As a writer of comedy, my feelings are slightly more mixed.

Radio Times review

Just like his miserly uncle Arkwright before hi, Granville's dubious money-making schemes inevitably backfire. And no wonder, marketing salami as an erotically charged new product called Yaggis and encouraging "people of low self-cuisine" like Cyril, Wet Eric and Mrs Hussein to buy badly dented cans of chilli beans because "the inverts" change its molecular structure thereby doubling the taste of the contents. "It's getting harder to pull their leg," he muses as he's shutting up for the night.

But he does have success with the shop's antiquated till, which for decades has snapped shut whenever a stray hand is near.

Radio Times review

When it comes to relationships between the sexes, nothing much has changed at the Doncaster corner shop since Arkwright's day. Women are still battleaxes; men are kept under the thumb; and marriage is a prison sentence. The humour is, shall we say, nostalgic, too, with sight gags and plot developments you can see coming with your eyes shut.

In this episode Kevin, the world's most reluctant bridegroom, is due to get married so Granville employs an oversized sunflower (don't ask) to stop him escaping. At least the impending celebration puts Mrs Featherstone (the splendid Stephanie Cole) in romantic mood - "I can get quite girlish over a handsome bank account".

Radio Times review

Still Open All Hours is one of those comedies that lasts just 30 minutes, yet by the end of the episode you swear you've just lost three hours.

Maybe it's something to do with the leisurely/laboured comedy business and the well-signalled slapstick, tonight involving a gag with a vacuum cleaner than anyone born before 1960 could see coming from 30 miles away in a North Sea fog.

But never mind, a gentle, unexamined life potters on inside that corner shop on an unspecified street in an unspecified era, as wily owner Granville (David Jason) takes delivery of a parcel from North Korea and tries to fix up hopeless Gastric with a date.

Radio Times review

It's easy to see why Roy Clarke's revival of his much-loved Ronnie Barker comedy Open All Hours is such a blazing hit. It takes its audience back to comfortable times, when being from Yorkshire was inherently funny, when men were hapless fools, women were either battleaxes or well-upholstered sirens and when everyone loved a bit of mild smut.

There isn't a mean bone in Still Open All Hours's body as grown men have silly fun with an over-sized Christmas tree, a sinister one-eyed Santa mannequin and a trampoline. Parsimonious local shopkeeper Granville (David Jason) remains at the mercy of the supernaturally self-operating till and the terrifying women get all the best lines. "How long since you were in curlers on a Wednesday afternoon?" wonders flinty Mrs Featherstone of comely Gladys Emmanuel.

Pictures: David Jason on Still Open All Hours set

It was the role which made him one of the country's rising comedy talents back in the 1970s. And it appears David Jason was thrilled to return to his role of hapless shopworker Granville on the newly rebooted Open All Hours.