Review: Still Open All Hours

Far better to get Open All Hours on DVD and watch the real thing.

Radio Times review

Much like Granville's sandwiches, the jokes are definitely past their sell-by date, but viewers don't seem to mind in the slightest that the laughs come from men wearing dresses or libidinous pensioners. Six million watched this revisit of Roy Clarke's 1970s sitcom on a Sunday night recently, more than saw Foyle's War or Last Tango in Halifax.

Arkwright's latest scheme is inspired by a visit from a travelling salesman (Mark Williams), who's flogging a soothing linctus "that also cleans your brass and silver". It makes the canny grocer realise that he needs a gimmick if he's to shift the batch of Old Mother Hemlock's Ancient Remedies he's bought.

Radio Times review

Writer Roy Clarke's revisiting of the beloved Ronnie Barker vehicle is completely timeless, which is doubtless part of its appeal. There are no crude 21st-century technological innovations in that little corner shop in Yorkshire, it could be set in any year from the 1930s.

There's also a pervading feeling of a cosy community of the type that probably either doesn't exist or never did exist, as a series of oddballs passes through the doors of Arkwright's stores. Mrs Dawlish (Vicki Pepperdine) is the comedy nuisance here, a snobby local who's taken aback that such an old-fashioned corner shop is still flourishing.

But there are signs that Granville (David Jason) is modernising - he wants to open a coffee shop!

Radio Times review

Mrs Featherstone, perpetually dressed in her widow's weeds and a joyless, soul-sucking presence, knows a few things about life: "There's all this fuss about orgasm, but watching your money grow is all the excitement a body needs." It's a great line, made mighty by the magnificent Stephanie Cole.

Elsewhere there's a boob gag within the opening seconds as young Leroy admires the cleavage of one of the many women who crowd his life. His dad Granville (David Jason) is similarly rapt, though of course his gaze was elsewhere: "I liked her hair..."

Throw in some comedy business with a stepladder and one of the Chuckle Brothers and it could be any time between the 1920s and the 1970s.

Still Open All Hours still has a place in the schedules

There is still a place for the cosy sitcom amid the daily diet of violence, sex and swearing that emanates from our TVs.

Radio Times review

Still Open All Hours is a comedy arcadia, with jokes about "the wife", women in nighties, barmaids of easy virtue and unruly umbrellas. It has a curiously ageless feel too - its men wear ties and jumpers, like dads did in the 1950s, there are battleaxe women, and there's no sign of new technology. The world of that northern corner shop exists entirely in its own gently nostalgic bubble.

In the second episode of the new series, tight-fisted retail king Granville (David Jason) resorts to desperate measures to lure in a man who always conspicuously gives the shop a miss as he heads for the Co-Op. He's still trying to secure quality romantic time with his adored Mavis, and he gets a strange proposition from Mrs Featherstone (the magnificent Stephanie Cole).

Radio Times review

A wildly successful pilot last Christmas has inevitably resulted in a series of the refreshed, fuzzily nostalgic version of Ronnie Barker's beloved sitcom. Not that much has changed in that Yorkshire corner shop since 1976.

Yes, hapless nephew Granville (David Jason) is now in charge, but the jokes are still pretty much the same as they ever were, with gags about women's boobs ("How well you are... both looking"), which everyone finds inherently hilarious, pratfalls, men being caught in their underpants and nudge-nudge lines such as "I think I may have dislocated my valuables." Which is doubtless why audiences love it.

In the opening episode it's Valentine's Day and Granville has problems with a new money belt.

Still Open All Hours - what did you think?

Granville's corner shop opened its doors once again - and we want to know whether you bought into the comedy?