Comedy: Are You Being Served?, twice nightly
When TV sitcoms transfer to stage…
In this, the first in an occasional series of vintage show posters, we’re heading back to 1976 and to Blackpool where Are You Being Served? was playing the Winter Gardens.
I loved this TV series but never got to see the original stage show. I did catch an amateur production of it many years later however… but we don’t talk about that.
Written by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft with basically the same plot as the later 1977 movie, the synopsis of the play reads as follows:
‘When the motley crew of the Grace Brothers department store prepare for a sale of German goods and then depart for a staff holiday in Spain, they survive their stay in the tropics at a one star establishment and their encounters with everything from a Spanish crumpet to randy revolutionaries with everything intact but their modesty.’
In the 1976 stage production, which ran from June to October, John Inman starred as Mr Humphries along with Mollie Sugden as Mrs Slocombe, Wendy Richard as Miss Brahms, Frank Thornton as Captain Peacock and Nicholas Smith as Mr Rumbold.
Not returning to their small screen roles were Trevor Bannister and Arthur Brough, consequently the roles of Mr Lucas and Mr Grainger were recast for summer season.
John Inman & Wendy Richard in Blackpool | 📸 Croft.com via Twitter
The cast was completed by Stewart Sherwin, Barbara Rosenblat, Michael Mundell, Petra Siniawski, Larry Noble, and Raymond Bowers with Robert Redfarn directing.
With John Inman after a performance of My Fat Friend | 📸LiamRudden Archive
If you were lucky enough to see the production, please do share your memories of it.