Are You Being Served?: Shop Soiled

Are You Being Served? is to be rebooted with an 'all-star cast'.

The sitcom had been rumoured to be in line for a makeover as part of the BBC's landmark comedy season later this year. Now it has been confirmed that the Corporation will return to Grace Brothers with a studio audience recording confirmed for March 5.

The BBC says the one-off episode will 'pick up where Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft's much loved comedy left off,' and promises to 'bring some of the nation's all-time favourite sitcom characters including Mrs Slocombe, Captain Peacock, Miss Brahms, and Mr Humphries back to life with an all star cast'.

The original sitcom ran for 69 episodes over ten series from 1972 to 1985 on BBC One and made stars of the likes of Mollie Sudden, John Inm and and Wendy Richard.

The BBC are also reportedly planning reboots of Porridge, The Good Life, Up Pompeii!, and Keeping Up Appearances as part of the landmark sitcom series, marking 60 years since Hancock's Half Hour first made the transition to TV.

However Christopher Biggins, who played Lukewarm in Porridge, has expressed the views of many when he said: 'I wish they would leave these things alone. I wish they would go and find new ideas.'

Visit the BBC website for to enter into a draw for free tickets to be in the recording of Are You Being Served?

Chortle.

Sake.

What next?

Love Thy Neighbour?

Daily Telegraph: Astonishing!

It’s astonishing, given what’s happening in the real world, that TV comedy still consigns its gays to a fictional ghetto. A remarkable (yet almost silent) change has taken place in British attitudes over the past few years. The vast majority of straight people now barely notice the gay people in their midst, and gay marriage – which would have been unthinkable not 10 years ago – looks likely to sail through Parliament with hardly a murmur.

From the Daily Telegraph.

Yes, from the same Telegraph that's spent most of this year screaming like a dying banshee against gay marriage. 
Cut to uproarious canned laughter.
This is from an article using Vicious to gallop through a short, potted history of gay characters in British TV comedy, which contradicts itself at every turn. 
The journalist, Neil Midgley, is looking forward to Vicious because he doesn't like to see gay stereotypes - so I'm not sure what he'll make of these Vicious Old Queens.
He likes his gay characters to be "normal" and "ordinary", and not "camp and effeminate".
So just like straight people, then?
Little Britain though is singled out for praise for the "delusional" character Daffyd, because - apparently - they "used it to poke fun at gay people who still tediously insist on being special and different."
Zzzz... 

Thanks to Darren. x

Julian Assange: I'm Meme!

I learn from The Sun that this "Spoof Assange pic is [sic] massive hit."
But for why? Apparently, it is "hilarious". 
The Sun explains helpfully; "But Assange — a lookalike of the actor — is definitely NOT free. He remains holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London’s Knightsbridge after being granted asylum, but is visited by girlfriend Sarah Harrison."
So now you know.

PS Think The Sun adding that he's got a girlfriend may be a legal thing.

Update Sunday: Just watched Julian's Evita moment at the Ecuadorean Embassy. I have a problem with Assange's ego, but good for him for drawing attention to Bradley Manning...