Porridge

Porridge is probably my all time favourite British comedy, actually scratch that, Pheonix Nights is number one this is number two. Porridge starred the brilliant Ronnie Barker as Norman Stanley Fletcher a small time criminal from Muswell Hill in north London who spent his whole life in and out of prison. The show has Barker in Slade Prison in the bleak Cumberland Moors doing a five stretch and the opening episode has him arriving and going through the processing with young naïve Lennie (Richard Beckinsale) who is destined to be Fletch cell mate and the old lag will tech him the ways of prison life and the fact that the screws are the enemy. The brilliance ...  Read the complete review

If ever a comedian richly deserved the title of "comic genius" then it would be the late Ronnie Barker. His CV since the time he first took up acting in 1948 at the age of 19, to the time of his death in 2005 at the age of 76, was rich and varied, but it is perhaps as one half of the comic due "The Two Ronnies" (with Scots comedian Ronnie Corbett) and for his varies sitcoms with the BBC that Barker will be best remembered and loved. One of his unique characters was as Norman Stanley Fletcher (Fletch) in the comedy series "Porridge", which ran form 1974 to 1977. There were three series of Porridge, plus two Christmas ...  Read the complete review

This is one of my all time favourite comedy shows and I still enjoy watching it today on either BBC2 or one of the cable channels when they show replays. It is a real shame that they only ever made a handful of episodes and one feature length film which was in effect a number of episodes strung together. The show is set in the bleak austere world of the fictional Slade Prison which is located near Carlisle. The main star of the show is Ronnie Barker who plays the character Norman Stanley Fletcher who is a habitual criminal from Muswell Hill who is serving another five year sentence for burglary. You know all of this because it form the basis of the ...  Read the complete review

Every so often there is something that just becomes a phenomenon- the kind of thing that just becomes so beloved by the whole nation that whenever it crops up everyone, collectively, makes the same utterance- I don't mean 'oh no, not that again!', rather 'oh lovely, I've missed that'. What I am actually referring to is what I consider to be the best situation comedy of all time- a programme that only had 20 episodes. In the early 1970s there was a series on BBC called 'Comedy Playhouse', which staged one-off 30 minute comedies. I am not sure that they were all meant to be pilot shows, but one, a show called 'Prisoner and ...  Read the complete review

"I'm only in prison because of my beliefs. I believed the night watchman was asleep." CAST Norman Stanley Fletcher…Ronnie Barker Lennie Godber…Richard Beckinsale Mr. Mackay…Fulton Mackay Mr. Barrowclough…Brian Wilde Harry Grout…Peter Vaughan 'Bunny' Warren…Sam Kelly Lukewarm…Christopher Biggins McLaren…Tony Osoba Blanco…David Jason Heslop…Brian Glover Written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. Norman Stanley is a habitual criminal. He has spent a large part of his adult life in jail and by now he knows the ...  Read the complete review