John Inman's Greatest Hits by John Inman

The show became a ratings hit and, after a successful 13-year run, Are You Being Served? came to an end on 1 April 1985. Although the first series was aired in the same timeslot as Coronation Street on ITV, consequently receiving relatively little attention, the repeats shown later in the year were much more successful. The pilot episode was repeated before the first series began, on 14 March 1973. The pilot was used as a filler during the 1972 Summer Olympics when the coverage of the games was interrupted by the Munich massacre on 8 September 1972, leading to a full series being produced. The pilot episode was created as part of the Comedy Playhouse series, although the BBC had originally chosen not to broadcast the programme. Logo used for the pilot episode and series one from series two onwards, the quotation marks were removed. The inspiration for the store has also been credited to the former Clements of Watford where the concept of the floor walker character Captain Peacock was devised. The idea for the show came from Lloyd's brief period in the early 1950s working at Simpsons of Piccadilly, a clothing store which traded for over 60 years until its closing in 1999. It is regularly rebroadcast in the English-speaking world. In 2004, it was ranked 20th in a television countdown of Britain's Best Sitcom. The show was also broadcast in Israel and in the United States, where it gained a loyal following when PBS television stations began airing reruns of it in the mid-1980s, along with other British sitcoms. The series was screened in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the Republic of Ireland, and was aired in the Netherlands and Belgium with Dutch subtitles. Since its original release, all 69 episodes, the pilot, the Christmas specials, the sequel and the film have been released on DVD.Īre You Being Served? was a success in the UK audience ratings.

There was also a 1977 film, a spin-off series Grace & Favour with the same main cast in 1991–1992, and a one-off episode with a new cast in 2016.

The series was broadcast on the BBC for ten series, totalling 69 episodes between 8 September 1972 and 1 April 1985 – and included five Christmas specials. Set in London, the show follows the misadventures and mishaps of the staff of the retail ladies' and gentlemen's clothing departments in the flagship department store of a fictional chain called Grace Brothers. Are You Being Served? is a British sitcom created and written by executive producer David Croft (Croft also directed some episodes) and Jeremy Lloyd, with contributions from Michael Knowles and John Chapman, for the BBC.

John Inman's Greatest Hits by John Inman