Porridge creators reflect on 50 years of the classic sitcom: 'Ronnie Barker was our safety net'

Now, 50 years on, they're delighted it's back on TV — and also being celebrated this month in a set of Royal Mail stamps.

Talking to Radio Times over Zoom from California, they explain how the show came about.

"It was a spin-off from a 1973 series of seven separate shows called Seven of One, all with Ronnie Barker, and we were commissioned to write two of the seven," says Clement.

"One was about a gambling-mad Welsh family, and one, Prisoner and Escort, had Fletcher being taken by Mackay and Barraclough [Fulton Mackay and Brian Wilde] to prison in the North West. The BBC liked both pilots and asked us which one we thought would make a series.

"The idea of doing something entirely set inside a prison was quite daunting, so we went round three — Brixton, Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubs — and they were very depressing places. How would we make it funny? But we reassured ourselves, 'Well, it's Ronnie — he'll make it funny.' He was our safety net. And the director, Syd[ney] Lotterby, cast it brilliantly."

"Syd and the designer gave it a great set," says La Frenais. "That walkway, the claustrophobic cell, the noise of the keys in the locks and doors slamming. A sense of a life not going to go anywhere. It's character-driven comedy."

"Fletch can be grumpy," adds Clement, "and he's a very reluctant father figure to Godber [Richard Beckinsale], always being mean to him in small ways."

"It's an attitude," adds La Frenais, "of don't bleat, do your time. And maybe you score a little victory every now and then, like grabbing an extra spoonful of scrambled egg when someone's back is turned."

Writing the first season was an exciting time. "We were working on a musical, Billy, in Manchester and writing Porridge in the Midland Hotel between rehearsals," says La Frenais.

"We needed to read it out loud," adds Clement, "to hear the rhythm of the spoken word and find out if a scene knew where it was going."

The BBC rehearsal room in Acton, West London, was also a happy place. "Ronnie was very faithful to the script, but at every read-through he would throw in a gag. Because he was a very good writer himself, it was irresistible." Barker later told them that Fletcher was his favourite role.

There's the merest hint of the violence of real prison life in the character of "Grouty" (Peter Vaughan) — everyone knows not to cross him.

"Our best compliment," says La Frenais, "was when a warder in Chelmsford Prison, where we filmed the 1979 Porridge movie, told us the punishment for a minor misdemeanour was not being allowed to watch Porridge." "He said the prison officers liked it as much as the cons," muses Clement.

Tragically, Beckinsale died in 1979 at the age of 31. "One very moving thing happened," says La Frenais, "when we were filming in Hawaii, something his daughter Kate was in. She was only five when he died, and she told us she got to know her father through watching Porridge. That was a bit of a choker."

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