Remakes of Keeping Up Appearances, Porridge and more coming to BBC
Classic sitcoms are coming out of the Old Jokes Home
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but the BBC is remaking many of its classic sitcoms.
To celebrate 60 years since Hancock’s Half Hour began, a raft of prequels, sequels and remakes are coming to BBCs 1, 2 and 4 this summer.
Keeping Up Appearances, Are You Being Served?, Porridge and Up Pompeii! are getting modern follow-ups by today's comedy writers, while Steptoe and Son, Till Death Do Us Part and Hancock’s Half Hour itself will see ‘lost’ episodes remade on BBC4.
Are You Being Served? is a direct continuation of the department store sitcom, set in 1988 with a new cast. Prison comedy Porridge, originally starring Ronnie Barker, will follow Fletch’s grandson as he’s banged up for cybercrimes. Young Hyacinth is a one-off special following the snooty Mrs Bucket (pronounced Bouquet, we're led to believe) as she tries to move from lower middle class to the ranks of the upper middle class.
Classics all, but it’s BBC4 that might feature the biggest culture shcok – the bigoted Alf Garnett in Till Death Do Us Part is a long way from today’s politically correct culture.
That said, the festivities will be kicked off by a special live episode of a modern classic: Mrs Brown’s Boys.
