David Jason

Radio Times review

Still Open All Hours is one of those comedies that lasts just 30 minutes, yet by the end of the episode you swear you've just lost three hours.

Maybe it's something to do with the leisurely/laboured comedy business and the well-signalled slapstick, tonight involving a gag with a vacuum cleaner than anyone born before 1960 could see coming from 30 miles away in a North Sea fog.

But never mind, a gentle, unexamined life potters on inside that corner shop on an unspecified street in an unspecified era, as wily owner Granville (David Jason) takes delivery of a parcel from North Korea and tries to fix up hopeless Gastric with a date.

Radio Times review

It's easy to see why Roy Clarke's revival of his much-loved Ronnie Barker comedy Open All Hours is such a blazing hit. It takes its audience back to comfortable times, when being from Yorkshire was inherently funny, when men were hapless fools, women were either battleaxes or well-upholstered sirens and when everyone loved a bit of mild smut.

There isn't a mean bone in Still Open All Hours's body as grown men have silly fun with an over-sized Christmas tree, a sinister one-eyed Santa mannequin and a trampoline. Parsimonious local shopkeeper Granville (David Jason) remains at the mercy of the supernaturally self-operating till and the terrifying women get all the best lines. "How long since you were in curlers on a Wednesday afternoon?" wonders flinty Mrs Featherstone of comely Gladys Emmanuel.

The originalDanger Mouse was an Eighties cartoon on ITV that was essentially a rough parody of James Bond. DM, with his eye patch and his flying car, was charged with saving the world from a large toady Blofeld called Baron Greenback. David Jason used to voice the mouse with Terry Scott as Penfold. Now Alexander Armstrong is "DM" and the comedian Kevin Eldon as Penfold the hamster.

I also wondered what children would make of Danger Mouse v2.0's narrative style, which was so self-reflexive and knowing that at times it was like an episode of Sherlock. "Now, the world's 12th greatest sidekick Penfold will speak the first line of the new series," said our narrator early on, before going on to point out the show's improbabilities, saying "I'm sure the writers will have perfectly reasonable answers to these questions."

But just when I was about to get really angry about what had been done to another childhood memory I went back and watched a few vintage DMs. It turned out they were all pretty arch too.

My instinct was that all of this would go way over the heads of my kids, who tend to laugh at pratfalls and fart gags (and I hardly need stress that I have no idea where they got that from). But I have a feeling that the wordiness and the ironic humour seeps in. That might be one reason why I remember Danger Mouse fondly without, until this week, being quite sure what it was that I fondly remembered.

Pictures: David Jason on Still Open All Hours set

It was the role which made him one of the country's rising comedy talents back in the 1970s. And it appears David Jason was thrilled to return to his role of hapless shopworker Granville on the newly rebooted Open All Hours.

Radio Times review

Writer Roy Clarke's revisiting of the beloved Ronnie Barker vehicle is completely timeless, which is doubtless part of its appeal. There are no crude 21st-century technological innovations in that little corner shop in Yorkshire, it could be set in any year from the 1930s.

There's also a pervading feeling of a cosy community of the type that probably either doesn't exist or never did exist, as a series of oddballs passes through the doors of Arkwright's stores. Mrs Dawlish (Vicki Pepperdine) is the comedy nuisance here, a snobby local who's taken aback that such an old-fashioned corner shop is still flourishing.

But there are signs that Granville (David Jason) is modernising - he wants to open a coffee shop!

Radio Times review

Mrs Featherstone, perpetually dressed in her widow's weeds and a joyless, soul-sucking presence, knows a few things about life: "There's all this fuss about orgasm, but watching your money grow is all the excitement a body needs." It's a great line, made mighty by the magnificent Stephanie Cole.

Elsewhere there's a boob gag within the opening seconds as young Leroy admires the cleavage of one of the many women who crowd his life. His dad Granville (David Jason) is similarly rapt, though of course his gaze was elsewhere: "I liked her hair..."

Throw in some comedy business with a stepladder and one of the Chuckle Brothers and it could be any time between the 1920s and the 1970s.

Radio Times review

Still Open All Hours is a comedy arcadia, with jokes about "the wife", women in nighties, barmaids of easy virtue and unruly umbrellas. It has a curiously ageless feel too - its men wear ties and jumpers, like dads did in the 1950s, there are battleaxe women, and there's no sign of new technology. The world of that northern corner shop exists entirely in its own gently nostalgic bubble.

In the second episode of the new series, tight-fisted retail king Granville (David Jason) resorts to desperate measures to lure in a man who always conspicuously gives the shop a miss as he heads for the Co-Op. He's still trying to secure quality romantic time with his adored Mavis, and he gets a strange proposition from Mrs Featherstone (the magnificent Stephanie Cole).

Radio Times review

A wildly successful pilot last Christmas has inevitably resulted in a series of the refreshed, fuzzily nostalgic version of Ronnie Barker's beloved sitcom. Not that much has changed in that Yorkshire corner shop since 1976.

Yes, hapless nephew Granville (David Jason) is now in charge, but the jokes are still pretty much the same as they ever were, with gags about women's boobs ("How well you are... both looking"), which everyone finds inherently hilarious, pratfalls, men being caught in their underpants and nudge-nudge lines such as "I think I may have dislocated my valuables." Which is doubtless why audiences love it.

In the opening episode it's Valentine's Day and Granville has problems with a new money belt.

David Jason on Open All Hours: 'It was very emotional'

"The feedback from our Christmas special has been so rewarding and encouraging. It goes to prove that the corner shop is still open all hours."