Derren Litten

Are You Being Served? (BBC1) review

The episode may have seemed cut-short, being wrapped up just as a plot was begin to take form, but this was an otherwise perfectly-pitched remake of an audience classic. One would have struggled to think of a writer better qualified to bring back Are You Being Served?, and I would be incredibly surprised if it didn't follow in the footsteps of Still Open All Hours and were not at least considered for a more permanent return.

This one-off extension to the classic department store sitcom may have time-jumped to 1988 but it still feels old-fashioned, reheating the original formula of mild miscommunications against a backdrop of ladies' underthings. The script from Benidorm creator Derren Litten is elevated by a game cast - notably Jason Watkins as Mr Humphries - who clearly understand that when it comes to innuendo, you only get out as much as you put in.

Are You Being Served serves more of the same

The old show was never a critics' favourite - despite our howls about these comedy rehashes being sacrilegious grave-robbing. But it had a kind of bravery; the passing of the Sexual Offences Act 1967 decriminalising gay sex was within recent memory, and living together was still 'living in sin' in the provinces. Its knowing primness was clever - a huge wink to the fourth wall of the masses that although the outré characters seemed naughty, and Mr Humphries got into scrapes with a wide array of young men, he was never explicit about them. But the world has moved on - Kim Kardashian's bum failed to break the internet and against shows like Catastrophe, this looks more than passé.

TV preview: Are You Being Served?, BBC1

So let's face it, this does nothing new but does the old thing pretty well.

Julie Graham talks about her new role in Benidorm

"From a female actor's point of view, nobody is writing female characters of a certain age anywhere except soaps. Derren Litten is the only writer on British television writing really great parts for older women."

Joan Collins took Benidorm role as her sister is a fan

Joan Collins got a part in the hit comedy Benidorm because sister Jackie is a fan. Jackie, 77, took a box set to 81-year-old Joan's LA home. After watching it for four hours, a giggling Jackie rang creator Derren Litten.

There's a bit of a brutalist vibe about the Hotel Solana, the charmless edifice around which the action swings in Benidorm.

Derren Litten's sunburnt comedy closed its sixth run with a cast list that included Joan Collins, Janette Krankie, Rustie Lee and Mick from Brookside, not a line-up I thought I'd ever see in my lifetime.

Yet that bizarre bit of casting was as good as it got, because Benidorm is in need of a storyline on which to hang its rum collection of swingers, scallywags and Spaniards.

Collins made the most of her cameo as the Solana's boss, throwing a strop because manager Joyce had the temerity to get the hotel upgraded but the over-riding feeling was of characters treading water in the shallow end of the Solana's pool - someone needs to throw them a lifebelt because this show is sinking fast.

I know Benidorm (ITV) has its admirers but every time I stagger through one of its sordid, sunburnt farces involving the worst of the Brits abroad, I feel like I need a good wash.

Writer Derren Litten has not messed with a formula that's about as subtle as a kick in the castanets - jokes about gruesome swingers 'releasing the beast' after swallowing a key don't get anywhere near my gag reflex. Having the karaoke singer perform Panic by The Smiths was a surreal if totally unbelievable touch, though.