Are You Being Served? (2016)

Are we being well-served by elderly sitcoms remakes?

Even if the old jokes still amuse some, Aidan Smith finds the BBC's celebration of its comedy classics far from funny.

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.

Are You Being Served? review

I imagine a full six-part series is already on the cards, given the probably availability of those involved. But if that happens, it's a sad day for BBC comedy to be chasing nostalgia rather than creating today's next hit.

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.

You Have Been Watching... Are You Being Served?

The BBC is celebrating 60 years of British television sitcoms with a series of remakes, including Are You Being Served? We take a look back at its creators, the characters, and the brilliant comedy actors who played them.

We're back in the Grace Brothers department store for this one-off tribute to the famous sitcom. The set looks exactly the same, and the new cast are uncannily similar to their predecessors, so I don't see the point of this. They haven't updated it or added a modern slant. It's just a straight copy.

With good reason, the episode is called You Can't Teach A New Dog Old New Tricks. There are jokes about bottoms, rearranged underwear, having a man "underneath you", "perfumed intimate lady wipes", the lack of nipples on mannequins, taking someone "up the Regal", and a pussy having a sneezing fit. It's silly, camp nonsense, performed just like a pantomime.

The show is immediately followed by a modern revival of Porridge, in which a bunch of misguided people think they can replace Ronnie Barker and co. Both left me feeling vaguely depressed. Sunday night TV is supposed to be cosy, soothing the approach of the damp and dreary Monday! No such luck here.

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.

AYBS? made Mrs Brown's Boys look like Wodehouse

It was presumably aiming for the broad appeal of Mrs Brown, but instead of primetime BBC One, this felt like lunchtime UK Gold.

Why the original Are You Being Served? was so true

Ahead of Derren Litten's take on the classic sitcom, we ask: what would it actually be like to work at Grace Brothers?

Are You Being Served? review

Every joke is predictable, tired or forced. 'Do you know Simple Minds?' Mrs Brahms asks of Mrs Slocombe, talking about the 1980s band. 'No, but I've worked with a few.' The studio audience guffaw at everything.