Viewers Are you being too reserved?
Comedy chiefs have been accused of short changing viewers – after cutting a string of saucy quips from the BBC’s remake of Are You Being Served?
Last Sunday’s show has been panned by viewers as more “bargain basement” than Grace Brothers.
It has been revealed more than 20 gags in the 46-page script were “blue pencilled”– even axing l ines f rom favourite Mrs Slocombe.
A source said: “Bosses are terrified about political correctness – the final script was watered down. One joke went too far but others should have been included.
“It might have actually been funny then.”
One saving grace was the axing of a line four minutes into the show in which the elderly Mr Grainger spots a boy of 14 shopping in his department and announces: “If you will excuse me, I appear to have some interest in teenagers’ trousers.”
But other gags that were judged to not measure up for the 30-minute show were more harmlessly titillating.
One invol ved Mr s Slocombe and Miss Brahms – Loose Women’s Sherrie Hewson, 65, and Catherine Tate star Niky Wardley, 43 – discussing a customer’s 48DD bust, saying: “I wanted to say to her, it’s not a bra you need, it’s a wheelbarrow.”
In another, Mr Rumbold refers to a “personal vibro massager” allegedly bought by Captain Peacock.
Five million people tuned in for the revamped sitcom, written by Benidorm creator Derren Litten.