Hours and hours of good comedy still await
With all the reality TV and ‘stale’ programmes on screen now, you would think that TVNZ would have snapped up the episodes of the new series of the classic Open All Hours. The new series Still Open All Hours has been in production, successfully, since the Christmas Special in 2013 – yet TVNZ has never screened it and it is now in its fifth season. It is written by the original writer, who also wrote Last Of The Summer Wine and Keeping Up Appearances – both of which were extremely popular. It just seems that unless a programme has death, sex, swearing, violence, drugs, or other equally ‘dark’ storylines, nobody at TVNZ (or any other channel) appears to want good old-fashioned decent comedy any more. I would like to challenge TVNZ, or any of the other TV stations, to screen the new series of the wonderfully written programme and to air it without mucking about with the timeslot. I think it would be great at around 7.30pm on a Sunday evening – end the weekend with a good laugh and maybe even have another screening on a Monday evening at around 7.30pm to start the week off with a good laugh too. Laughter is, after all, the best medicine – especially in winter.
Andrea S (Auckland)
Sky TV replies: Open All Hours will start from series one on Jones! on Friday, July 27 at 8.30pm. We’ve just finished screening series four of Still Open All Hours on Jones!. We also have on Wednesday nights: Dad’s Army, Hi-de-Hi! and You Rang M’Lord and every weeknight we screen ‘Allo ‘Allo! and On The Buses.