On working with his comedy heroes in a reboot of Porridge
As a child, Kevin Bishop roared at Ronnie Barker in Porridge. Now he is starring in the remake, he tells Daphne Lockyer
Strictly speaking, Kevin Bishop looks nothing like Ronnie Barker – or, indeed, Norman Stanley Fletcher, aka Fletch, the character Barker immortalised in Porridge. For starters, the comedian and actor is trim and toned, thanks to swimming every day, in all weathers, off Brighton beach. Unlike Fletch – an instant-coffee man, surely – Bishop wavers between an Americano and a kale smoothie in the trendy King’s Road café where we meet.
And yet ... There is a certain cheeky spark, a quick-witted twinkle in the eye, that is absolutely Fletch – “a savant amongst numpties,” as Bishop describes him – who is forever languishing at Her Majesty’s pleasure in the fictitious Slade prison.
No wonder he got the immediate thumbs up from comedy writing greats Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, when they were casting around for someone to play Nigel Fletcher – grandson of the original – for a one-off episode as part of the BBC’s Landmark Sitcom season, which is also rebooting other seminal shows, including Are You Being Served? and Steptoe and Son.
“I was incredibly nervous, and trying not to gush, because these two are my comedy heroes and Porridge was my favourite sitcom of all time,” Bishop says.
“I used to watch it with my own granddad and the pair of us would sit there howling with laughter. I have a real emotional connection to that show and I think it’s genius. But my fear, my real terror, was that these two would take one look at me and say, ‘Well, he’s not right for the part, is he? We don’t like him. Next!’.”
Open, affable and funny, 36-year- old Bishop is next set to play Nigel Farage (“a gift to parody”) in a one-off mockumentary, but he has been entertaining people since he was a child star.
“One of my first jobs was tapdancing in a panto with Ronnie Corbett,” he says. “Sadly, I never got to meet Ronnie Barker, although I wish I had. Growing up, I always loved The Two Ronnies and it had a huge influence on my own comedy.”
The Kevin Bishop Show, which aired on Channel 4 for two series in 2008-9, received a record level of complaints for a parody of the holocaust story Sophie’s Choice and a musical sketch called Fred West Side Story.
The new episode of Porridge won’t be so controversial. It’s set in 2016, with Fletch’s grandson doing time for the modern crime of cyber fraud. “It’s a different world, in that the prison doors are automated and there are gags about computers and mobile phones. But, in other ways, it’s exactly the same claustrophobic universe that, when you think about it, underpins every successful sitcom from Steptoe and Son to The Office.”
Modern comedians – himself included – have much to learn from craftsmen like Clement and La Frenais, he admits. During the rehearsal process, the well-seasoned cast, including Mark Bonnar ( Catastrophe) as Fletcher’s nemesis Officer Meekie and Ralph Ineson ( The Office) as prison bad boy Richie Weeks, raised questions.
“On one level we were all humbled and terrified to be involved in the remake of, probably, the best sitcom ever written. But we’re also a bunch of cynical London comics, so it wasn’t long before we were putting our oar in, suggesting ways of making it ‘funnier’.
“Fortunately, the producer said, ‘Listen guys, I’m not emailing Clement and La Frenais and suggesting changes. Just trust them.’ And the night we recorded the episode live, in front of a tough Salford audience, the laughter started as soon as I came on stage and cracked the first gag. Then it bubbled and rolled right through the episode. The laughter you hear isn’t canned. It’s a genuine response to the writing of two men, one aged 78, the other 80, still at the height of their comedy writing powers.”
Born in Orpington, Kent, Bishop is the eldest of five children. “My mum is from a big, Irish Catholic family, the youngest of 14 children. When the whole lot of us get together, I’d say I am easily the least funny person in the entire room.
“Everyone in my family’s a natural comedian. But I was the one who went to a drama club and got picked up from there and found myself in the West End at the age of 11. So now, I don’t know how to do anything else.”
Not that it’s all been beer and skittles. Aged 12, Bishop was working on the children’s TV series Grange Hill, and being bullied whenever he returned to his real school in Orpington. “I didn’t realise at that age that it was because they were jealous that I was on TV and I was earning money. I just thought I was a dislikeable person, or that there was something wrong with me.”
After Grange Hill, he was cast alongside Billy Connolly and Jennifer Saunders in Muppet Treasure Island and has worked consistently since.
Recently, he had a stint in Hollywood, upping sticks with his wife Casta, a photographer, and their two daughters, now aged seven and four, to co-star with Rebel Wilson in her comedy show, Super Fun Night, which was cancelled after one season.
“I was happy to stay in LA, but my wife, who I’ve been with since the age of 20, is a lot wiser than me. She said, ‘These are our children’s formative years and this place is nuts. We’re going back to Brighton.’
“I resented it at the time, but looking back she was right. In LA you can go out dressed in pink denim and a cowboy hat and they’ll say, ‘I love what you’re doing with that colour!’
“In England, though, people will give you the truth, as they see it, with both barrels, and as a comedian and a cynical b-----d myself, I like it.” Porridge is on BBC One at 9.30pm on Sunday