BACK BEHIND BARS
KEVIN BISHOP is banged up again as Porridge returns for a full series
WE COULDN’T BELIEVE OUR LUCK when Tv&satellite Week was offered the chance to visit the set of Porridge in Manchester earlier this year. After walking through HMP Wakeley’s cafeteria, kitchen and the prison governor’s office, we finally reached a line of cells, before we found Kevin Bishop perched on his character’s bunk, looking every inch Ronnie Barker’s grandson.
classic sitcom
Following the success of last year’s pilot, the show has been given a full, six-part series, beginning this week, in which Bishop stars as Nigel ‘Fletch’ Fletcher, the descendant of the great comedian’s character from the classic 1970s sitcom.
‘I had a feeling the BBC might want to do a full series because the set is really expensive,’ laughs Bishop, who’s best-known for his comedy sketch series The Kevin Bishop Show. ‘And when you add it to the fact that we’re revisiting one of Britain’s most memorable sitcoms, there was a lot of pressure on the pilot to be successful.
‘I loved the original and, initially, I was nervous about filling Ronnie Barker’s shoes,’ he adds. ‘So I’m glad we are doing a new version set in the modern day and not a straight remake. I had nothing but positive feedback from the public after the pilot, which was overwhelming.’
A lot of that is down to Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who created the original show over 40 years ago, and who have joined forces once again to write the new series. They might now both be in their eighties, but they haven’t lost their comedy touch and the new series retains the spirit of the old show while bringing the format into the modern day.
‘Dick and Ian have done a great job,’ explains Mark Bonnar, who plays Fletch’s arch-nemesis, prison warden Officer Meekie. ‘In the original there was a kind of father-son relationship between Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale’s Godber. Now, Fletch and his older cellmate, Joe, have something similar, but it’s flipped around because this time the younger one is brighter than the older one, which is clever. The show has the same DNA.’
‘I had nothing but positive feedback from the public after the pilot’ KEVIN BISHOP
live audience
An important part of that DNA is the studio audience. For Bonnar, last seen in hit Channel 4 comedy Catastrophe, the experience was a refreshing change of pace.
‘It’s a really rewarding process,’ he says. ‘It’s a fantastic feeling when you land a line and the audience responds. After the success of Mrs Brown’s Boys, traditional comedies are making a bit of a comeback. They’re in fashion more, but you can’t do it without quality writing.
‘Ian and Dick have a beautiful way with words that leaps off the page, although there are certainly a few tongue twisters. Some of the lines drive you mad while you’re learning them – and need quite a few takes before we get it right.’