Going Up...
Space Time Visualiser: 5th May 1976
Today, the Space Time Visualiser travels back 35 years to the transmission of an episode of Are You Being Served?.
The recent loss of Trevor Bannister, best known for his portrayal of Mr. Lucas in Are You Being Served?, struck me as rather sad for a number of reasons. For one, his passing marks the latest in a recent string of actors from that series – John Inman, Wendy Richard, Mollie Sugden – to have boarded the lift to that harps and halos department in the sky. During the early 1980s it seemed as though one could set one’s watch by the passing of the stars of Dad’s Army. Today, it seems equally cosmically fashionable to deprive us of members of the Grace Brothers family.
And I do not use the word ‘family’ frivolously in my description of Are You Being Served?’s cast. Over the course of ten series (admittedly at least four too many), the series’ stars and characters developed a close bond and a level of familiarity rarely achieved on television. In part, this was due to the show’s setting, which was routed in the real-life experiences of creators David Croft and Jermy Lloyd. Desperate for a sellable idea after returning from his stint as a stateside performer in Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In, Lloyd thought back to his earlier experiences working for Simpson’s department store in Piccadilly. Early episodes of the series, co-written with sitcom veteran David Croft, drew upon real-life experiences; particularly the rigid pecking order of life in the store. As is the tradition of British sitcom, Are You Being Served? would gain laughs by forcing together the working, middle and upper classes.
Despite a poorly received pilot, the series was helped to a full series by a number of well-documented coincidences and soon found its feet as one of the BBC’s flagship comedies. To my mind the key to this success lay in the fact that, while Lloyd’s original concept centred on the workplace, Are You Being Served?’s cast of characters developed over time into an extended non-biological family whom viewers were keen to spend time with. The eventual shift from workmates to kooky kinfolk wasn’t unprecedented and the construction of the evolved-through-circumstance family within the sitcom isn’t unique to Are You Being Served?. In fact, it’s hard to find a David Croft production that doesn’t cover similar ground. Dad’s Army offers us Captain Mainwarings platoon who meet every evening and who would gladly die for one another. It Aint Half Hot Mum sees a regiment under the abusive paternal eye of Winsor Davies. Hi-Di-Hi throws its Yellowcoats together in chalets and even ‘Allo ‘Allo! finds Gordon Kaye besieged with houseguests, many having to pose as non existent members of his family in order to evade capture by the Gestapo.
As outlandish as the Are You Being Served? got, with its midnight sleepovers in the home furnishing department and its elaborate minstrel pageants, the characters’ familial bond is not totally removed from the reality of employment. After all, many of us probably spend more time at work than at home with members of our family and afterall, just like relatives, we can’t choose our colleagues.
Few of the characters in Are You Being Served? were actually related to one another, but literally everything we learned of their personal lives was offered to us through the context of their working lives. To the staff of Grace Brothers, their department was, at times, literally a second home. This may mainly be due to budget restrictions, but, despite existing for the most part within the confines of one floor of a department store, we see the Are You Being Served family go through an awful lot of identifiable family rituals; a youngster leaving the nest (Mr Lucas’ departure), the loss of an elderly member of the group (Mr Granger’s departure), divorce (Captain Peacock’s wife leaves him), a summer holiday (The Movie), and a slightly awkward family reunion (Grace and Favour) – all take place under the benevolent patriarchal eye of Harold Bennett’s ‘Young’ Mr Grace.
The episode Fifty Years On, first broadcast on the 5th May 1976, is a good illustration of this familiarity. When the staff are unsubtly tipped off to the fact that Mrs. Slocombe’s birthday is approaching they decided to mark the occasion. A whip-round is organised, but of course in Croft and Lloyd’s world this is not enough so an elaborate celebration is staged with a custom cake and a carefully rehearsed rendition of Happy Birthday. No night out is staged, we don’t find out any of Mrs. Slocombe’s plans for the evening and the entire episode takes place within the confines of the store. Capturing the awkwardness of workplace birthdays, it transpires that the staff aren’t sure as to either Mrs. Slocombe’s age or full name – and why should they? They do, however, care enough to find out. These details are discovered during the course of the episode and, in turn, passed on, inviting us to feel part of the group.
The episode captures the awkward, but well-intentioned nature of workplace “events”. We’ve all been there; pretending to care about baby pictures, bidding elderly colleagues a fond farewell, sitting in the corner of a wedding reception with only your boss and that cleaner you spoke to once for company. We’ve all been thrown together with people we might not otherwise seek out and befriend and these situation can often lead to lasting rapports. I’m not going to claim that Are You Being Served? deserves a place in the canon of British realist television, but I think it got the friendships and families that develop through employment spot on.
