Are You Being Served? ** (1977, John Inman, Mollie Sugden, Frank Thornton, Trevor Bannister, Wendy Richard) – Classic Movie Review 9821

Director Bob Kellett’s relatively harmless 1977 British comedy Are You Being Served? is the big-screen spinoff from the much-loved long-running BBC TV series as the staff of the London Grace Brothers department store flies off to the Spanish coast resort of Costa Plonka and get into trouble with a revolution.

The script by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft is as strained as some of the jokes over 90 minutes, and the good-humoured but stale-smelling comedy is dated. But fans of talented comics Mollie Sugden (Mrs Slocombe), John Inman (Mr Humphries), Frank Thornton (Captain Peacock) and Nicholas Smith (Mr Rumbold) won’t be disappointed in this okay souvenir of the show.

It also features Trevor Bannister as Mr Lucas, Wendy Richard as Miss Brahms, Arthur English as Mr Harman, Arthur Brough as Mr Grainger and Harold Bennett as Young Mr Grace.

The series ran 10 seasons from 1972 to 1985. It was resurrected as Grace & Favour [Are You Being Served? Again!] for the short-lived sequel TV series (1992–1993). 

Also in the cast are Glyn Houston, Andrew Sachs, Derek Griffiths, Sheila Steafel, Karan David, Nadim Sawalha, Penny Irving, Monica Grey and Jennifer Granville.

It is made by Anglo-EMI Film Distributors and shot almost entirely at Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England, apart from the brief airport sequence of the cast boarding their plane.

John Inman was named BBC TV Personality of the Year in 1976. He entered into a civil partnership with Ron Lynch, his life partner of 33 years, on December 27, 2005.

Andrew Sachs was cast as Don Carlos Bernardo, the Spanish manager of Costa Plonka’s Don Barnardo Palace, to capitalise on his fame as Manuel in Fawlty Towers.

The script is adapted from the TV series’s stage version that ran at the Blackpool Winter Gardens from June to October 1976, but also reuses gags and setups from the TV show, including the plot from the first season’s episode Dear Sexy Knickers…

Croft and Lloyd’s book of the film was published in October 1977 by Everest Books. So they got a TV series, a stage show, a film, a book and a TV series sequel out of it.

Unfortunately the Costa Plonka holiday location in Spain is as fictional as the Spanish resort of Elsbels on the Costa Packet in Carry On Abroad so no need to look for it on the map.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9821

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