“Are You Being Served?” – 1972

Director
Ray Butt
David Croft
Jeremy Lloyd
Bob Spiers
Bernard Thompson

Writer(s)
Jeremy Lloyd (creator) and
David Croft (creator)
John T. Chapman writer
David Croft writer
Michael Knowles writer
Jeremy Lloyd writer

Producer(s)
David Croft executive producer
David Croft producer
Martin Shardlow producer
Harold Snoad producer
Bob Spiers producer
Mike Stevens producer

Cast
Mollie Sugden – Mrs. Betty Slocombe
John Inman – Mr. Wilberforce Claybourne Humphries
Frank Thornton – Captain Stephen Peacock
Wendy Richard – Miss Shirley Brahms
Nicholas Smith – Mr. Cuthbert Rumbold
Trevor Bannister – Mr. James/Dick Lucas
Alfie Bass – Mr. Harry Goldberg
Harold Bennett – Young Mr. Grace

Review by Theo Robertson

Are You Being Served? (1977)
Even More Dated Than The TV Series,

This is a seventies film spin off to a sit-com more memorable for its characters at Grace Bros clothing store than its jokes: Mr Humphries ( A camp homosexual ) Ms Brahms ( A slutty single girl ) Mr Harman ( a sleazy janitor ) Mr Lucas ( A jack the lad ) Captain Peacock ( An uptight former military man ) and of course Mrs Slocombe where many of the jokes revolve around her losing her cat – ” Has anyone seen my pussy ? ” In short it’s a comedy that relied on two dimensional characters and innuendo , British humour at its most basic and unsophisticated . It might have been funny at the time but it probably wouldn’t raise too many smiles now

As most people noticed this is a very poor film version of the TV series . The first third of the running time is taken up with the characters working at grace brothers clothing store then the action switches to the holiday resort of Costa Plonka and a plot involving a rebel leader about to stage a revolution , but this is secondary to things like a comedy of errors involving Mr Lucas sending a dirty note to Ms Brahms only for Mrs Slocombe to receive it thinking it’s from Captain Peacock . This type of humour is very dated now and while Benny Hill might still remain funny , I can’t say I laughed much watching this