That’s TV has started showing Grace and Favour, the 90s sequel series to Are You Being Served. The show, billed as Are You Being Served! Again?, began on Monday the 29th of January 2024.
Are You Being Served was first broadcast as a Comedy Playhouse pilot in 1972. In 1973, the first series began. The show eventually ran for 70 episodes over 10 series. With characters who became enduring favourites, like Mr Humphreys (John Inman), Mrs Slocombe (Mollie Sugden), Captain Peacock (Frank Thornton) and Miss Brahms (Wendy Richard), the show followed a staff of retail assistants in a department store. Are You Being Served? was packed full of innuendo and catchphrases, the most enduring of which must surely be Inman’s “I’m free!”.
After the workers discover their pensions have been used elsewhere, they take on one of the assets, a country house with a view to turning it into a business. Along for the ride are Mr Humphreys, Mrs Slocombe, Captain Peacock, Miss Brahms and Mr Rumbold, with the added characters of their former boss’ mistress Miss Lovelock, as well as the groundsman Mr Moulterd and his daughter Mavis.
David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd, the writers of the original series, resumed their duties for the sequel, a total of 12 episodes over 2 series.
