Porridge

In 1973, the BBC produced a series of one episode comedies, Seven Of One, all featuring Ronnie Barker, as a different character over the seven shows. In the first episode he played an old shopkeeper called Arkwright !! But in the second, called Prisoner and Escort, we saw, for the first time Norman Stanley Fletcher. A year later the show was re-named Porridge, turned into a series, and one of Britain's best loved sit-coms was born.

Porridge had a relatively short shelf life of 20 episodes over a three year period between 1974 and 1977. The stories were very sharp, with clever and witty plots. With continual TV repeats over the last thirty years, the stories are now firmly stamped into the memory. They do not age. The characters are hugely believable though, of course, comically absurd. Although Slade prison often appears a pretty fun place to be, it also had a grim side, no better delivered to the audience than in the opening credits. There is no music, merely the voice of the judge ( and strangely, that of Ronnie Barker himself ), passing sentence:
"Norman Stanley Fletcher, you have pleaded guilty to the charges brought by this court, and it is now my duty to pass sentence. You are an habitual criminal, who accepts arrest as an occupational hazard, and presumably accepts imprisonment in the same casual manner. We therefore feel constrained to commit you to the maximum term allowed for these offences — you will go to prison for five years." There is the banging sound of a steel door being shut and the turning of a key. As soon as the first scene starts, the viewer really does think he is in prison.

The creators of Porridge were Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who had earlier had great TV successes with The Likely Lads and it's follow up Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? and later on went on to write Auf Wiedersehen Pet. In Porridge they served up a brilliant comedy dish, lovable rogues against the authority of the prison officers. And the show was hugely fortunate with the great cast put together. Ronnie Barker was already an established comic favourite (Porridge and the soon to follow Open All Hours were though to propel him to iconic status as a comedy actor). Fulton Mackay was superb as the strict strutting Prison Officer Mackay. Many of the greatest moments of the series came from the antagonistic wordplay of these two characters (deadpan delivery...........Fletch chewing gum, Mackay shoulders back and chin twitching). If Fletcher and Mackay provided the cynicism, the naivety came from Godber (Richard Beckinsale), serving his first stretch, and Mr Barrowclough (Brian Wilde) the soft and ineffective warden. The other inmates were a fabulous gang : Harry Grout (Peter Vaughan) the feared 'boss' of Slade prison, Ives (Ken Jones) a fraud convict who also happened to be a creep and a snitch, Warren (Sam Kelly) daft as a brush and dyslexic, McClaren (Tony Osoba) angry and volatile, Blanco Webb (David Jason),a very very old wife murderer, Harris (Ronald Lacey) much disliked ginger haired teddy boy, Heslop (Brian Glover) slow and not very bright, Evans (Ray Dunbobbin) who ate light bulbs in order to get a transfer to a hospital, and finally Lukewarm (Christopher Biggins) who cooked and knitted and had a boyfriend called Trevor. A great bunch. What about having that lot round for dinner ? !!

Porridge also had a language of it's own, carefully woven into the scripts in order to get round any swearing from the inmates. Fletcher often used the word naff, as in 'naff off' or 'naff all'. It is easy to guess which alternative term is probably used in most prisons. He also referred to some other inmates (notably Ives and Harris) as nerks , presumably a clever word change from berk. Anybody he considered detestable was a scrote ! All of this allowed the writers to portray prison life as earthy without being offensive to the viewer.

Throughout the series, Fletcher was a crafty character who had developed the talents to survive the traumas of Slade. He was often bad tempered and wasted no time in exploiting weaknesses in others. Because crime and incarceration had been so much part of his life, others looked to him for guidance, especially Godber who was learning the ropes. But there was always a price or trade-off with Fletch, he would want something tangible in return. He had absolutely no time for the losers on his wing and essentially sought as easy and trouble free a life as he could get. Slade had more than it's fair share of trouble however. During the twenty episodes we saw gambling, a riot, a roof top protest, production of illicit alcohol, stealing of drugs and a passport, fixing of a boxing match, and an escape plot amongst other situations. Throughout it all Fletcher managed to duck and dive the real trouble by being one step ahead of both his fellow inmates and the staff. His continual point scoring off Mackay added to this reputation (any victory over authority was worth having however narrow it was). The only character who seemed to unnerve him was Groutie (who had that effect on everyone after all) but you always felt there was a mutual respect in that relationship.

I am not going to attempt to name a favourite episode because in truth they were all very good. The same applies to the characters. A few memories, however, to share from those Thursday evenings from the mid 70's. I thought the character Ives was great. Yes he was a weasel, but I loved the way the Scouser started every new conversation with 'ere listen'. Fletcher despised him. In one episode he said ' Ives is such a loser that if Elizabeth Taylor had triplets, he'd have been the one in the middle on the bottle'. In the first episode, Fletcher is put in the same cell as the dim Heslop who declares, 'I read a book once. Green it was'. And simply , whilst playing Monopoly during association time, Fletcher takes his turn, moves his token and says ' Would you Adam and Eve it ? Go to jail !! ' .

A follow up series called Going Straight was made in 1978. It plotted the life of Fletcher on his release from Slade and his determination to turn his back on crime. Godber also featured as the boyfriend of Fletcher's daughter Ingrid (Patricia Brake). A very young Nicholas Lyndhurst played Fletcher's son Raymond (he was earlier referred to in an episode of Porridge where Fletch tells us Raymond broke into his school and stole exam answers - yet still went on to fail the exam !). However, it lasted only one series and six episodes. Any plans for a future series were abandoned by the tragic death of Richard Beckinsale in March 1979 from a massive heart attack. Three days later, Going Straight won a BAFTA.