6.4 /10 1 Votes
5.9/10 TV Country of origin Australia No. of episodes 16 Final episode date 1981 Number of episodes 16 | 7/10 IMDb Directed by Bob Spiers No. of series 2 First episode date 1980 Network Network Ten Program creators David Croft, Jeremy Lloyd | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Created by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft Starring John Inman
June Bronhill
Shane Bourne
Christine Amor Cast John Inman, Shane Bourne, Christine Amor Similar Grace & Favour, Beane's of Boston, Oh Happy Band!, Which Way to the War, Come Back Mrs Noah | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Australian version of British sitcom Are You Being Served? was produced by Network Ten in 1980. A total of 16 episodes were produced in two series, which aired in 1980 and 1981. The draw-card was the presence of actor John Inman reprising his role of Mr. Humphries from the original series. The other characters were all directly based on the regular characters in the show's original version, but were all given new names.
Contents
In comparison to the original series, Inman described this version of the series as "tighter - there's less padding."
For the opening theme, Inman himself performed vocals.
Premise
Mr Humphries (Inman) is sent to Australia by Old Mr. Grace to work temporarily for his Australian cousin Mr. Bone at Bone Brothers. Apart from the new setting and Australian rather than British characters, the characters and situation were almost identical to that of the original series, as were the set design and layout and even the costuming (down to the senior sales woman's ever-changing hair colours and the female assistants' uniforms). Menswear and ladies apparel shared a floor of a large city department store and the departments came into regular conflict. The staff on the floor were the pompous floor-walker Captain Wagstaff (Reg Gillam), crusty senior salesman Mr Mankowitz (Anthony Bazell), randy sales junior Mr Randel (Shane Bourne), strident older sales woman Mrs Crawford (June Bronhill) and attractive but brassy and common younger sales woman Miss Buxton (Judith Woodroffe). Basil Clarke portrayed the store's owner Mr Bone, Reg Evans was the obnoxious cleaner Mr Cocker, Kerry Daniel played a nurse, and Tracey Kelly was Bone's attractive secretary.
Episode list
Except for "Undesirable Alien", the plot of each episode is based on the corresponding episode of the original series.
Season 1
Season 2
Legacy
The series never ran outside of Australia and thus wasn't seen in the UK or other countries where Are You Being Served? was popular, such as Ireland, the United States, Canada, and New Zealand.
The series has not been repeated on Australian television since the early 1980s. (The UK original Are You Being Served? had been repeated by ABC Television in Australia several times. By 1978 it had been repeated by Channel Seven in Australia to even larger audiences.)
In a recurring joke on the radio show Get This, it was stated that only the loss of the master tapes for the series is preventing its release on DVD. The National Film and Sound Archive does in fact contain copies of each episode in its vault.