5.2 /10 1 Votes
Country of origin United Kingdom Running time 30 minutes Original release 5 June – 17 July 1972 Final episode date 17 July 1972 Number of episodes 7 | 5.2/10 TV No. of episodes 7 Original network BBC2 First episode date 5 June 1972 Network BBC Genres Comedy, Sitcom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Starring Ronnie Barker
Josephine Tewson
David Jason
Mary Baxter
Moira Foot
Frank Gatliff Cast Ronnie Barker, David Jason, Josephine Tewson Similar Hark at Barker, Six Dates with Barker, Seven of One, Lucky Feller, Clarence | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
His Lordship Entertains was Ronnie Barker's second sitcom vehicle for his Lord Rustless character, first seen three years earlier in Hark at Barker on ITV. This time though, Rustless had switched channels and was now appearing on BBC2. Hark at Barker had also included sketch inserts, whereas His Lordship Entertains was a regular sitcom.
Set again in the aristocratic Chrome Hall, which had now become a hotel. It again also starred David Jason as the 100-year-old Dithers and Josephine Tewson as Mildred Bates, two actors who would go on to have long working relationships with Barker. In fact all of the regular cast reprised their roles from Hark at Barker.
Barker wrote all the scripts under the pseudonym Jonathan Cobbald. [1]. He liked to refer to the show as "Fawlty Towers mark one" as it appeared on television three years before that other hotel bound sitcom.
Four episodes of the sitcom were recently performed on stage by Nottingham University's New Theatre.
Archive status
For many years it was thought that the series had been entirely lost after the tapes were wiped by the BBC. However, the first episode of His Lordship Entertains, 'The Food Inspector', was recovered in 2009. In addition the scripts were published in Ronnie Barker's anthology All I Ever Wrote.