6.8 /10 1 Votes
6.2/10 TV Country of origin United Kingdom No. of episodes 29 Final episode date 17 October 1978 Program creator Roy Clarke | 7.4/10 IMDb Created by Roy Clarke No. of series 4 First episode date 30 September 1974 Number of episodes 29 Genre Sitcom | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Directed by Derrick Goodwin (pilot)
Ronnie Baxter (tv series) Starring Bill Maynard
Megs Jenkins
Robert Keegan
Rosemary Martin
Lynda Baron
Richard Davies
Bill Dean
Harold Goodwin
Ray Mort Cast Bill Maynard, Richard Davies, Bill Dean, Megs Jenkins, Lynda Baron Similar The Gaffer, The Beiderbecke Affair, First of the Summer Wine, Get Lost!, The Magnificent Evans | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt! is a ITV situation comedy which ran on the ITV network from 1974 to 1978.
Contents
The series starred Bill Maynard as Selwyn Froggitt, a council labourer, Scarsdale Working Men’s Club secretary, hapless handyman and all-round public nuisance. It was created by Roy Clarke, who wrote the pilot episode transmitted in 1974, although the series was mostly written by Alan Plater, and was made for the ITV network, by Yorkshire Television.
Cast
Plot
Set in the fictional Yorkshire town of Scarsdale, the first three series centred on the bungling exploits of Selwyn Froggitt, a burly, balding, good-natured council labourer (Maynard) usually clad in a donkey jacket, with pretensions to intellectual competence (he carried The Times rolled up in the pocket of his donkey jacket, although was hardly ever seen reading it, preferring to tell people that "There was an article about it in The Times") and an urge to improve his life and that of everyone around him. Froggitt was on the committee of his local working men's club, serving as concert secretary in charge of booking "turns".
Froggitt was fundamentally and spectacularly incompetent at everything he turned his hand to, being equally inept at his day job (digging holes and filling them in), do-it-yourself at home, and booking acts for the club. Nevertheless he was extremely honest and hard-working, unlike the other committee members, who usually sat back in comfort while Froggitt did the manual labour. They generally despised him but tolerated him because he was too stupid to realise how dishonest they were.
The show featured a number of catchphrases: Selwyn's "Magic!" accompanied by two thumbs up; and his usual order at the club was, "A pint of cooking and a bag of nuts." (Although at virtually every opportunity whilst in the bar Selwyn would order at least one bag of nuts, he would rarely, if ever, be seen eating the nuts). Raymond the barman (Ray Mort) was fond of answering the telephone with a number of highly fictitious and fanciful addresses. All decisions taken by the club committee were taken on a "Show of hands..." and "Carried unanimously". Another running gag was Selwyn's mum saying "I wish you wouldn't open that cupboard Selwyn, things fall out!" whenever he opened the cupboard in the Froggitt front room upon which a flow of objects would fall onto the floor.
Froggitt's colleagues on the committee included the dour Scouser Jack (Bill Dean), Harry (Harold Goodwin) and excitable, stereotypical Welshman Clive (Richard Davies). His brother Maurice was played by Robert Keegan.
The show's humour included a fair measure of slapstick alongside Plater's typical northern humour. Mainly shot at Yorkshire Television Studios on Kirkstall Road, Leeds, whilst outdoor location filming for the series took place in Skelmanthorpe, West Yorkshire and Elvington, North Yorkshire.
In the fourth (and final) series, the format of the show changed radically. This version of the series was entitled Selwyn; all of the regular cast from the first three series (bar Maynard) left the show, to focus on and persue other TV work.
During the final series, The Froggitt character became entertainments manager at a seedy holiday camp on the east coast. Plater was no longer involved with the series, but with disappointing audience reactions; a planned fifth series was cancelled.
Pilot (1974)
DVD release
All four series of Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt! have been released on DVD. A four-disc set of the complete series of both complete series titles has also been released.