Series / Open All Hours

Arkwright, Nurse Gladys and Granville.

"Ger-Granville! F-f-f-fetch yer cloth!"

A late 1970s to mid-1980s sitcom by Roy Clarke (Last of the Summer Wine, Keeping Up Appearances). Along with Porridge, it was based on one of the more successful items from a series of sitcom try-out pilots by Ronnie Barker called Seven of One.

The miserly, late-middle-aged Arkwright (first name unknown; in one episode Granville calls him 'Albert' but the situation suggests he may have made it up) runs a general store in Balby, a suburb of Doncaster (both the shop and the street are real life places). An Honest John, he prides himself on never letting anyone leave his shop without buying something, and seems to take more pleasure in the thrill of the chase than becoming rich. His work obsession causes friction between him and his love interest/fianceé Nurse Gladys Emmanuel, a buxom midwife whom Arkwright attempts to convince to finally marry him (or at least to let him have his way with her.)

Arkwright is aided and abetted by his long-suffering nephew Granville, possibly the son of a displaced Hungarian noble and certainly the son of a woman whose promiscuity is the butt of many of Arkwright's jokes, whose romantic and exotic dreams are invariably crushed by the grim reality of life in 1970s South Yorkshire.

Ronnie Barker played Arkwright (a very common remark is that it's hard to believe he was simultaneously playing the very different character of Fletcher in Porridge) while Granville was one of the first major roles of a young David Jason (who also played the very old Blanco in Porridge!). Production was done on a very small budget, with the result that the vast majority of the show takes place on the same shop set - this arguably forced the programme to devote its full attention to the verbal comedy, which is often praised.

Barker also contributed Arkwright's famous stutter (absent in the original scripts). The character himself lampshades it at times:

Arkwright: Ger-granville? How do you spell per-per-per-per-peppers? Is it six P's or seven?

Ran for 4 series and 26 episodes, although there were actually thirteen years between the pilot and the final episode, and nine years between the first and last series.

Came eighth in Britains Best Sitcom.

After a successful one-off Revival episode in 2013 which scored the Christmas week's highest ratings, a full fifth series titled Still Open All Hours and featuring several of the original cast was commissioned, beginning on Boxing Day 2014. In this, Granville has taken over the shop following Arkwright's death... and has picked up a few of his mannerisms along the way.

---

Contains examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Mrs. Featherstone to Arkwright and Granville. Arkwright tends to squirm when she's around and Granville fears her after a case of miscommunication, she kisses him.
• Anchored Ship: In "The Housekeeper Caper" Arkwright openly bemoans that he and Nurse Gladys have been engaged for six years, but they are no closer to getting to the altar then than he was at the start. The bone of contention seems to be that it is Gladys who is doing the delaying, waiting for her elderly mother to pass away before going forward.
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: Twice, in "Well-Catered Funeral" and "Shedding at the Wedding", does Arkwright hint at knowing about Nurse Gladys's mother's funeral arrangements and take glee in anticipation of her going up in flames. Naturally, to Nurse Gladys it's a Berserk Button, a fact which gets discussed when Arkwright brings it up to Granville in the latter episode.
  Granville: I'm going to tell the Nurse you said that!
  Arkwright: You keep your v-virgin trap shut, you! She'd k-kill me if she heard me say that; she's very fond of her dear old mother, you know.
• Awful Wedded Life: The arguments, infidelities and miseries of just about every single couple who lives in the area make up a large part of the show's humour in both the original and revival.
• Black Comedy: In "Beware of the Dog", after the till nearly chops Arkwright's fingers off yet again, a nonplussed Granville suggests in reaction that he make funeral arrangements for his fingers, because sooner or later the till's gonna take them.
• Blackface: In "Horse Trading", Arkwright blacks up Granville and dresses him in a sari.
• Butt-Monkey: Gastric
• Catchphrase: "Granville! Fetch your cloth!"
• Chick Magnet: In contrast to his father when he was his age, Leroy is considerably more successful with women (to the point he borders on being The Casanova). He normally has a new date or two every episode. Somehow he even manages to convince two of them to help him out with his deliveries. Mrs. Hussain barely makes any effort to hide her interest in him. The trouble is, most of the women turn out to have much larger boyfriends who want to kill him when they find out.
• Christmas Special: The ten-minute special "Open All Seasons", which aired as part of 1982's The Funny Side of Christmas. On Christmas morning, Granville is looking forward to dinner at Nurse Gladys's, but Arkwright is annoyed that her mother is still alive. Granville also reveals he is having tea later with the newly separated 'Wavy Mavis'. In the typical closing thought, Arkwright bemoans the fact that Jesus was born on a Bank Holiday, resulting in his having to close the shop.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Despite being the third main character in the original series and a major character for the first two seasons, Nurse Gladys Emmanuelle disappears without mention in season three of the revival.
• Couch Gag: The opening sequence always depicts Arkwright doing something different (e.g. looking for bird poop or trying to paint the word "P-P-P-P-PEPPER" on his storefront window). Granville's reaction is always the same.
• Dirty Old Woman: Mrs. Featherstone in the revival. While to all her husbands and to Mr. Newbold she is the very picture of ice, she is always throwing herself at Granville to his obvious displeasure.
• The Ditz: Wavy Mavis. When she was asked why she married her ex-husband when she knew he was terrible from the start, she revealed that he told her she was pregnant.
• Dodgy Toupee: One of the odd products Mark Williams salesman character attempts to peddle to Granville in Still Open All Hours is a range of dodgy toupees for the customer too embarrassed to consult a hair loss professional but who might impulse buy one at the counter of his local shop.
• Does Not Like Men:
  • An early episode of the original series features a customer who believes that men are difficult to live with from age 14 until they die.
  • The revival has Mavis's sister Madge, whose failed relationships have embittered her on the entire male sex. Granville keeps attempting to set her up with Gastric in order to give himself a clear run at Mavis.
• Dog Walks You: A recurring gag involves a local man sticking his head into the shop but being yanked away by his massive dog before Granville can find out what it was he came in for.
• Dragged into Drag: Granville, when Arkwright sends him to buy back some clotheshorses from a rival storekeeper. As said storekeeper is Indian, Granville's disguise is appropriately Indian. Hilarity Ensues when Granville returns with the clotheshorses just as Arkwright is dealing with a couple of irascible male customers...
• Due to the Dead: Knowing Parslow's typical shopping habits, Arkwright has his deceased old friend's funeral cortege stop by his store before the body is burned. He ends up taking so long talking with Granville while he's inside that it takes a couple of horn honks for him to return to the cortege.
• Eccentric Townsfolk: About half of the customers.
• Everyone Has Standards: Arkwright, who takes pride in ensuring his customers buy something from his store whether they want to or not and is perfectly willing to go along with one customer's unspoken plan to subject her husband to a perfect murder involving poison, reacts with a degree of disgust when she remarks that she needs some fire lighters, reminding her that she shouldn't burn him alive.
  Arkwright: You're supposed to wait until he's dead first!
• Expy:
  • Kathy Staff's character Mrs Blewitt is, as the actress herself noted in a making-of documentary, essentially the same character as the one she plays in Last of the Summer Wine, Nora Batty (also written by Clarke).
  • A reverse example - Last of the Summer Wine got the character of Auntie Wainwright, who is an obvious gender-flipped expy of Arkwright (and note the similar name) but less sympathetic and with the 'sell anything to anyone' ability turned up to eleven.
• The Faceless: Mr Bristow, never seen outside his motorcycle helmet and leathers. Actually, The Voiceless, too. Come to think of it, are we sure he isn't The Stig?
• Failure Is the Only Option: The series is oddly depressing because of it.
• Gasshole: Gastric, has an easily upset stomach, causing him to often belch (especially when he hasn’t eaten for a while) hence his nickname. The actual effect is downplayed, compared to most examples, but it is still there.
• Generation Xerox: Still Open All Hours shows that Granville did inherit the shop as promised and he's become a lot like Arkwright, with his son Leroy in his former position. He even pokes fun at the identity of Leroy's mother, just like Arkwright did with him.
• Heroic BSoD: Once, Granville tells the till that a potential customer got away, and it responds by slowly closing shut.
• Honest John's Dealership: Arkwright and later, Granville as well.
• Hurricane of Euphemisms: Pretty much everything Arkwright says to Nurse Gladys is riddled with Unusual Euphemisms.
• Inner Monologue: Arkwright has several thoughts on the day as he starts closing up shop. Usually it's about charging people more than what he should have. Granville continues the tradition in Still Open All Hours
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Arkwright very occasionally shows a soft side, such as giving a free treat to a young boy running an errand for his mother or letting Granville leave a little early to go on a date. Arkwright also did leave the shop to Granville as he continually said he would during the original series
• Kick the Dog: Arkwright will occasionally let Granville eat something from the shop, only to charge his own nephew full price once he started eating.
• Last-Second Word Swap: Occasionally used by Arkwright, such as when he suspected a former lover of Nurse Gladys Emmanuel had returned:
  "Oh, sh- sh- sh- sherbet dabs!"
• Like a Son to Me: Though not obvious at first glance it becomes clear in the series and in the revival that Arkwright sees Granville as his son, as he openly says that he will bequeath the shop to Granville, which he does.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • Arkwright is highly skilled in conning people into buying useless junk, especially strangers or newcomers to the area. On one occasion he even manages to sell trayloads of groceries to a professional salesman - without, of course, ever buying any of the gentleman's products in turn.
  • Granville has clearly picked up a few tricks, as he shows in "Still Open All Hours."
• Mars and Venus Gender Contrast: Much like Roy Clarke’s other series, Last of the Summer Wine, this makes up a lot of the show’s humour in the revival, benefiting from its much larger recurring cast.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: Arkwright > Granville > Leroy
• The Matchmaker: Granville for Gastric and Madge, largely so that with Madge out of the way, he can pursue Mavis.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: Granville and Mavis are keen to rekindle their feelings after she got divorced, but her sister Madge is even keener to keep him away.
• Newspaper-Thin Disguise: In Still Open All Hours, Granville tasks Leroy with tailing a local to find out where he is doing his shopping. Leroy does so clutching a magazine in front of his face as cover.
• Nephewism: Played straight with Arkwright and Granville, averted in the revival where Granville has a son, Leroy
• Not So Above It All: Nurse Gladys Emmanuelle is the most sensible character, but even she can’t stop herself from taking some joy out of Arkwright’s more comedic gambits. She also actively participates in one of Granville's pranks on Arkwright involving Mrs. Featherstone.
• Not What It Looks Like:
  • Mr Bristow's head is stuck in his helmet, so Granville bends him over the counter and Arkwright produces a large axe (intending to prise it off with the handle)...then one of his best customers walks in.
  • Leroy is about to bring out some trays of tomatoes for the outside display when he walks right into Mrs. Hussain and falls right on top of her...then Granville comes outside.
• Oh, Crap!: In "Well-Catered Funeral", Arkwright has a subdued yet audible reaction (read: he sings it during the hymn, and Nurse Gladys takes the first opportunity to sing her response) during the service when he realizes that he forgot to bring some money of his own along for the collection plate.
• Once an Episode: In the revival, Granville points to Arkwright's portrait and quotes him (stutter and all) near the middle of every episode. Gets downgraded to being a running gag as the series goes on though.
• Only Sane Woman: Nurse Gladys Emmanuelle, undisputedly the most down to earth and reasonable character in both series, is also one of the few who isn’t fooled by Arkwright’s tactics.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Gastric, to the point his actual name hasn’t been revealed yet.
• Operation: Jealousy: The episode "The Housekeeper Caper"; Arkwright launches an ambitious plan to make Nurse Gladys jealous using an advert for a live-in housekeeper, banking on the thought of another woman under his roof making her want to rush him to the altar. Unfortunately Nurse Gladys can not only read him like a book, but also quite likes watching his schemes fall apart.
• Out-Gambitted: Only once. Arkwright tried to swindle a seemingly naïve Indian shopkeeper into buying useless wooden clothes horses. However, the man was revealed to be playing him and made the fact his shop still stocked wooden clothes horses a big part of his advertising, claiming he had the most traditional shop in all of Yorkshire. Arkwright was thus forced into buy several back.
• Pest Episode: In "An Errand Boy by the Ear", Arkwright creates rumours of an epidemic of a kind of ferret-rat hybrid, "A frat", in order to sell his overstocked hurricane lamps as "frat detectors".
• The Pollyanna: Mavis, while mocked by a lot of people for her low intelligence and optimism, is almost certainly is the most cheerful character in the series and overall is the most happy.
• Porky Pig Pronunciation: Arkwright. Lampshaded at times, usually by Granville, but in one Couch Gag Arkwright himself jokingly asks Granville if "P-P-P-P-PEPPER", the word he's trying to paint on the storefront window, is spelled with 6 P's or 7.
  Arkwright: G-Granville, how do you spell "p-p-p-p-pepper"? Is it 6 P's or 7?
• Product Placement: More for realism than any money being given for the exposure, many British and British versions of American company products can be seen in the store and advertised on the walls and door.
• Reverse Psychology:
  • Arkwright gets rid of unwanted ginger cake by immediately announcing to customers as soon as they come through the door "I'm sorry, but I can only let you have one!" before implying they're an aphrodisiac.
  • Granville shows how much he learned from the master in the revival when he does the same for "Yaggis" (Yorkshire's fictitious answer to haggis, actually a salami sausage plus some made-up-on-the-spur-of-the-moment patter).
• Really Gets Around: Arkwright makes constant cracks about Granville's mother along these lines. In the revival Granville says the same about his own son's mother (who eventually makes an appearance).
• Revival: "Still Open All Hours", a one-off Christmas special in 2013. Granville is now the proprietor of the shop (and every bit as miserly as Arkwright was), with his son as the new errand boy.
• Running Gag:
  • The till's tight spring that snaps back as soon as money is put into it, nearly chopping off fingers and even attacking Granville on at least a couple of occasions as it does. (This was originally just a spring clip inside the till, but the gag evolved.) In later episodes this always dislodges a tin that's balanced on top of the till, but Arkwright usually manages to catch it in mid-air. Granville finally manages to beat it in the final episode by exploiting its apparent touch sensitivity from a safe distance.
  • In the revival series it is suggested that the deceased Arkwright is haunting the till.
• The Scrooge:
  • Arkwright’s love of money is practically an obsession; spending money not only causes him noticeable strain, at times it seems to make him physically ill and even he admits his products are notoriously overpriced. The one time he allowed a customer a refund spread through the community like wildfire and led to people believing he was going daft. It’s perhaps best demonstrated in one episode: while at a funeral for a friend, due to having no change he is forced to give up a pound to the collection. However, he honestly can’t stop himself from taking change moments later.
  • Downplayed, with Granville in the revival. While he’s certainly picked up a lot of his uncle’s business sense and cunning, and has a reputation for being a cheapskate, he’s overall far more relaxed and generous than Arkwright ever was.
• Schmuck Bait: A lot. For example, in one episode Arkwright cons a condescending customer into believing that the town is infested with "frats" (ferret/rat hybrids) and that an old lantern he's been trying to get rid of is a "frat detector".
• Spoofing in the Rain: Granville does this on a rainy day. Most DVD releases remove it for copyright reasons, though it's retained on PBS broadcast prints and the initial R2 DVD release.
• Squirrels in My Pants: In episode 5 of Still Open All Hours, Granville persuades Gastric to dress up in his great grandmother's wedding dress and pose as Old Mother Hemlock to help sell a load of herbal remedies. However, a mouse has taken up residence inside the dress which causes Gastric to go through some very odd gyrations, to the confusion of everyone watching.
• Stalker with a Crush: At times Arkwright, even though he and Nurse Gladys are supposed to be engaged.
• Step Servant: It's all but stated that Arkwright adopting his nephew Granville following his sister's death was less out of familial love and more an excuse for a cheap source of labour, with him having Granville work for him in his corner shop since he was fourteen and Granville still working for him as an errand boy well into adulthood.
• Theseus' Ship Paradox:
  Granville: We need a new brush.
  Arkwright: Nonsense! That's a marvelous old brush, that! I've had that for fourteen years. It's only had two new heads and three new handles.
• Those Two Guys: Cyril and Eric in the revival. They are nearly always seen together and are each often part of the other’s hair brained schemes.
• Title Drop: At the end of the final episode of the third series, while he's wondering if Nurse Gladys will ever marry him, Arkwright mutters, "I'll just have to stay open all hours."
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Downplayed. Granville is certainly more manipulative and greedier in the revival. However, he is still considerably more cheerful and laid back than his uncle ever was.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Mrs. Featherstone in the revival. While still a stern, unyielding, cold and terrifying woman, she is very much a member of the regular female ensemble and often hangs out with them. In the previous series she didn’t seem to like anyone, and was equally disliked in return.
• Toyota Tripwire: Gastric gets one in front of Nurse Gladys Emmanuel and Mrs. Featherstone.
• Transatlantic Equivalent: The very short lived early 80s ABC sitcom Open All Night was an American adaption of the show, changing the store to a 7-11/Kwik-E-Mart type of establishment, with an entire family running the place. Much like Arkwright struggles to keep Granville in line, his American counterpart Gordon struggles to keep his shiftless and nerdy stepson Terry motivated.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Averted, despite everything counting against Arkwright like his treatment of Granville, his Scrooge-level miserliness and his Stalker with a Crush attitude to Gladys Emmanuel. Clarke's writing and Ronnie Barker's acting are good enough that Arkwright can be a sympathetic character even when his plans work (so he doesn't end up as The Woobie).
• Women Are Wiser: Played With. On average the women are brighter than men. However they are still just as easily duped and outsmarted by Arkwright and Granville, who in turn are presented as sharper and quicker than nearly everyone.

---