Love It or Hate It: ‘Last of the Summer Wine’

To some, ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ is the ultimate television comfort watch, or a philosophical masterpiece. But to others, it was a Sunday night sentence of ‘boredom’ that lasted thirty-seven years.

So, we’re going to look at why the British public fell in love with Compo, Clegg, and Foggy, and why a vocal minority couldn’t wait for the bathtub to finally hit the bottom of the hill. Is it a timeless classic of British character writing, or was it a ‘zombie sitcom’ that stayed at the party far too long? Let’s look at the evidence.

Love it or Hate It: Citizen Khan

In this video we are looking at a tv sitcom about an ordinary family, they’re not quirky like ‘2point4 Children’ or have a 40-year old son still living at home like in ‘Sorry!’ but there is a twist. This is a British Muslim family living in Birmingham with a status seeking father, a long-suffering wife and daughters trying to cope with tradition and modernity. So, let’s see what people loved or hated about ‘Citizen Khan’.

Theft from ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ Filming Location

Fans of ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ might recognise the first image as a location regularly used for filming the series. It is Scaly Gate, viewed from the junction of Intake Lane and Hirst Lane, near Holmfirth.

View of Scaly Gate an area often used as a filming location in 'Last of the Summer Wine', viewed from the junction of Intake Lane and Hirst Lane, near Holmfirth.
View of Scaly Gate, (as seen in season 9 episode 5) viewed from the junction of Intake Lane and Hirst Lane, near Holmfirth.

This is where the trio crashed while riding their three-man bicycle; Ogden Butterglough’s Mini crashed; and, Norman’s gas bar-b-que blew up.

A few years ago the triangular piece of land was bought by a fan of the show, they had the undergrowth tidied and installed a locked gate so they could let fans use the area.

Recent view of the land at Scaly Gate, near Holmfirth.
Land at Scaly Gate, near Holmfirth, before the gate was stolen.

The owner hasn’t visited the spot for a while and on a recent visit discovered the gate had been stolen! It is an isolated area – ideal for filming the show – but it also means that there is no one to see who is coming and going. The theft has been reported to West Yorkshire Police, but being so out of the way and having no idea when the gate was stolen, there seems little the police can do.

Love It or Hate It: The Royle Family

It might be understandable that a sitcom where “nothing happens” would not be considered worth watching and would inevitably be disliked by people who expected the laugh-a-minute chaos of some tv sitcoms.

With that in mind, there seems little hope for this very niche sitcom, hidden away on Monday at 10:00pm on BBC Two. Except that the apparent simplicity of ‘The Royle Family’ belies the genius writing of Caroline Ahern and Craig Cash, and their relate-ably indolent tv watching family.

A Tribute to the cast of “Are You Being Served?”

The BBC Comedy Playhouse episode ‘Are You Being Served?’ was broadcast on 8 September 1972 and a series began in March 1973.

The sitcom, based in an already out-dated department store, was a hit with UK audiences and was popular in English-speaking countries worldwide. In this tribute we bid a proper farewell to the managers, shop assistants and customer of Grace Brother’s department store.

The TV Pilot Graveyard: Did Mr Swallow Make The Best Sitcom You’ve Never Seen? 

In this trip to the ‘TV Pilot Graveyard,’ we’re pulling back the curtain on the chaotic, often absurd, world of media sitcoms.

Whether it’s the urgent deadline of a newspaper office, the ego-driven chaos of a TV studio, the quirky personalities behind the mic at a radio station, or the glamorous (and not-so-glamorous) lives of magazine editors, this subgenre has always promised a behind-the-scenes look at the content we consume. But for every ‘Drop the Dead Donkey’ or ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show,’ there’s a whole newsroom of rejected pilots. Let’s dig into the stories that almost broke, but instead, just broke down.

The TV Pilot Graveyard: Best Mates Sitcom Pilots

In this instalment of the ‘TV Pilot Graveyard’, we’re celebrating the unbreakable, often dysfunctional, bond of friendship – or at least, the sitcom pilots that tried to.

The ‘best mates’ sitcom is a cornerstone of comedy, built on shared experiences, mutual exasperation, and that one friend who always gets you into trouble. But for every ‘Friends’ or ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’, there are countless duos, trios, and quartets who never got past their first episode. Join me as we explore the friendships that fizzled out before they even began – and ponder why these comedic friendships hit the cutting room floor.

The TV Pilot Graveyard: Four Never-Seen Flat-share Sitcom Pilots

The ‘TV Pilot Graveyard’ is the series where we unearth the pilot episodes that never quite made it to our screens. In this video we’re diving into the chaotic world of the flat share sitcom. From mismatched personalities crammed into questionable living arrangements to the endless saga of who’s doing the dishes.

This subgenre has been a fertile ground for comedy – and, as you’ll see, a surprisingly large number of rejected ideas. Get ready to meet the aspiring actors, the struggling artists, and the perpetually unemployed who almost became your favourite roommates, but instead, ended up in the TV Pilot Graveyard.

Lost Laughter: The Sitcom Pilots You’ll Never See

We all love a good British sitcom, don’t we? But for every hit show, there are dozens, maybe hundreds, of ideas that never make it past a single episode. The pilot.

There are some well-documented failed pilots, shows based on intriguing ideas but, for various reasons, they didn’t get commissioned. But what about the really forgotten ones? The phantom pilots of British television. The ones from decades past, some before the Internet chronicled every single detail. We know the titles, who wrote them, maybe who was in the cast … but the stories? They’re lost to the mists of time.

In this video, we’re going on an archaeological dig into the forgotten sitcom pilots of the 1970s and 1980s, to try and discover what they could have been.

A Tribute to the cast of Dad’s Army

They were the ‘Home Guard’ that captured the heart of a nation. At its peak, ‘Dad’s Army’ had ratings of 18 million, with nine seasons from 1968 to 1977, plus a radio version, a stage show, and two films.

Today, we’re looking past the ‘stupid boy’ and the ‘doomed’ catchphrases to uncover what really happened to the heroes of ‘Dad’s Army’.