Open All Hours

Open All Hours is an English situation comedy created and written by Roy Clarke for the BBC. It ran for 26 episodes in four series, which aired in 1976, 1981, 1982, and 1985, respectively. It was broadcast on BBC2 for the first series, and thereafter on BBC1.

Pilot (1973)

[First lines. The pilot of Open All Hours opens outside Arkwright's grocers shop, and Albert Arkwright, the shop's proprietor, is working when he sees some bird muck on the shop window]

Arkwright: Granville, f-f-fetch your cloth. (His errand boy, Granville, who also happens to be his nephew, comes out of the shop and looks for the bird muck) The swallows are leaving, Granville, and they're leaving it on our window.

Granville: (whining) Why me? (Sees the bird muck) You think I got a natural affinity for this sort of stuff? (Uses his cloth to remove the bird muck) For this, I did double-entry bookkeeping. It quite clearly underestimates me qualities of leadership.

[Granville approaches Arkwright who is watching Nurse Gladys Emmanuel clean her car]

Arkwright: I know that face. Nurse Gladys Emmanuel. P-p-possibly the finest backside in the north of England and it all belongs to the state.

Series 3

The Man from Down Under

Mavis: I find life is so complicated.

Mrs Featherstone: It is, unless you keep it in its place.

Mavis: I thought I'd be used to it by now.

Mrs Featherstone: Well, I'm not a religious woman, but I've found if you say "No" to everything, you can hardly tell the difference.

The Cool Cocoa Tin Lid

Arkwright reminisces about Granville's second cousin, Ethel, who conducted séances:

Arkwright: Night after night she used to try; and then one night, out of the blue—or, out of the black, rather—suddenly there came this knock.

Granville: A visitor from the spirit world!

Arkwright: Well, in a way, yes. He was a chap who worked at the off-licence.

Series 4

The Mystical Boudoir of Nurse Gladys Emmanuel

Arkwright: Look at me when I'm lying to you.