TV Tie-ins: The Two Ronnies redux

A couple of novelisations featuring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett.

Open All Hours by Christine Sparks
BBC 0563-17924-4, 1981, 159pp, £1.25.

Granville looked down at his short, undistinguished person, wrapped round in a large white pinny. Here he was, a young man in his twenties, already at work in the shop at six-thirty in the morning. What did the future hold for him? A continuing occupation as shop assistant, warehouse attendant, delivery boy, window cleaner and general underpaid dogsbody to Uncle Arkwright?
__Uncle Arkwright, of course, didn't see it that way. He asserted that Granville was a lucky lad with no appreciation of his good fortune in being born to an inheritance, always knowing he was secure and need never fear unemployment. Wasn't Granville on the threshold of a satisfying career, learning the trade from the bottom, all found, and wasn't he—in the due process of time--going to inherit this thriving grocery business, Arkwright's life's work and his sole reason for existence? Well, his sole reason as long as Nurse Gladys Emmanuel remained adamant to his advances. Even lavish gifts like half a pound of out-of-date butter or one of last year's unsold Christmas novelties from the stockroom couldn't tempt her.
__Here they were, Arkwright and Granville both, trapped in a corner grocery that sold everything and stayed open all hours to do it.

From the pen of Roy Clarke who also wrote Last of the Summer Wine.

Sorry! by David Climie
Star 0352-31050-2, 1982, 154pp, £1.35.

Timothy Lumsden is 41, a librarian, unmarried, and lives at home with his mother and father. He has never heard of the word jacuzzi and is not very sure what a Porsche is. Though his clothes sense is perfect, he is mutton dressed as mutton!
__But don't let his mother catch him repeating any of this. To her he is still the eighteen year old ready to launch himself on a waiting world. Well, almost ready, because he's bound to have forgotten his handkerchief!
__You can say what you like about father—he's not listening. And if you can think of a better defence mechanism than that, try living with the Lumsdens!

Adapted from the TV series by Peter Vincent and Ian Davidson, who were behind many of the sketches Corbett performed on The Two Ronnies.

TV Tie-ins: The Two Ronnies

Continuing the Ronnie Barker theme from yesterday, here's a cover gallery featuring The Two Ronnies.

It's Goodnight from Him. The best of The Two Ronnies by Ronnie Barker; illus. John Painter (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1976; as The Two Ronnies, adapted by Bill Ridgway, Basingstoke, Macmillan Education, 1986)

The Two Ronnies: But First - the News edited by Peter Vincent.
Star 0352-39899-X, May 1977. Cover photo by Don Smith

Nice To Be With You Again! edited by Peter Vincent.
Star 0352-30108-2, Aug 1977. Cover photo by Don Smith

The Two Ronnies: In a Packed Programme Tonight edited by Ian Davidson; illus. Graham Allen.
Star 0352-30204-6, Jun 1978. Cover photo by David Edwards

The Bumper Book of the Two Ronnies edited by Ian Davidson & Peter Vincent.
Star 0352-30249-6, 1978.
A selection from But First the News, Nice to Be With You Again and In a Packed Programme Tonight.

The Two Ronnies Comic Book by Denis Gifford; cartoons by George Parlett.
Corgi-Carousel 0552-54137-0, Sep 1978.

The Two Ronnies Sketchbook edited by Peter Vincent.
Star 0352-30312-3, Oct 1978.

Ronnie in the Chair by Spike Mullins; illus. Frank Dickens (Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, M. & J. Hobbs, 1978)
Star 0352-30427-8, Oct 1979.

The Two Ronnies: And It's Hello From Him edited by Ian Davidson; illus. Ian Heath.
Star 0352-30796-X, Nov 1980.

The Two Ronnies: Time For a Few Extra Items edited by Ian Davidson; illus. Ian Heath.
Star 0352-30958-X, Oct 1981.

The Second Bumper Book of the Two Ronnies.
Star 0352-31207-6, Aug 1982.

The Two Ronnies: And It's Goodnight From Him edited by Ian Davidson; illus. Ian Heath.
Star 0352-31150-9, 1982.

It's Hello From Him! by Ronnie Barker with Sean Usher (autobiography) (London, New English Library, 1988)
New English Library 0450-50813-7, Oct 1989.

But I Digress by David Renwick.
New English Library 0450-50809-9, Oct 1989.

"All I Ever Wrote": The Complete Works by Ronnie Barker, edited by Bob McCabe (London, Essential, 1999)
Sidgwick & Jackson 0283-07334-9, Oct 2001.

High Hopes: My Autobiography by Ronnie Corbett (London, Ebury Press, 2000)
Ebury Press 0091-87917-5, Aug 2001.

The Two Ronnies. Their funniest jokes, one-liners and sketches.
Ebury Press 0091-89454-9, Sep 2003.

And It's Goodnight from Him. The autobiography of the Two Ronnies by Ronnie Corbett with David Nobbs (London, Michael Joseph, 2006)
Penguin 0141-02804-1, Jun 2007.

TV tie-ins: Porridge

Norman Stanley Fletcher first appeared in an episode of Seven of One, a series of one-off comedies all featuring Ronnie Barker. Barker had an undeveloped idea for a show with a prison setting and himself as a Sergeant Bilko type of wheeler-dealer; writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais came up with a far more biting storyline in 'Prisoner and Escort' which aired in 1973 and had the lowest ratings of the whole series.

However, producer Jimmy Gilbert, Barker and head of BBC Comedy Duncan Wood felt that it, of all the seven shows, had the most potential. Clement and La Frenais were not so confident until they were introduced to ex-convict Jonathan Marshall, author of How to Survive in the Nick. Over a meal, Marshall gave them the key to the series: "little victories". For Norman Fletcher it was the only way he could survive the dehumanizing world of prison: to beat the system in however small a way.

There's a very good article on the history of the show over at Television Heaven. The whole series is available on DVD at a knockdown price over on Amazon.

Porridge by Jonathan Marshall. BBC 0563-12898-4, 1975.
--, 2nd imp., 1975; 3rd imp., 1975; 4th imp., 1976; 5th imp., 1977.

Seven episodes in the life of the wily old lag Norman Fletcher and his mates doing time in a remote Cumberland prison. Contains: "Prisoner and Escort"; "New Faces, Old Hands"; "The Hustler"; "An Evening In" (A Night In); "A Day Out"; "Ways and Means"; "Men Without Women".

Another Stretch of Porridge by Paul Victor. BBC 0563-17085-9, 1976.
--, 2nd imp., 1976; 3rd imp., 1977; 4th imp., 1977.

Further adventures of Norman Fletcher and his fellow inmates of the remote Cumberland nick where the main object in life is screw-baiting, and Mr MacKay-baiting in particular. Contains: "Just Deserts"; "Heartbreak Hotel"; "Disturbing the Peace"; "No Peace For the Wicked"; "Happy Release"; "The Harder They Fall"; "A Christmas Tunnel" (No Way Out).

A Further Stir of Porridge by Paul Victor. BBC 0563-17214-2, 1977.

Seven more rounds of sparring, as Norman Fletcher and his fellow cons of Slade nick continue their struggle against authority in the shape of Messrs MacKay and Barrowclough. Contains: "The Desperate Hours"; "A Storm in a Teacup"; "Poetic Justice"; "Rough Justice"; "Pardon Me"; "A Test of Character"; "Final Stretch".

Going Straight by Paul Victor. BBC 0563-17487-0, 1978.

Norman Stanley Fletcher - Fletch to his mates - has been released on parole from Slade Prison. After travelling south in the unexpected and unwelcome company of Mackay, he arrives home intent on going straight - well, almost. But life - in the persons of his daughter Ingrid and his old cellmate Lennie Godber, now planning to get married, and of his probation officer Mrs Chapman - seems determined to thwart him. Even a job as a hotel night porter is not as simple as it might seem.

Porridge: The Inside Story by Paul Ableman. Pan 0330-25923-7, 1979.

It's Britain's favourite con, TV's legendary lag, Fletch, the man who's ticking off the days in Slade Nick and dreaming about freedom in Muswell Hill!
__Porridge: The Inside Story. The hair-raising and hilarious tale of how Grouty, the Godfather of Slade Nick, masterminds a prison break cunningly concealed in a celebrity soccer match... and how it meant that poor old Fletch and Godber had to break back inside again... all under the hawklike gaze of MacKay, Hammer of the Criminal Classes...

This last was based on the 1979 movie. IMDB.