Follow TV Tropes

Following

Trivia / Are You Being Served?

Go To

Trivia for the television series:

  • Acting for Two: John Inman also plays his character's own mother a few times.
  • Actor-Inspired Element:
    • Mollie Sugden and John Inman were forever improvising bits of comedy during rehearsals that often made it into the final episodes.
    • James Hayter came up with the "to Bangor" quip from "Shedding the Load" during rehearsals.
  • Actor-Shared Background:
    • In the final episode, "The Pop Star", Mr. Spooner is revealed to be a talented lead vocalist. Same for his actor Mike Berry.
    • John Inman, the most popular cast member, was working in retail when he auditioned. Wendy Richard has also previously worked in a department store.
  • The Cast Showoff:
    • Mr. Spooner was played by singer Mike Berry. The last episode was centered around Mr. Spooner trying to break into the pop music scene.
    • Nicholas Smith, who played Mr. Rumbold, could play various musical instruments, a talent which was exploited in a number of episodes.
    • John Inman was renowned in his younger years as a "pantomime dame", hence his frequent appearances in drag or outlandish costumes over the course of the series.
  • Character Outlives Actor: Arthur Brough, who played senior salesman Mr. Grainger, died in 1978 while preparations were being made for the sixth series (though he had announced his retirement from acting following his wife's death two months before, Lloyd and Croft were hoping to persuade him to return). He was replaced without explanation in-series by the character of Mr. Tebbs. Contrary to popular perception, Brough was the only actor who died before his character was written out of the series. Harold Bennett (Young Mr. Grace) retired due to ill health and died in 1981 after filming a few scenes for Series 8, but the character remained alive until just before the first episode of Grace and Favour nearly ten years later. Meanwhile, James Hayter (Mr. Tebbs), Alfie Bass (Mr. Goldberg), Milo Sperber (Mr. Grossman), and Benny Lee (Mr. Klein) all lived for at least five more years following their various departures from the series.
  • Creator Backlash:
    • Trevor Bannister hated performing before a studio audience, and by the end of his run grew tired of performing the same old reused jokes.
    • By 1980, David Croft was also thinking the series was getting too far-fetched and rehashing too many older episodes.
  • Dawson Casting: To a minor extent. Mr. Lucas was supposed to be in his mid-twenties when the show began, but the actor, Trevor Bannister, was 36 years old. In fact, he was only a few months younger than Nicholas Smith, who played Mr. Rumbold, and nearly a year older than John Inman, who played Mr. Humphries. Inverted for "Old" Mr. Grace who was played by Kenneth Waller age 54; his younger brother was played by Harold Bennett, who was 28 years older.
  • Defictionalization: The lovely Simpson’s building now operates as the flagship of Waterstones booksellers and it may please fans to know that there are meeting rooms called "Slocombe" and "Peacock".
  • Dye Hard: It can be strange to see Mollie Sugden in interviews with her normal brown (or grey) hair. (The latter is a bit easier for those who have watched Grace and Favour/Are You Being Served? Again!).
  • Edited for Syndication:
    • From the 1997 CBS/Fox VHS releases:
      • The release of "Cold Comfort" edited the scene of Mr. Rumbold and the cleaning ladies, to hide the phallic appearance of the frozen chamois.
      • The release of "A Change Is as Good as a Rest" cuts Mr. Lucas trying to check out the Annie the Air Hostess doll's knickers and Mr. Harman describing the bulldog attack, then showing his damaged trousers.
    • When aired on PBS:
      • Some stations edit the end of "The Father Christmas Affair" to remove the ending of Mr. Grainger in Blackface. The new version ends with Young Mr. Grace choosing Mrs. Slocombe to play Father Christmas, reusing the clip of her in costume saying, "Ho, ho, ho, little boy. Have I got a surprise for you".
      • The ending of "Roots?" also got majorly changed, with the blackface song and dance routine getting completely cut so that the big surprise for Old Mr. Grace's party ends up being the Somerset number. This also causes a noticeable continuity error, where the party decorations and guests disappear as the scene is from the rehearsals before the party.
  • Friendship on the Set: The main cast became great friends during the series' run, and were forever having large parties with lots of drinks to be had.
  • Hostility on the Set: While they stayed good friends and always kept things professional, Mollie Sugden and John Inman would clash over who got top billing as the series went on, as both believes themselves to be the star of the show.
  • No Budget: The show's budget was minuscule and the cast received zero perks during production, not even meals. They'd organize potlucks and appreciated it when an episode involved the employee canteen because it meant they could use the plates and cutlery props that came with the set.
  • Orphaned Reference: The 1997 CBS/Fox VHS release of "A Change Is as Good as a Rest" cuts the scene of Mr. Lucas with the Annie the Air Hostess doll, but he is still holding it in the end credits.
  • The Other Darrin:
    • Mrs. Peacock, who makes appearances in a few episodes, was played by two actresses named Diana; Diana King played her in most of her appearances, and Diana Lambert (who had previously played a customer named in the credits as "the Six-Pound Fox Customer" in the Season One episode "Fifty Years On") played her in the character's final two appearances in the series.
    • The one-off 2016 revival featured the original characters played by a brand-new cast of actors.
  • Reality Subtext: Creators Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft have implied that Mr. Humphries was promoted to senior salesman because so many of the elderly actors who had previously appeared on the show died (Arthur Brough, Harold Bennett), retired (James Hayter), or just didn't work out (Alfie Bass, Milo Sperber, Benny Lee, Kenneth Waller). The younger, healthier Inman was already known to the audience and reliably funny, so the producers felt they could count on him to stay around for several years. Thus, they made Humphries the senior character, and never cast a new middle-tier salesman. John Inman, in turn, asked Lloyd and Croft not to have Humphries' promotion be mentioned on screen, as he was superstitious of all the elderly actors before him.
  • Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: A terrible case of such; when the series began, Miss Brahms would typically wear her hair down, but in later seasons, her hair would be styled up in a loose bun either on the back or side of her head. Wendy Richard, who played Miss Brahms, explained that the style change came about because her husband at the time had been physically abusive, beating her and pulling out clumps of her hair. This necessitated that the production employ makeup artists and hairstylists who were very accomplished at disguising such injuries.
  • Recycled Script: Near the end of the series, several episodes' plots were rehashed versions of those done in earlier series. John Inman noticed it first out of any of the cast, and David Croft wasn't too happy with his idea bank running dry.
  • Screwed by the Network: Despite the series' success with audiences, it was hated by The BBC, who viewed it as too smutty and down-market for their channel, even going so far as to repeatedly ask David Croft if he would consider getting Thames Television to take over.
  • Series Hiatus: The series took a break in 1980 for John Inman to fly to Australia and film a Transatlantic Equivalent.
  • Throw It In!: The running gag of the store's lifts never working properly came about because they could never get the set to work properly regularly and decided to work the problems into the plots to save time and money.
  • Word of Gay: Inversion as John Inman (gay himself) always denied that he intentionally played Mr. Humphries as gay.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • The earliest concept of the series only focused on the menswear department of Grace Brothers.
    • Before Wendy Richard was cast, Miss Brahms wasn't a sexy, ditzy Essex girl, but rather was to be a Jewish character played by Sheila Steafel.
    • The pilot was shelved after it was filmed and only saw the light of day when schedules needed to be filled on The BBC after the murder of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. In a similar light, the series wasn't supposed to be picked up for a full run; it only happened thanks to David Croft overhearing that there was a gap in the schedules left by the absence of Till Death Us Do Part.
    • Head of Light Department Bill Cotton wanted Mr. Humphries removed if the pilot was to be given a full series, asking Croft, "Do we have to have the poof?". Croft would have none of this, telling him that if Mr. Humphries left, so would he and half the comedy.
    • In an inversion of the last point, Croft was himself willing to drop Mr. Humphries from the series while John Inman was starring in Odd Man Out, only for the Beeb to knock this idea on the head knowing that Mr. Humphries was the audience's favourite.
    • After Series 8, the Beeb chucked out the sets for the series and told Croft that he wouldn't be able to do a Series 9 after he told them that he had the cast ready to go and (lied about) four scripts already written. Croft managed to get his way, however, as he revealed he had bought the sets himself and stored them in his barn.
    • Near the end of the series, Croft and Jeremy Lloyd had an idea for a replacement series where some of the cast would take a holiday on Young Mr. Grace's yacht and get shipwrecked on an island.
  • Write What You Know: Co-writer Jeremy Lloyd was inspired originally by his stint working in the menswear department at Simpson's of Piccadilly (a now-defunct London department store).
  • Write Who You Know:
    • Jeremy Lloyd based the characters on employees he encountered while a department store worker.
    • He's not the only one; one day, Mollie Sugden, who played Mrs. Slocombe, was at a department store when one of the employees told her that he had previously worked with John Inman, and asked for Sugden to give Inman his regards. When Sugden asked Inman if he remembered that particular employee, his response was, "Remember him? I got the walk from him!"
  • You Look Familiar: Gorden Kaye played three different characters in as many episodes.

Trivia for the 1977 film:

  • California Doubling: All of the Spanish scenes were filmed on a stage at Elstree Studios. Trevor Bannister recalled:
    When we heard that the story took place in Spain, we all thought, "Oh, lovely, we're all going to go to Spain and do some filming". Did we hell. But it was a lot of fun.
  • Fake Nationality: Andrew Sachs, Glyn Houston, and Karan David all play Spaniards.
  • Recycled Script: Many parts of the film were taken from the TV series:
    • The opening scene where Mr. Harman accidentally hoovers up Miss Brahms' knickers and tells her that he doubts it's the first time she's lost her knickers in the tube comes from the Series 3 episode "Cold Store", albeit between Mr. Mash and Daphne the cleaning lady. Mrs. Slocombe's later line about a "jacksie full of vaccine" also comes from "Cold Store".
    • The concept of Mr. Humphries and Mr. Lucas trying to serve a Middle Eastern customer is lifted from the Series 4 episode "Fire Practice".
    • The joke about Mrs. Slocombe being flung on her back during the war comes directly from the Series 1 episode "Camping In".
    • The entire love letter subplot is taken from "Dear Sexy Knickers...", the first non-pilot episode of the series.
  • Uncredited Role:
    • Mr. Henry, the hairdresser at Grace Brothers, played by Raymond Bowers.
    • Captain Constantine, the pilot, played by Andrew Mann.
    • Rikki Howard as one of Mr. Humphries' transgender friends.
    • Brian Osborne as an airport security guard.

Top