HI-DE-HI

Hi-de-Hi! is set at a holiday camp in the fictional seaside town of Crimpton-on-Sea, Essex.

Loosely based on Butlin’s (redcoats), or Pontins, (bluecoats), or Warners (green coats), where the show was filmed (see below), Maplins is part of a fictional holiday camp group owned by Joe Maplin, with “yellowcoats”. Cambridge University Professor of Archaeology Jeffrey Fairbrother, who had become tired of academia, has been appointed the new entertainment manager. He is clearly unqualified for the position. This has annoyed the camp host, Ted Bovis, who had expected the post.

The job of camp comic is given to the naive but kind-hearted Spike Dixon, who wants an introduction to the world of show business. Many episodes involve Ted Bovis attempting to scam the campers as well as the well-meaning Fairbrother, who also has to avoid the romantic approaches of the chief yellowcoat and sports organiser, Gladys Pugh.

The other main characters in the show are out-of-work actors, actresses and entertainers at the tail end of their careers. These include Fred Quilley, a disqualified jockey; Yvonne and Barry Stuart-Hargreaves, former ballroom champions; Mr Partridge, a music hall star reduced to performing Punch and Judy puppet shows, despite hating children; and Peggy Ollerenshaw, an eccentric but ambitious chalet maid who dreams of becoming a yellowcoat.

YOU RANG, M’LORD?

You Rang, M’Lord? is a BBC television sitcom written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, the creators of Dad’s Army, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum and Hi-de-Hi!. It was broadcast between 1990 and 1993 on the BBC (although there had earlier been a pilot episode in 1988). The show was set in the house of an aristocratic family in the 1920s, contrasting the upper-class family and their servants in a house in London, along the same lines as the popular drama Upstairs, Downstairs.

The series featured many actors who had previously appeared in earlier works by Perry and Croft, notably Paul Shane, Jeffrey Holland and Su Pollard, all of whom had starred in Hi-de-Hi!; also featured were Donald Hewlett and Michael Knowles from It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, and Bill Pertwee and—occasionally—Frank Williams from Dad’s Army. Numerous small parts were played by other alumni of David Croft and/or Jimmy Perry shows. The memorable 1920s-style theme tune was sung by comedian Bob Monkhouse.

Episodes of You Rang, M’Lord? were fifty minutes long, rather than the usual thirty (for BBC sitcoms), and attempted to introduce a more reflective approach and more complex plotting than other Croft and Perry series. There was also less reliance on filmed location sequences.[2]

OH DOCTOR BEECHING!

Oh, Doctor Beeching! is a BBC television sitcom written by David Croft and Richard Spendlove which, after a broadcast pilot on 14 August 1995, ran for two series from 8 July 1996, with the last episode being broadcast on 28 September 1997. The series is notable for being the last in a series of three comedies by co-writer David Croft to use many of the same actors, starting with Hi-de-Hi! and followed by You Rang, M’Lord? and was also the last full series written by David Croft.

Oh, Doctor Beeching! focuses on the small fictional branch line railway station of Hatley, which is threatened with closure under the Beeching Axe. The programme was filmed on the Severn Valley Railway. Arley SVR station in Upper Arley was used as Hatley station.