Prison sitcom set to return

BBC One is to make an up-to-date revival of Porridge.

The new show will revolve around the grandson of Ronnie Barker’s original Norman Stanley Fletcher, and described as ‘a chip off the old block'.

But in a reversal of the original premise, Fletch will be the younger inmate, a twenty something being taken under the wing of an older lag.

Original writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, are working on the new show, which is expected to air as part of the Landmark Comedy Season celebrating the BBC’s comic legacy.

However, if the one-off is a hit a full series may follow, in the same mould as Still Open All Hours revived another Corporation sitcom favourite.

La Frenais told The Sunday Times that the revival ‘will be set in a modern prison while [HMP] Slade was of course Victorian’.

The original series, which ran between 1974 and 1977 attracted audiences of up to 15million and co-starred Richard Beckinsale as cell-mate Lennie Godber, Fulton Mackay as tough prison officer Mr Mackay and Brian Wilde as the softer touch Mr Barrowclough

La Frenais added that the new version will have an unpleasant warder who ‘might even be Scottish again’.

The BBC's Landmark Sitcom Season will air next summer, to mark the 60th anniversary of the TV version of Hancock's Half Hour, and will include a live episode of Mrs. Brown's Boys.

Published: 16 Nov 2015