Liam Rudden: The show must go on .. and on and on and..

Published on Friday 5 March 2010 14:18

DINNERLADIES at The King's this week, Porridge next – classic TV sitcoms have never appeared so popular.

Up and down the land new stage versions of old favourites are touring, with familiar faces from the likes of 'Allo 'Allo bringing their comic creations back to life, long after they last appeared on the small screen.

Herefordshire-based Calibre Productions started the trend when, for the 40th anniversary of Dad's Army, they talked the show's creators, David Croft and Jimmy Perry, into allowing them to adapt the scripts of episodes which had been wiped by the BBC, the result was Dad's Army: The Lost Episodes.

So well received was that first production that a second, Dad's Army Marches On, set off on a national tour earlier this week, with Leslie Grantham once again playing Private Walker.

Of course, there's nothing new in sitcoms transferring from TV to stage. Back in the 70s and even the 80s such transfers were all the rage – often running for months on end as end of pier shows throughout the summer season.

And long before Calibre Productions, who are also responsible for bringing Porridge to The King's next week, negotiated the rights to produce Dad's Army stage plays, there was Dad's Army The Musical, with all but a couple of the original TV cast – the singing was at times painful.

There was also a three-act stage version of Fawlty Towers, based on the episodes A Touch of Class, The Hotel Inspectors, and Communication Problems. God help any actor cast in John Cleese' shoes as Basil. Are You Being Served? too proved a popular stage show back in the 70s, again with most of the original TV stars reprising their roles.

So what makes such shows so popular? It's true there is a comfort in the familiar, but often it's simply that the writing is so much tighter than what is on offer today – Croft and Perry's work has stood four decades of changing attitudes and tastes.

By not trying to be too clever it remains intrinsically funny, as indeed does Victoria Wood's social commentary in Dinnerladies and Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement's sharp observations in Porridge.

That said, before I go, 'just one more thing.' It's not just popular sitcoms that are getting the theatre treatment. This months sees the stage premiere of Columbo: Prescription Murder, starring Dirk Benedict, best known as The Face in The A-Team as the legendary Lieutenant Columbo.

Whatever next? Penelope Keith and Peter Bowles reuniting for To The Manor Born Live On Stage?