WakenPayne Are You Being Served was a sitcom made in Britan that lasted 10 Seasons mainly focusing on a department store. People do seem to have a lot of nostalgia for this show and it did define itself an audience at the time. However, I don't really find it that good.The main premise for this show is to take the Ladies and Gentlemen's department from a departmental store an hi-jinx ensues. Sometimes with new situations and others it's a similar rehash of the same situation (such as Young Mr Grace having a whacked out idea, they go along with it, it doesn't go well, it all goes back to normal).I can see that there is an audience for this show. For the first few seasons it wasn't that bad. It was gaining and maintaining an identity. However, the big problem I have is the more the show went on, the more recycled and tired the whole thing seemed to get.So what is the humour. Mostly there are your standard double entendres, events going on at the time such as a bad economy and constant strikes and pop cultural references. The reason why I don't like the events going on at the time and pop cultural references is that they're dated to the extent of them not being funny and the double entendres were okay at first. Then (like I said) they started recycling them. I'm serious Mrs Slocombe makes double entendres about her cat because she refers to it as her "pussy" and Mr Humphries is usually respondent to homosexual double entendres (which actually weren't funny to begin with) just to name a few.To name a complaint I have, I know I'm nitpicking when I say this but in the last few seasons we hardly see these characters do their job. I know, it's a nitpick but for a show about a department store there are some episodes where we never see them working.Then there are the replacement cast members. I know Arthur Borough died and replacements were the only way to go and sometimes they did get some decent comedic actors to take his place but the problem I have is replacing Trevor Banister with the guy who plays Mr Spooner. All the original cast members, while this show wasn't exactly my humour it's very clear that these people have a sense of comic timing and are somewhat decent comedic actors. I don't get any of that with Mr Spooner (I use the characters name because I'm too lazy to look up what his real name is) he looks more as if he's going through the motions than anything else.So Are You being Served isn't that great of a show. It just becomes repetitive and recycles jokes and story lines. I do get the feeling that these people can be funny. It's just it's not my humour. I guess if you lived in the 70's you would like this but to a modern audience it isn't anything spectacular.

bigverybadtom And what do I mean by "everything"? The show's history:Originally the protagonist was supposed to be Mr. Lucas getting a job in the men's department at a department store, he has trouble with his job but somehow manages to survive. In the meantime, he is also a womanizer who tries to hit upon the younger female employee of the women's department. In trouble on his first day, he redeems himself when he was able to sell the senile store owner his own coat and impress his colleagues. Mr. Lucas, in short, was supposed to be the show's star.But as the show continued, Mr. Lucas ended up being just a side character, and the actor who played him was unhappy about that. Still, the show worked because the comedy involved the employees' interactions with the various customers as well as each other, malfunctioning automated store displays, having to sell inferior merchandise to customers ("It will ride up with wear!"), and so on. Some sexual innuendo features into this, but most of the humor involves the social systems of the various employees and customers.Problems did crop up as the show progressed. Mr. Lucas left the show, and his place was taken by an inferior character before his spot was simply eliminated. The same was true of the eldest men's department employee, with two replacements who also failed. Presumably the show had to be canceled before the remaining actors would die off.

Paul Evans I'm now 30 years of age and grew up watching Allo Allo, 2.4 Children, Only Fools and Horses, One foot in the Grave etc, all of which I have wonderful nostalgic feelings for. I've always felt Brits make the funniest sitcoms, maybe i have an inbuilt British humour. Only in the last 2 years i bought series one of this to see what all the fuss was about, without any shadow of a doubt this is the funniest sitcom ever, no matter what mood i'm in i can put one of these on and laugh out loud, to the people who moan that the jokes were repeated i'd like to remind them of how many years this ran for and just how successful it was and still is. The movie was horrible, why did they make it!! However the sitcom all the way through was hilarious, Mollie and John i think made the series but all the cast were wonderful, especially young Mr Grace. There was an innocence about the series hidden deep amongst all the double entendres. High points for me were from the episodes Camping in, Oh what a tangled web and Friends and Neighbours. Maybe the show dipped a bit at series 9, but series 10 was a class act.

atomius What makes this better than most modern britcoms is that it isn't so obsessed with good camera-work, graphics and movie style acting that really adds nothing to the humour itself. The style and culture involved reflects upper class British culture of the 1900s with hilarious, though now far outdated, satire on the British cast system. With an amusing cast of workers in the womens and mens departments at Grace Bros comes with it characters that have become stereotypes more than they poked fun at the original inspiration. The jokes, however repetitive, don't tire, more they relax, and it is easy to see why so much references to this show have been made. I would tell recommend it to anyone interested in 1900s culture, and it is an important part of television history, as are many 70s comedies. The simple theme intro with a equally simple guitar tune is quite interesting. Most humour is taken from outrageous costumes, hilarious backfirings of 'schemes' and devices and the coming together of all the workers despite their differences to fight longer working hours, bad meals, and other such conditions. The funniest jokes are when casts collide, often upsetting a high set person or upraising a lower one. All in all a brilliant comedy, well worth watching repeats of.