It never fails to amaze my British friends that my fellow Americans have so taken to the 70's britcom Are You Being Served?. To most of them the show is either, at best, a guilty pleasure), or , at worst, an embarrassing artifact that reflects all that was wrong with the 70's. In my opinion it's neither and it's both. It is a guilty pleasure when you realize your laughing at the nth variation of the same joke for the nth time you've seen it. And Are You Being Served? Is an artifact of its time filled with silly double entendres and some stereotypical, though largely inoffensive, characterizations and yet the series is, and not in my mind only, one of the all time classic situation comedies.
Created by the prolific team of David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd (responsible either together or individually for such series as 'Allo 'Allo, Dad's Army, Up Pompeii and Hi De Hi), Are You Being Served? (or AYBS as it's known to fans) takes place in the fictional London department store Grace Brothers and centers upon the daily adventures of the inhabitants of the Men's' and Ladies clothing departments as overseen by the snobbish Capt. Stephen Peacock (played by veteran thesp Frank Thornton) and his immediate superior the famously bald headed and jug-eared Mr. Cuthbert Rumbold (Nicholas Smith).
The Men's' department, staffed with the likes of the old, and occasionally cranky , Mr. Ernest Granger (Arthur Brough), the hilariously camp yet entirely human Mr. Wilberfource Claybourne Humphries (John Inman) and the younger "Jack the Lad" Mr. Lucas (Trevor Bannister), the Romeo of Gentlemen's Ready-made (who was replaced in later series by Mr. Spooner played by former pop star Mike Berry), and Ladies department , run by the rainbow coifed Mrs. Betty Slocumbe (the unsinkable Mollie Sugden) and her sexy junior Miss Brahms (EastEnders' Wendy Richard), shared space on the same floor often coming into hilarious conflict The store was owned by the impossibly aged Young Mr. Grace and is even more antiquated brother Old Mr. Grace (Harold Bennett and Kenneth Waller) while maintenance men Mr. Mash and Mr. Harmon (Larry Martyn and Arthur English) kept things running from the basement.
Together this improbable group of comic stereotypes faced the day to day trials of life in retail. Whether being trapped in the store overnight with a pair of rough criminals or nearly decapitating Prince Philip, the staff at Grace Brothers always seemed to stick together, often spending the night on the selling floor, or staging Mrs. Slocumbe's wedding in the department(In fact Mrs. Slocumbe actually lived in the store for awhile!).Occasionally
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