Seven of One

Comedy

Seven of One is a 1973 BBC2 comedy anthology starring Ronnie Barker. 7 of 1 is a series of seven separate comedies that would serve as possible pilots for sitcoms, three of which were picked up for a full series run. Originally called Six of One, which Barker planned to follow up with another series called Half Dozen of the Other.

Play

Creator

Ronnie Barker

Audio & Subtitles

EN (Original), English [CC]

Format & Features

4K Ultra HD • Dolby Atmos • 5.1 Surround

30m

1. Open All Hours

Stammering shopkeep Albert Arkwright runs a tight little corner shop in a Doncaster suburb. Certainly he's tight when it comes to cost-saving and his put-upon nephew Granville, whose mother apparently gave birth to him after a fling with a Hungarian, bears the brunt of Arkwright's doomed money-making schemes. The lad has to ride a delivery bike when he'd rather impress the girl at the garage with a van. Meanwhile, Arkwright lusts after district nurse Gladys Emmanuel. Open All Hours received a full programme order, and had a successful four series run on BBC2 and BBC1.

30m

2. Prisoner and Escort

Norman Stanley Fletcher is being escorted to Slade Prison for a five-year sentence. Mr Barrowclough and Mr Mackay make the journey with him on New Year's Eve. Prisoner and Escort was developed into a programme and became Porridge (1974–1977), which led to a spin-off Going Straight (1978), a feature film adaptation (1979), and a sequel programme (2016–2017).

30m

3. My Old Man

Sam Cobbett is a cantankerous, retired railwayman whose house is demolished by the council, forcing him to live in a tower block with his daughter Doris and her husband, whom he sees as posh and with whom there is mutual antagonism. My Old Man was further developed into a 1974–75 sitcom of the same name, produced by Yorkshire Television and broadcast on ITV. However, Barker was uninvolved, and featured an entirely new cast led by Clive Dunn.

30m

4. Spanner's Eleven

The tale of ailing football team Ashfield Athletic and its trainer, local cabbie/hot-dog salesman/chauffeur Norman Spanner.

30m

5. Another Fine Mess

Ronnie Barker and Roy Castle as two Laurel and Hardy impersonators who become their characters as an evening's farcical events escalate around them.

30m

6. One Man's Meat

Alan Joyce is a slovenly, greedy man whose wife devises a plan to keep him off food for a day. She goes out and takes not only all the food from the house but Alan's clothes. He rings the police to no great avail. He rings a Chinese takeaway but they have stopped delivering.

30m

7. I'll Fly You for a Quid

A Welsh family, the Owens, who bet on absolutely everything and anything, discover that their grandfather backed a winner on the day he died — but where is the betting slip? I'll Fly You for a Quid was Barker's favourite, and he initially chose to do as a series. However, the BBC convinced him that it would be harder to do a full series of scripts about Evan Owen in a Welsh gambling community compared to the prison setting of Prisoner and Escort. Barker adapted the idea into The Magnificent Evans (1984).