Remakes on the cards for The Good Life and others

BBC One is planning to revive The Good Life, Are You Being Served?, Up Pompeii! and Keeping Up Appearances for its sitcom celebrations next year.

The classic comedies have been named by TV industry newspaper Broadcast as being in line for a remake, in the wake of the news that a new version of Porridge is on the cards.

Together they will form a season of 30-minute specials, marking 60 years since Hancock’s Half Hour made its TV debut. That show is being heralded as the 'first TV sitcom', though a programme called Pinwright's Progress actually holds that honour, debuting in 1946.

This weekend, Porridge co-creator Ian La Frenais confirmed that he was working on a modern version the Ronnie Barker sitcom, telling the Sunday Times: 'We were asked by the BBC to do a revival and decided to set it right up to date. It will be set in a modern prison while Slade was of course Victorian.'

Broadcast further reports thatThe BBC will be on the hunt for new writers for The Good Life, Are You Being Served? and Up Pompeii! as the creators of those shows have died.

Published: 16 Nov 2015