title: Seven of One

porridge pilot episode clip

site: YouTube

type: Clip

Series 1

type: Poster

title: Open All Hours

overview:
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.

title: Open All Hours

character: Albert Arkwright

character: Granville

character: Nurse Gladys Emmanuel

character: Mrs Scully

character: Bread Man

character: Girl from Petrol Station

character: Boy Buying Lolly

title: Prisoner and Escort

overview:
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).

title: Prisoner and Escort

character: Norman Stanley Fletcher

character: Mr Barrowclough

character: Mr Mackay

character: Police Sergeant

title: My Old Man

overview:
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.

title: My Old Man

character: Sam Cobbett

character: Andrew

character: Doris

character: Cyril

character: Arthur

character: Ron

character: Willie

character: Old Man

title: Spanner's Eleven

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

title: Spanner's Eleven

character: Albert Spanner

character: Councillor Mortimer Todd

character: Vera Spanner

character: Horace the Vet

character: Little Duckett

character: Sir Laurence

character: Morris

character: Butterfingers

character: Opposing Trainer

character: Playboy

character: Girlfriend

character: Player

title: Another Fine Mess

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

title: Another Fine Mess

title: One Man's Meat

overview: 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.

title: One Man's Meat

title: I'll Fly You for a Quid

overview:
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).

title: I'll Fly You for a Quid

title: Series 1

overview:
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.

title: Seven of One

title: Seven of One

overview: Comedy-Anthologie-Serie mit Ronnie Barker der in sieben abgeschlossenen Geschichten sein komödiantisches und schauspielerisches Talent beweisen konnte.


title: Time Warp Trio

type: Backdrop

status: Ended

Season 1

title: The Not-So-Jolly Roger

overview: Joe's uncle gives him a mysterious book for his birthday, but when his friend Fred wishes for buried treasure while looking through the book, Joe, Sam and Fred suddenly find themselves transported back through time to the year 1718 on a pirate ship captained by the infamous Blackbeard.

title: The Not-So-Jolly Roger

job: Writer

department: Writing

type: Crew

job: Director

department: Directing

title: 2105

overview: The boys are accidentally transported to the year 2105 when the boys are on a class trip to the Natural History Museum to learn about the inventions of the past. While there, they meet their great-granddaughters and get attacked by robots with ray guns.

title: 2105

title: You Can't, but Genghis Khan

overview: The boys are warped back to Outer Mongolia, 1170 A.D. It is the time of Genghis Khan who is the future leader of Mongolia. He is 9 years old and it's also the time when Mongols and the Tartars are at war with each other.

title: You Can't, but Genghis Khan

title: Tut Tut

overview: The boys are warped to ancient Egypt in 1500 B.C. When they get there, they get accused of stealing a Pharaoh's treasure and are framed by a priest. Now they'll get mummified.

title: Tut Tut

title: Sam Samurai

overview: An accidental haiku sends Sam, Joe and Fred back to the beginnings of the Tokugawa Shogunate, in 1600 Japan. Swords, samurai, and poetry contests challenge their talents.

title: Sam Samurai

title: See You Later, Gladiator!

overview: The Book transports Joe, Sam and Fred back to ancient Rome A.D. 120 — and face-to-face with one big ol' gladiator. They've seen plenty of professional wrestling on TV — but will the smackdown body slam be enough to save them at the Coliseum?

title: See You Later, Gladiator!

title: Lewis and Clark... and Jodie, Freddi and Samantha

overview: Freddi, Jodie and Samantha are sent back to 1805 while camping. They join Lewis and Clark without any real food to eat in a wilderness that is barren.

character: York (voice)

type: GuestStar

character: Meriwether Lewis (voice)

title: Viking It and Liking It

overview: The boys in this episode are transported to North America during 1000 A.D. It is before Christopher Columbus discovered America. They meet Viking explorers who are led by Leif Erikson.

title: Viking It and Liking It

title: Hey Kid, Want to Buy a Bridge?

overview: The boys go back in time to 1877 when the Brooklyn Bridge is being constructed. They discover that they are trapped on top of the bridge.

title: Hey Kid, Want to Buy a Bridge?

character: Emily Roebling (voice)

title: Me Oh Maya

overview: A basketball game gets interrupted and the boys find themselves in Chichen Itza, Mexico in the middle of a Mayan ringball court a thousand years ago! Of course in this game, the stakes are a little higher because if they lose, they lose their heads!

title: Me Oh Maya

title: The Good, the Bad and the Goofy

overview: The boys go back through time to the American West in 1868. They find that life with a cattle drive is not as good as in the cowboy movies they've seen.

title: The Good, the Bad and the Goofy

character: Cooky (voice)

title: Able I Was Ere I Saw Elba

overview: Joe and Fred warp back through time to Paris, France in 1815. There, they get to meet Napoleon, an emperor, and Sophie Blanchard, a hot-air pioneer.

title: Able I Was Ere I Saw Elba

title: The Seven Blunders of the World

overview: Joe, Fred and Sam warp to Babylon to figure out who stole The Book and to meet King Nebuchadnezzar II and Queen Amyitis, the creators of the Famous Hanging Gardens. Can they recover The Book before all of Babylon is destroyed and Joe's evil uncle Mad Jack takes over the world?

title: The Seven Blunders of the World

title: Jinga All the Way

overview: Fred and Sam, playing around with the ancient artifacts in Joe's father's office, accidentally transport themselves into the middle of a tribal battle in the African country of Angola in 1624 A.D., where they become slaves of Queen Jinga (who prefers to be known as King Jinga) and have a chance to explore the famous Kwanza River and witness a historic meeting with the Portuguese colonial governor.

title: Jinga All the Way

character: Ngombo (voice)

title: Birdman or Birdbrain?

overview: When The Book pages transform into rongorongo script, Freddi, Samantha and Fred transport back to 1765 to Rapa Nui (a.k.a Easter Island) and end up facing a 15-ton Moai! It's just another day at the beach as the Trio jumps off cliffs, swims through shark infested waters to the Birdman's Island (Motu Nui), oh and tries to find The Book along the way!

title: Birdman or Birdbrain?

title: Dude, Where's My Karma?

overview: Joe is slowly disappearing because of a malfunction in his family tree. To save Joe, the kids must go to India during the Gupta Empire. Sam, Fred, Samantha and Freddi have to help Joe's ancestor Prince Karna win the hand of Princess Lakshmi to save the entire family line!

title: Dude, Where's My Karma?

title: My Big Fat Greek Olympics

overview: A wild warp at the Olympia Diner sends Fred and Samantha to Ancient Greece during the Olympic games. Can Samantha win the pentathalon and save the sacred Olympic truce between Sparta and Athens?

title: My Big Fat Greek Olympics

title: Wushu Were Here

overview: Sam gets trapped inside The Book, and Anna, Fred and Joe travel back to the Tang dynasty in China in A.D. 621 to figure out how to get him out. En route they help the Shaolin Monks rescue General Li Shimin from prison, travel past the beginnings of the Great Wall, learn about the teachings of Zen Buddhism, and come face to face with the evil Mad Jack!

title: Wushu Were Here

title: What's So Great About Peter?

overview: Sam's Grandpa Dima tells some pretty outrageous stories to Sam, Fred, and Samantha about his ancestor, Alexander Kikin — but, are they true? Fred and Samantha convince Sam to travel back to Russia in 1698 just in time to save Kikin (a member of the Russian guardsmen, the Streltsy), from the wrath of Peter the Great.

title: What's So Great About Peter?

title: The Caveman Castastrophe

overview: When the kids warp back to the Stone Age, they manage to decipher some cave-paintings and find The Book in the camp of the Neanderthals. But when they trade Jodie's binoculars to get The Book back something goes wacky and the kids are suddenly a lot hairier than usual.

title: The Caveman Castastrophe

title: Nightmare on Joe's Street

overview: Frankenstein's Monster has escaped from Mary Shelley's imagination and is wreaking havoc in Joe's apartment in Brooklyn! Joe, Sam and Jodie warp the monster back to Switzerland in 1816 and endure ghost stories and vampires in order to turn fact back to fiction!

title: Nightmare on Joe's Street

title: Breaking the Codex

overview: Jodie and Freddi take Joe back to 1503 Italy to rescue famous Renaissance artist and inventor Leonardo Da Vinci from a showdown with Mad Jack, if they can escape the clutches of the ruling Borgia family and their infamous adviser, Machiavelli.

title: Breaking the Codex

title: Break an Egg

overview: Though it's a very hot day, warping back to ice cold Antarctica in 1911 isn't exactly what Joe, Sam and Fred had in mind. There they encounter Robert Scott's Antarctic expedition, endure 47 degree below zero weather, eat hoosh (seal meat) and discover that Mad Jack has brought them to the one place on earth that's too cold for The Book to work!

title: Break an Egg

title: The High and the Flighty

overview: The girls hear a mysterious radio transmission-and Freddi recognizes that it's the voice of her heroine, aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, broadcasting an urgent message on her last, ill-fated flight. The girls warp back to 1937 and try to solve the mystery of Amelia's disappearance on her attempted around-the-world flight.

title: The High and the Flighty

title: Harem Scare'em

overview: Jodie, Sam and Fred warp to the Topkapi Palace in the Ottoman Empire during the 16th century, they meet Selim, Suleiman the Magnificent's son, and his wily monkey, Dimples! The kids find themselves in a race through the palace and up to the top of a minaret with a crazed Dimples who suddenly starts wielding a scimitar and looking and sounding an awful lot like Mad Jack!

title: Harem Scare'em

title: Plaid to the Bone

overview: Joe, Anna and Jodie are on a wild ride-flung from a trebuchet and hurtling towards Castle Dunbar in Scotland during a siege in 1338 by the English Earl of Salisbury. But when the kids meet Uncle Joe in the dungeon they realize much more is at stake. Family conflict takes on a whole new meaning when Joe has to watch Uncle Joe and Uncle Mad Jack battle it out over the fate of the universe!

title: Plaid to the Bone

overview: The adventures of three curious boys who are transported back to dramatically different places in history.

title: Time Warp Trio

title: المغامرون الثلاثة

overview: مغامرات ثلاثة فتيان فضوليين ينتقلون عبر الزمن إلى أماكن مختلفة تماماً في التاريخ.

title: Time Warp Trio

overview: Drei Freunde reisen versehentlich mithilfe eines magischen Buches in die Zukunft. Um nach Hause zurückzukehren müssen sie dem finsteren Besitzer des Buches entkommen.

character: Joseph "Joe" Arthur (voice)

type: Cast

character: Jodie Arthur (voice)

character: Sam (voice)

character: Fred (voice)

character: Anna Arthur (voice)

character: Samantha (voice)

character: Freddi (voice)

job: Producer

department: Production

job: Book