Jeremy Lloyd's comedies work when broad characters begin to resemble people we have worked with. We like his feel for an ensemble and his trust in performers; we are less persuaded when a familiar trait is expected to supply another laugh.
Fi1m perspective
In Are You Being Served? (1972), a familiar comic type becomes funny when the actor gives it something particular. Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft leave Frank Thornton, John Inman and Mollie Sugden enough room to make that happen, even when the joke itself has seen better days. We laughed because their performances make the department store feel recognisably like work, with all the irritation that entails. Lloyd's writing is worth a half-hour visit on those terms. Expecting every joke to have survived intact would be asking too much.
Lloyd wrote for Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In in 1969–70 before finding his first major success with Croft on Are You Being Served?. His experience at Simpsons of Piccadilly supplied the department-store setting, which helps explain the writing's attention to how people behave on the job. Croft also directed and produced the programme, connecting the writing closely to its delivery. It would be misleading to treat the result as Lloyd's work alone.
The partnership continued with the wartime farce 'Allo 'Allo (1982) and Grace & Favour (1992), a direct successor to Are You Being Served?. Broad characters, innuendo and farcical situations recur through Lloyd's sitcom writing. That approach gives performers a clear starting point, though the script can leave them with too little else to do. Criticism of sexual and racial stereotypes in Are You Being Served? and 'Allo 'Allo cannot simply be dismissed as complaints about their age. Recognising a type is sometimes all that the joke requires, and that is where the writing looks thin.
The good-natured workplace comedy in Are You Being Served? is still worth watching, despite those limitations. Too often, another encounter merely confirms what we already know about a character, but the cast can make even these predictable exchanges enjoyable. Thornton, Inman and Sugden supply much of the pleasure, and our affection for the programme rests substantially with them. Start there for Lloyd, one episode at a time, and do not feel obliged to defend the jokes that no longer work.
Biography
Jeremy Lloyd was an English actor, writer and screenwriter. Born in Danbury, Essex, he began his career as an actor in the late 1950s and appeared in films including School for Scoundrels (1960), A Hard Day's Night (1964), Help! (1965) and Murder on the Orient Express (1974).
He is best known as the co-creator, with David Croft, of the BBC sitcoms Are You Being Served? (1972–1985) and 'Allo 'Allo! (1982–1992). The former was inspired by his earlier work as a salesman at Simpsons of Piccadilly. He also wrote other series including Whodunnit? (1972–1978) and the spin-off Grace & Favour (1992–1993). Lloyd was appointed OBE for services to comedy.
