Shoulder To Shoulder

Shoulder To Shoulder

Broadcast on 10th April 1975, this is another of those episodes of 'Are You Being Served?' with three writers credited at the start, which always strikes me as a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

We're approaching the end of the third season and Michael Knowles has been drafted in again, but how much is him and how much is Lloyd / Croft remains a mystery.

Ray Butt gets his first credit as director for the series and will remain in this position until 1977, but keen credit watchers will probably be more distracted by something that happens before his name appears.

There's a fair bit of timewasting in the opening scene as Mr Rumbold attempts to get Captain Peacock to come into his office, but Miss Thorpe's surrealist filing system (letters are filed under 'A' for 'A Letter') is at least amusingly odd.

Mr Grace has got the decorators in so the Ladies and Gents deparments have to work more closely together than is usual. It's fair to say that no-one enjoys the experience.

Mr Humphries attempts to measure a customer over the phone, but this all comes to naught when Mr Grainger takes over and fails to note the customer's address.

Mrs Slocombe and Miss Brahms ferret about in Mr Grainger's private drawer, which unearths a number of treasures, including his spare pair of false teeth and an old ration book.

Anyone who is brave enough to venture into the area occupied by the decorators gets a handprint on them for their trouble and apparently the workmen include lookalikes for Tom Jones, Steptoe and Larry Grayson.

A newlywed couple (Jonthan Cecil and Hilary Pritchard) pop in, though they can barely be prised apart when they want to buy some sweaters.

There's a lovely bit of sly business from John Inman in the canteen when he raises a sausage to his mouth and thinks better of it, which gets a huge laugh from the audience who clearly have minds almost as dirty as ours.

In the end, all the bad feeling seems to have been a bit of a waste of time, as when the new-look Ladies department is unveiled, it looks just the same. Though apparently, it's all new wood, according to Young Mr Grace.

As the credits start up, the shot of Trevor Bannister betrays Moira Foot coming out from behind a curtain to take her position.

The technical credits flash up, and we get the slide for Lighting (Eric Monk) and Sound (Mike McCarthy) which so threw us when we were watching. It appears to have been cobbled together using whatever lettering was lying about at the time.

There's clearly a little story here as something went wrong or was forgotten.

It would be unfair to say that the credit mystery was the most interesting thing about this episode, though this does feel like a bit of a filler, if we're being honest.

But with the season finale just around the corner, we're hoping for bigger things next week...

Our video about 'Shoulder To Shoulder' can be seen here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)