Porridge

Richard Weight's study places 'Porridge' in the context of 1970s social upheavals, explores how the series satirises structures of class and authority through Fletch and Godber's battles to outwit the prison officers Mr Mackay and Mir Barrowclough, and traces its influences on tv comedy that followed.

Acknowledgements


Chapter 1: 'New Faces, Old Hands': The making of the programme; the controversial commissioning and the media/audience response to it when first broadcast; how it acquired its cult status in subsequent years.

Chapter 2: 'Ways and Means': The portrayal of class and institutional power, together with race relations, and the Anglo-Scottish conflict depicted in Fletcher's relationship with McKay.

Chapter 3: 'Men Without Women': The portrayal of gender relations and sexuality in Porridge and the generational differences reflected in the surrogate father/son relationship between Fletcher and Godber.

Chapter 4: 'No Way Out': An analysis of the comedy of Porridge in relation to Clement and La Frenais' other work like The Likely Lads and in relation to other prison dramas in film and TV like Peter Sellers' Two Way Stretch (1960), Roy Minton's Scum (1979) and On The Rocks (1975-6), the American version of Porridge.

Chapter 5: 'Pardon Me': An analysis of the reasons for the contemporary appeal of Porridge in the context of the way that the 1970s are viewed today and the programme's long-term influence on the canon of British comedy.

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