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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Spells &amp; Karma" data-source="post: 327456" data-attributes="member: 23">Last night I stumbled upon a tacky behind-the-scenes "documentary" thingy on Channel 5: <a href="https://www.comedy.co.uk/tv/are-you-being-served-secrets-scandals/" target="_blank">Are You Being Served?: Secrets & Scandals</a>.  I ended up watching the whole thing, but feel I should say that in a whisper.It's probably very typical of a C5 exposé. No real research or revelations, and the only actors involved were Mike "Mr Spooner" Berry and some woman who appeared as one of Old Mr Grace's bits of crumpet in the series' final days (something that really came across - even in short clips - was how much the series' quality deteriorated in direct proportion with the length of its teeth).There were a few clips of interviews with other actors taken from other (probably more legitimate) interviews. Other than that it was mostly talking heads: Robert Ross, of course; Mollie Sugden's son and a load of people whose names and faces meant nothing. The one I found most interesting - and borderline informative - was one of the  guys who did the SFX and still had a working model of the frog-in-the-soup.Naturally, it didn't live up to its name. There was a bit of talk about competitiveness over billing between Mollie and John Inman as the latter became what they called the "breakout star". And Mollie's son talked about his mother picking him up from school with some interesting hairdos in the days when she dyed her own hair a different colour for each episode, and about he and Mollie both feigning innocence with one another when it came to the pussy jokes.The biggest scandal was a passing reference to Wendy living with a husband who was physically abusive while she was filming later episodes. However, it was so fleeting that I mistakenly thought the "if you've been affected by any of the issues mentioned contact our helpline" announcement at the end was a tongue-in-cheek reference to flashing Santas and kneed seams and actually laughed.A couple of little titbits that I can't remember ever knowing (though I probably did at some point): the series' concept was said to come from Joanna Lumley (though they also said she was Jeremy Lloyd's wife when, in fact, they'd divorced before the series began). And the "You have been watching" thingies at the end were shot as live and took a lot of perfect timing from the cameramen, actors and editors who needed to ensure shots, poses and superimposed credits all lined up.It was a pretty shallow affair with probably ten minutes of research on Wikipedia. They didn't even touch upon the big screen version (despite using many images from it) or Grace & Favour. I can't say it was informative or even especially entertaining. But there are probably worse ways to kill an hour.</blockquote>

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