Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt

'Oh, No! It's Selwyn Froggitt!' was a truly hilarious ITV Yorkshire sitcom, centred on an extremely annoying but chillingly plausible character. American television has no counterpart to Selwyn Froggitt ... the nearest equivalent would probably be Cliff Clavin off 'Cheers', but that's a very distant resemblance.

Froggitt (brilliantly played by veteran comic Bill Maynard) is a hopelessly incompetent labourer in the Public Works department of the Scarsdale town council. Huge of body but tiny of intellect, Froggitt is equally inept whether he's digging a ditch for a water line, wiring a building, or fixing the plumbing. More than one house has burnt to the ground (or exploded outright) after Froggitt made the repairs.

At night, Froggitt can be found propping up the bar at the Scarsdale Working Men's Club, where he is heard expounding on all sorts of subjects he knows nothing about. (These are the scenes in which he most nearly resembles Cliff Clavin.) Froggitt is also the Institute's recording secretary, largely because nobody else wants the job, and he fancies that this confers some sort of status on him.

At home, Froggitt is a constant source of annoyance to his mother (veteran actress Megs Jenkins) and his brother Maurice. 'Oh, No! It's Selwyn Froggitt!' has never (to my knowledge) been shown on American tv, probably because so many of the characters speak in thick 'oop north' Yorkshire accents and the dialogue is full of British references. Still, there's a great deal of physical comedy in this series (largely due to Froggitt's ineptitude), and this sitcom would probably find an appreciative audience if it were shown Stateside.

This series was so popular that it was eventually adapted as a stage play (in Britain only, of course) and followed by a sequel, called simply 'Selwyn', which featured the same character (played by Maynard again) as a director in a holiday camp. This was a much weaker premise: it didn't make sense to have Froggitt in a position of authority (even in a holiday camp), and 'Selwyn' wasn't very funny. But 'Oh, No! It's Selwyn Froggitt' is gut-bustingly hilarious. I split myself with laughter whenever I watch this show.

This was the number 1 show at our school when 1st on yes we were all shouting magic in the school grounds but I was actually shocked just watching it on forces tv why were young teenagers drawn to this it was more last of the summer wine than young ones I can only assume it was because selwyn was very child like.10/10 on first watching 3/10 now. Did I mention my auntie use to live next door to Tony Mansell.

After rediscovering "The Gaffer " on DVD I decided to catch "Oh No" . I caught it 1st time around but never took a lot of notice but after recent watching I never realised how marvellous this was. Biil Maynard shows how he was one of the best physical comics of our time and really knew how to use screen time. The Pilot was changed a lot for the series but for the better I thought. Everybody seemed to be having such a good time making this and I think we all know someone like Selwyn. You could not remake this in this day and age as it's pure comedy genius and nobody could possibly be a Selwyn.With a Yorkshire small town backdrop it takes us back to when comedy used to make us laugh without feeling offended . Not a single swearword or smutty innuendo this classic feels and appears as fresh as it did nearly 40(yes...40!) years ago. Thumbs up to Bill Maynard....Magic!!!!

From the same writer as Open All Hours and Last of the Summer Wine, to an extent this feels as though young Granville had got his own show: Froggitt shares Granville's gentle, well-intentioned nature and his tendency to both dreaming and rambling. But he's lacking an appropriate foil (like Arkwright), and the worst thing about is the constant tittering of the studio audience at not very much. That's ITV for you...

... as a Statesider who spent a sabbatical year in Sidmouth 1978-79, I must take exception to the lack of respect for the followup show, "Selwyn." I'm happy to have been able to get all but the last season of "Oh No, . . ." on videotape before Yorkshire TV decided to discontinue it, but "Selwyn"'s best moments are every bit as hilarious as "Oh No, . . ."'s. One episode in particular, in which Selwyn ties up a checkout queue by trying to be helpful by coming up with exact change is still a high-water mark in gestural/physical comedy for me. Paul Lynde showing the photos of his disastrous safari adventure in "New Faces" is the only such one-man cameo I've ever laughed harder at (& that was live in Chicago back in 1952). The question is, why won't Yorkshire release all the Selwyn episodes for the whole world to enjoy and cherish?