Are You Being Served?

I've only seen one episode of this and I was not impressed. Why they did an Australian version is beyond me as the episode I have seen did not contain any "Australian" content except for some accents here and there, it could have been set in the UK.

I have seen every episode of the UK version many times so the characters are very familiar to me so to see other actors and actresses in the roles made me constantly compare the new ones to the old ones and the originals are very much better.

There was a lack of chemistry between the characters and the acting was sub-par.

One episode could be watched for curiosity value but one is more than enough.

Even though this is not a patch on the original and some people would say its a poor imitation.

I believe this is a valiant effort to try and recapture the charm of the original series with a different cast and in that regard It succeeds. It also helps that the incomparable John Inman agreed to reprise his role as Mr Humphries and the other cast members fit their English counterparts extremely well.

The jokes added to the original scripts are extremely funny but unfortunately they are few and far between. If you ever come across this version of the series I would recommend Undesirable Alien (1981) as this is the only episode that consists of completely new material and shows what could have been.

If only they had written more new scripts and not decided to recycle old episodes for the Australian market, this version would have been a lot better received if they had.