Ronnie Barker: Fletcher

Porridge

Fletcher

[watching Mackay testing the curry in the prison kitchens]
Fletcher: Course, he sees 'imself as an authority on curry, he does, on account of where he was stationed in the army.
Rudge: India?
Fletcher: No, Bradford.

Fletcher: You're lookin' a bit down in the mouth, Mr Barrowclough, anything the matter?
Mr Barrowclough: Oh, nothing much. The usual. Domestic crisis.
Fletcher: Oh dear. Mrs Barrowclough left you, has she?
Mr Barrowclough: Unhappily... no Fletcher.

[Having been kidnapped and dumped outside jail, Fletcher and Godber try to break back in. They have to pass a farm where the old farmer is leaning on the gate. Fletcher riding is a bike, and Godber jogging alongside]
Fletcher: [talking to Godber] Come on, come on, don't flag, jab, jab.
[talks to the farmer]
Fletcher: It's the big one next week, sir.
Farmer's wife: Who was that?
Farmer: Couple of escaped convicts.
Farmer's wife: Ohhh.

Fletcher: Show me a man who laughs at defeat and I will show you a black chiropodist with a sense of humour.

Governor: [discussing who may be on the celebrity football team] Didn't you mention that comedian chap? Wh-What's his name? Jimmy Tarbrush?
Mackay: Buck, sir.
Governor: Yes. Buck Tarbrush.
Mackay: Well, unhappily he's indisposed sir.
Governor: Oh, dear.
[he and Mackay leave]
Fletcher: Buck Tarbrush. We should be lucky to get Basil Brush.

Godber: Hey, why don't we nick a chicken?
Fletcher: Don't be silly, it's Wednesday afternoon. Where we going to get sage and onion stuffing, eh?

[discussing a new arrival]
Godber: He's been sitting in his cell since chow, just staring at the wall.
Fletcher: Ah well, he's just had his first experience of your cottage pie. Best not to move about too much after that.

Fletcher: You're not doing yourself any favours, are you Banyard? All you're doing is getting up other people's noses.
Banyard: We have certain rights.
Fletcher: No we don't, we're in the nick.
Ives: I suppose you think you're entitled to something better just because you went to a public school, is that it?
Banyard: On the contrary, Ives, I'm well used to this kind of food, I went to Harrow.
Fletcher: Oh that's a good advert for the public school system, prepares you for the nick. Course it's harder in here for him than for most of us, 'cause he has had further to drop. Professional man, you see. Dentist. Tragic.
Ives: What do you mean, Fletcher, 'tragic'? It's no laughing matter for that woman he had under the laughing gas.
Banyard: There's no need for that, Ives. We don't have to keep unearthing each other's past, I'm paying for my peccadilloes.
Fletcher: Oh that's good. If you're paying I'll have a large one.
Bunny Warren: What's a peccadillo?
Ives: It's a South African bird. Flies backwards to stop getting the sand in its eyes.
Bunny Warren: No. No. I know what you mean though. It's an animal. Called the Armadildo.
Banyard: The Armadildo.
Fletcher: No, that was King Arthur's codpiece. I think that's what I'm eating an' all.

Mackay: I was in the village today. There were some interesting reports. Sightings you might say.
Fletcher: UFOs?
Mackay: Indeed. Unidentified *Fleeing* Objects.

Fletcher: I wouldn't leave that bike there if I was you.
Mr Beal: When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it.
Fletcher: Suit yourself. But there are one or two thieves in 'ere. Know what I mean?

[Fletcher finally gives in and reads Bunny's letter]
Fletcher: All right, I'll just you the 'ighlights, all right? 'Dearest Bunny, blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah...
[pause as he turns the page]
Fletcher: blah.
Bunny Warren: Blah blah blah what?
Fletcher: It's trivia, Bunny, it's just trivia, it's the weather, her mother's catarrh, she's retiled the lav, the canary's got haemorrhoids, she's met a welder at the Fiesta Club and she's thinking of movin' in with him. All right? Must rush. Can't hang about.
[exits]
Bunny Warren: But...
[pauses]
Bunny Warren: ...we 'aven't got a canary.

[it's after lights out and lock up. There is the distant sound of a fellow inmate groaning mid-nightmare]
Godber: You awake, Fletch?
Fletcher: No.
Godber: It's that bloke, Atkinson.
Fletcher: I know.
Godber: Keeps getting these terrible nightmares.
Fletcher: Yeah.
Godber: He's told the shrink about 'em, but all he's given 'im is aspirin. You have to feel compassion, don't you? A human soul in such torment.
Fletcher: Hmm.
[Atkinson bellows something in the distance]
Fletcher: [shouts] Belt up, Atkinson, you noisy scrote.

Fletcher: Success? Let me tell you about success. I had a pal, come to London 28 years ago without two ha'pennies to rub together. Now he managed to save up enough to buy a little hand cart and he went round collecting all old newspapers. Do you what he's worth today?
Mr Barrowclough: No, what?
Fletcher: Nothing. And he still owes for the hand cart.

[Fletcher and Godber have found their way back to the coach they were kidnapped in. It's surrounded by police]
Godber: What is it?
Fletcher: Cops.
Godber: Copse? What, you mean like a wooded glade?
Fletcher: Yeah. A wooded glade crawlin' with bleedin' cops.

[Fletcher and Rudge are on their way to the kitchens when another inmate passes by]
Fletcher: Watch out for 'im. 'Es the mad butcher of Slade prison.
Rudge: What did he do?
Fletcher: Fiddle the VAT on his sausages.

Harry Grout: Now we need someone reliable as trainer.
Fletcher: Don't look at me. I've grown disenchanted with the game. Twenty years of supporting Orient does that for a man.

Godber: I've had it with you.
Fletcher: You what?
Godber: You've really got up my goat these past two weeks.
Fletcher: Wrong Godber. I *get* your goat. I don't get up your goat. I get up your nose or on your wick.
Godber: Well just lately you've done all three.