Episode #2.3

Still Open All Hours will never match the original show, but it does provide a decent half an hour of escapism, and some nice performances by all involved.

One of the perks of this revived show is that the original writer, Roy Clarke, is penning Granville's misadventures. There would surely be any number of scenarios he could put them in.

Why then have the Christmas special and first three episodes of this series been all practically the same? Granville wants to fix Madge and Gastric up, he plans some sort of 'make over' on Gastric, who then makes a prat of himself. It's been the same set up each episode, you can almost play 'what silly costume are they going to put Tim Healy in this week'.

Episodes 4-6 of the second series move away from this set up thankfully, but come on Roy, in a show so set in the past anyway, lets have a few fresh ideas.