All Gas and Gaiters

1970s British radio comedy series

Set in fictional St Ogg’s cathedral All Gas and Gaiters shows the life of bishop, his friend the archdeacon and the bishop’s chaplain as they try to deal with everyday problems and one man they simply can’t stand - the dean. Radio version of a popular TV show.

The life of Bishop Cuthbert Hever would be quite peaceful - he resides next to historic St Ogg’s cathedral, his friend Archdeacon Henry Blunt shares the parish and his chaplain Mervyn Noote helps with the every day tasks. But there is something that really irritates the bishop, or rather there is someone - the dean. Dean Lionel Pugh-Critchley has a very strict approach to everything - not only the church matters, but pretty much every aspect of life, which brings the bishop to the brink of madness with his constant interference. Bishop does what he can to avoid the dean, but this is impossible since they not only share the cathedral duties, but also are neighbours.

On first glance it’s hard to believe that the series about bishop and his every day problems could be a good material for comedy - there are certain themes typical for sitcoms that are more or less closed when your main character is a Church of England bishop, but All Gas and Gaiters was hit back in the 1960s and still did not lost much of its warm humour after all the years. It is warm, slow-paced comedy that is very relaxing with well developed characters and good chemistry between them.

Radio show All Gas and Gaiters was not a separate project from TV series, it is practically the audio version of TV episodes with added narrator comments that explain the bits the listeners could have missed. Luckily for us the insane practice of destroying tapes after they have been broadcasted did not apply to radio shows, so in radio version we can hear those episodes that do not exist in video version.

Rating	7.2
Funny	7 / 10
Entertaining	4 / 5
Characters	4 / 5
Nonrepetitive	3 / 5