Last of the Summer Wine Holmfirth any more. The situation escalated to the point that Bell filmed a scene in which Nora Batty put her house up for sale. Every episode of "Last of the Summer Wine" was written by Roy Clarke. The "Comedy Playhouse" pilot and all episodes of the first series were produced and directed by James Gilbert. Bernard Thompson produced and directed the second series of episodes in 1975. In 1976, Sydney Lotterby took over as producer and director. He directed all but two episodes of the third series – Ray Butt directed "The Great Boarding House Bathroom Caper" and "Cheering up
Last of the Summer Wine share of viewers in the 6:20 time slot with an average of 3.2 million viewers. "Last of the Summer Wine's" audience grew from 2.7 million to 3.4 million over the 30 minutes. The show was beaten for the night only by Channel 4's "Big Brother" with 3.6 million viewers at 9:00 p.m., although the reality show had a smaller share of viewers for its time slot. The 29th series finale, which was broadcast on 31 August 2008, was watched by 4.2 million people, giving the network a 22.5% share for the night. Several members of the royal family were viewers