Arkwright (Open All Hours) Arkwright (Open All Hours) Albert E. Arkwright, usually referred to simply as Arkwright, is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the British sitcom, "Open All Hours", played by Ronnie Barker. Arkwright is the uncle of Granville and the proprietor of an old fashioned Yorkshire corner shop, which in the era of the programme (1970s and 1980s) was a product of a bygone age. Arkwright's signature characteristic is his stutter, which Granville never misses an opportunity to mock. Arkwright is a pragmatic, miserly man with old-fashioned values, whose world seems to stop at his shop door, except for his
Ronnie Barker he did not tell Barker. His first radio appearance was in 1956, playing Lord Russett in "Floggit's". He went on to play multiple characters, but primarily the put-upon Able Seaman 'Fatso' Johnson and Lieutenant-Commander Stanton in "The Navy Lark", a navy based sitcom on the BBC Light Programme, which ran from 1959-77, with Barker featuring in some 300 episodes. He also featured in the show's radio spin-off "The TV Lark", in which his character, Fatso, was now a camera operator after the main characters were drummed out of the service, and as a trainee chef in "Crowther's Crowd" in 1963,