Are You Being Served? sharp-tongued, witty responses, along with his trademark catch-phrase "I'm free!", were enthusiastically embraced by many audience members, and the character evolved into a gay icon in popular culture. Despite this, Inman pointed out that Mr Humphries' true sexual orientation was never explicitly stated in the series, and David Croft said in an interview that the character was not homosexual, but "just a mother's boy". In an episode of the spin-off "Grace & Favour", the character is further described as neither a "woman's man" nor a "man's man" and as being "in limbo". The characters (Mr Humphries especially) sometimes broke the
Are You Being Served? fourth wall for comical effect. Seven early episodes were novelised for a book, written by Jeremy Lloyd, called "Are You Being Served? – Camping In and other Fiascos". This was written in 1976, and republished in 1997 by "KQED Books". The seven episodes featured are "Camping In", "Up Captain Peacock", "Wedding Bells", "His and Hers", "Coffee Morning", "The Hand of Fate" and "The Clock". In 1995, KQED Books published "Are You Being Served – The Inside Story" by Adrian Rigelsford, Anthony Brown, and Geoff Tibbals, with a foreword by Jeremy Lloyd, and sub-titled: "The Inside Story of Britain's Funniest –