Ronnie Barker same year, determined not to be remembered only as Fletcher, Barker opted to end "Porridge" after three series and instead focused on the second pilot "Open All Hours", alongside David Jason. Barker starred as Arkwright, a money-grabbing, stuttering shopkeeper. Arkwright's stutter was not in the script; Barker was inspired to use it by Melvyn's performance and use of a stutter in a 1955 play the two performed at the Palace Theatre called "Hot Water". "Open All Hours" aired one series in 1976 on BBC Two but was not renewed due to low ratings. As a result, Barker backtracked on his
Fable (TV play) intended by Hopkins and his colleagues. Fable (TV play) Fable is a British television play, shown on 27 January 1965 as an episode of "The Wednesday Play" series on BBC 1. Written by John Hopkins, the play is set in a parallel totalitarian Britain where those in authority are black people, and white people are their social underdogs - a reversal of the situation in contemporary apartheid South Africa. It was directed by Christopher Morahan and produced by James MacTaggart. Although Hopkins had anti-racist intentions in writing the play, Audience Research at the time of the original broadcast suggested that,