Porridge (TV series) himself as the judge, a character role subsequently played by Maurice Denham in two episodes of the third series. The theme music for the closing credits was written by Max Harris, who had also written the theme music for numerous other TV shows, including "The Strange World of Gurney Slade" and "Doomwatch", and would go on to write the theme for "Open All Hours", another of the Seven of One pilots. The cheery theme was "deliberately at variance with the dour comedy" and given a music hall feel by Harris because of the lead character's Cockney origins. Following the pilot
Porridge (2016 TV series) series which went into production in January 2017. The show contains a number of affectionate references to the original series. For instance, the character of Joe Lotterby is named after Sydney Lotterby, a British TV producer and director, who was involved with producing the original series. Seven episodes of "Porridge", all written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, were produced for the BBC. The show began airing on 28 August 2016 and ended on 10 November 2017. All episodes had a running time of 30 minutes. Porridge (2016 TV series) Porridge is a British television sitcom, starring Kevin Bishop,