Porridge (TV series) to make more episodes, but Barker was wary of being "stuck with a character" and also wanted to move on to other projects, so the series came to a close. Barker did, however, reprise his role as Fletcher in a sequel, "Going Straight", which ran for one series in 1978. A feature-length version of the show was made in 1979 and in 2003 a follow-up was aired. The prison exterior in the title sequence is the old St Albans prison gatehouse and HM Prison Maidstone, which was also featured in the BBC comedy series "Birds of a Feather" (HMP Slade
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,