Goodnight Sweetheart Returns For One-Off Special!
Ahh the 90’s. When Britannia was cool, Chris Evans was (a bit) less annoying, and Take That had 5 people in it. It was also an age when Nicholas Lyndhurst played a time travelling TV repairman in Goodnight Sweetheart, which is set to return for a one-off special as part of BBC’s landmark sitcom season.
For those of you too young to remember the original show, Lyndhurst played Gary Sparrow, a TV repairman who discovers a time portal which takes him back to World War II London. There he meets Phoebe Bamford (played by Dervla Kirwan, and later Elizabeth Carling), a pretty barmaid with whom he starts a relationship. The only problem is, Gary is married back in the 90’s to Yvonne (Michelle Holmes, replaced by Emma Amos in later seasons)… As he travels backwards and forwards between the two time periods, life gets more and more complex as Gary tries to balance his two families, until the time portal collapses on VE Day, trapping him in the past.
The original creators Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran (Birds of a Feather, The New Statesman) have written the new script which will catch up with Gary, and see him face the consequences of his meddling with time.
Goodnight Sweetheart isn’t the only show returning for a special in BBC’s landmark sitcom season, which celebrates 60 years of comedy at the BBC. Other shows returning include Are You Being Served?, Ronnie Barker’s classic Porridge, and a Keeping Up Appearances prequel called Young Hyacinth.
“The whole sitcom season is geared towards giving comedy royalty their due recognition and in Goodnight Sweetheart we have heavy-weight writing and performing talents reunited in this hugely popular and fondly remembered show.” commented Shane Allen, Controller of BBC Comedy Commissioning. “The conceptual update is sublime and it was heart-skipping stuff to read – it’s an absolute belter.”
BBC’s landmark sitcom season is due to air in the Autumn.
