OPEN ALL HOURS EXCEPT ARKWRIGHT IS SECRETLY GAY

[Pingers]

[It's morning, and Arkwright has just opened the shutters on the shop. Granville joins him as Arkwright stares at the baker's boy over the road who is bending right over a tray of buns]

ARKWRIGHT: Look at the bu- the bu-bu-bu, the bu-bu-buu-buu, the buu-buu-buu, look at the bloody time Granville, I'd better get my stock out.

GRANVILLE: Your what?

ARKWRIGHT: Stock, lad [audience laughs. It is 1981]. Customers will be in soon G-G-G-Granville, don't want to miss a sale.

CUSTOMER 1 ENTERS SHOP: Morning Arkwright. I'll have four tins of peaches please. And make sure they're in date.

ARKWRIGHT: How d-d-d-dare you!

CUSTOMER: Well, I've heard you're very tight Arkwright, you should loosen up a bit [Arkwright rolls eyes to camera]

ARKWRIGHT to GRANVILLE: Get behind the c-c-c-counter young lad and get this gentleman his p-p-p, his p-p-p-p, his p-p-peaches

GRANVILLE: Can't you just reach around?

ARKWRIGHT: I wish, lad. I wish.

[NURSE GLADYS EMMANUEL ENTERS THE SHOP, FOLLOWED BY 2ND CUSTOMER]

CUSTOMER 2: I'm after a pair of jugs!

ARKWRIGHT [distractedly]: Over there, sir.

NURSE GLADYS EMMANUEL: Are you alright, Arkwright? It's not like you to pass up a chance to make a smutty joke objectifying my heaving bangers.

ARKWRIGHT: Something's p-p-playing on my mind, Gladys.

GRANVILLE: I'm just going round the back

ARKWRIGHT [mutters]: I wish I was

NURSE GLADYS EMMANUEL: What is it then, Arkwright? Out with it [audience laughs. It's not long since the 1970s]

ARKWRIGHT: Well, G-G-G, well G-G-Gladys, it's this: I'm g-g-g, ga-ga-ga, I'm ga-ga-ga-ga, gaa-gaa-gaa

NURSE GLADYS EMMANUEL: Chuff's sake Arkwright, I've got to get to work now. You can tell me later

ARKWRIGHT: Oh, for fu-fu-fu, fuu-fuu-fuu, for fuu-fuu-fuu, fuuuuu-fuuuuuu....

[Glebe]

Hey! Nice one P-Pingers!

[Pingers]

Hey! Nice one P-Pingers!

Thanks G-Glebe. Hope you can see that there's more than a touch of homage in there

[a duncandisorderly]

"gah-gah-gah-granville, felch my cock!"

[Glebe]

GRANVILLE (daydreaming): Y'know, if my father really was Hungarian, there's every chance I could be descended from European royalty!

ARKWRIGHT: Oh g-give over, Granville! Hurry up and get that f-floor swept while I price these ta-tins of peas!

GRANVILLE: Tum-te-tum... 'ere, did that funny bloke collect his woofter magazine?

ARKWRIGHT: O-oh yes, ahem, he did, yes. I suppose it's all sorts nowadays, i-i'nt it?

The shop bell tings and a customer enters.

FLAMBOYANT MAN IN BIG FLOPPY PINK HAT: I'm freeeeeee! Hello, do you have that magazine I ordered?

GRANVILLE: What, didn't you get it?

FLAMBOYANT MAN: Oh we're all getting it nowadays, love! But seriously, no, I didn't collect this month's copy of Gay Lads Love It Up 'Em.

ARKWRIGHT: Oh d-dear, I'm afraid another gay came in and snapped it up!

FLAMBOYANT MAN: But I reserved that copy! Humph, this is a disgrace, I shall shop here no more!

FLAMBOYANT MAN leaves.

GRANVILLE: Well good riddance to 'im, with the Big Gay Plague!

ARKWRIGHT: Leh-listen, Granville, I have to p-pop upstairs for half and hour... you k-keep an eye on things d-down here!

GRANVILLE: Oh, alright then!

Half an hour later.

GRANVILLE: Have a nice lie down, then? Here, y'button fly's open!

ARKWRIGHT: I er... s-spilled some er,... milk, yes, some, m-milk... on the bedroom carpet... fer-fetch a cloth, Granville!

[Phoenix Lazarus]

NURSE GLADYS EMMANUEL: 'What've you been up to, since we last met?'

ARKWRIGHT: 'Oh, I've just had a good bum-bum-bum-b-bum-bum-bum-bum...'

NURSE GLADYS EMMANUEL: 'Ah. Business as usual, then?'

ARKWRIGHT: '...bum-bum-bum-bum-bumper discount from a supplier.'

[Pingers]

NURSE GLADYS EMMANUEL: Morning Arkwright, I've got some news. You know we're supposed to be getting married but I'm too busy looking after my mother?

ARKWRIGHT: Yes, G-Gladys

NURSE GLADYS EMMANUEL: Well, I'm afraid she's taken a turn for the worse and it looks like she's going to have to go into a nursing home.

ARKWRIGHT: Oh, I'm very sorry to hear that, love.

NURSE GLADYS EMMANUEL: But on the plus side, it means I won't be looking after her anymore and we can finally get married

ARKWRIGHT: Shit!

NURSE GLADYS EMMANUEL: What?!

ARKWRIGHT: Oh, it's, er, it's my s-s-stutter, G-Gladys, I was t-t-t-trying to say shiitake m-mushrooms - do you think I should stock 'em?

NURSE GLADYS EMMANUEL: In Doncaster? In 1981?

ARKWRIGHT: Hmm, yes, how about olives then, or m-m-manchego ch-cheese?

NURSE GLADYS EMMANUEL: What in the hairy hole are you on about Arkwright? You should be thinking ahead to our wedding plans, not thinking about exotic foods to stock in the shop. I'll go and see the vicar about a date.

ARKWRIGHT: Oh b-bu-bu-bugger Granville. This is a disaster. There's nowt for it, I'll have to go to b-b-b-b-b

GRANVILLE: Bed?

ARKWRIGHT: B-B-B-B-B-B

GRANVILLE: Batley?

ARKWRIGHT: B-B-B-B-B.... B-B-B-B.... FUCKING Brighton, Granville

GRANVILLE: Brighton? What on earth for?

ARKWRIGHT: I can't go on l-living a l-lie, lad. I'm going to go to B-B-Brighton and open a shop selling dildos and amyl nitrate, for gay men you know.

GRANVILLE: Chuffin' eck! I didn't see that coming. What are you going to call this shop, anyway?

ARKWRIGHT: Open All Hours

[Glebe]

GRANVILLE: Have you ever... pondered what it might be like to go on some wild, exotic adventure?

ARKWRIGHT picks a finger of Fudge from the confectionary counter and comes round to the front of the shop.

ARKWRIGHT: Tha-tha-there's all kainds of dusky, muscular blokes in them fer-far off countries!

GRANS: That sounds a bit homoerotic, Arkwright!

ARKWRIGHT: Fer-fer-fu-Fudge, I say Cadbury's Fudge always puts me in a fer-funny mood, lad!

NURSE GLADYS enters.

NURSE GLADYS: Here, Arkwright, I've not seen you climb up to my bedroom window on a wonky ladder of late! Y'gone off me or summit?

ARKY: 'ere, Granville, lets do some wacky scheme involving a d-delivery bike or van or summit!

GRANVILLE: Stop trying to change the subject! Nurse Gladys is suggesting that you've become limp-wristed!

ARKWRIGHT: It's that fer-fucking till, it takes y'hand off every time you dip it in!

GLADYS: Dipping y'fingers in the till? That sounds like a bit of a lesbian euphemism or summit!

ARKWRIGHT: It's the g-gays, not the l-lezzers I'm interested in!

GLADYS PUGH: Well don't forget, we're having a coffee evening for Mrs. Blewit and the others in the back room there later!

LATER.

GLADYS: Come in, Mrs. Blewit and the others, there's coffee and biscuits... ARKWRIGHT!

ARKWRIGHT is naked with a load of gays.

ARKWRIGHT: Fer-fuck's sake, don't yer know how to knock?

GRANVILLE: I can't wait to take over this shop and turn into Arkwright in a much-lesser series.

[Pingers]

Lovely :)

[Huxleys Babkins]

GRANVILLE: They say that you get more and more like your parents as you get older. But I don't feel even remotely Hungarian.

ARKWRIGHT: You weren't saying that when you ate that last cu-cu-cu-custard cream!

GRANVILLE: Thing is, I'm finding myself saying and doing things that you'd do. The miserliness, the stutter... The feelings.

ARKWRIGHT: F-fe-fe-fe-fe-feelings?

GRANVILLE: About men.

ARKWRIGHT: I d-don't know what you mean G-Granville. That sort of talk can get a man locked up. You wouldn't last fe-fi-fi-five minutes in there. Neither of us would. That's why I'm to be betrothed to the lovely Nurse Gladys Emmanuel and why you should chase after a ve-ve-ve-variety of young, doughy lasses.

GRANVILLE: Doesn't it feel wrong though? To live a lie like that?

ARKWRIGHT: Oh, no. She's a great companion. And after a cu-couple of sherries she's quite inclined to peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peh-peg my dry little arsehole raw.

GRANVILLE: ... Have you got any more of those custard creams?

[Glebe]

Its the end of the episode, and ARKWRIGHT is taking in his stuff in the dark and reflecting on the days events.

ARKWRIGHT VOICEOVER: Sigh... I wonder if Granville will ever stop dreaming about f-foreign lands... and if Nurse Gladys will ever s-stop dreaming about me finally marrying her! I've dropped enough hints... she must know I'm 'on the other bus' by now! I w-wonder if any other Ronnie Barker characters are secretly gay.

RONNIE BARKER JUDGE VOICEOVER: Norman Stanley Fletcher, I hereby sentence you to ten years in prison for committing an act of sodomy before homosexuality was decriminalised a few years ago.

[Huxleys Babkins]

AGENT: It's called "Going Straight".

BARKER: Fuck that.

[Golden E. Pump]

Closed All Hours

[Glebe]

AGENT: It's called "Going Straight".

BARKER: Fuck that.

Zing!

[Ferris]

Closed All Hours

Closet All Hours

[Glebe]

STILL OPEN ALL HOURS EXCEPT GRANVILLE IS SECRETLY GAY.

GRANVILLE: Come on, Granville's Son, get them fidget spinners on the shelves!

GRANVILLE'S SON: Them fidget spinners has gone out of fashion, y'daft ha'porth!

GRANVILLE: Nonsense! They're like the Rubik's Cube, they never go out of fashion!

JOHNNY VEGAS: Afternoon, Granville... got any of that, er, 'special paste' in stock?

GRANVILLE: Indeed I do, Johnny!

GRANVILLE holds up a tin of his 'special paste'.

GRANVILLE: This stuff is a miracle and wonder of the modern age! Guaranteed to put lead in y'pipe and improve vigour and vitality!

AUDIENCE: HAHAHA!!!

VEGAS: I'll have two dozen's worth! Bye Granville! Bye Granville's Son!

GRANVILLE looks proudly up at the portrait of ARKWRIGHT that hangs on the wall behind.

GRANVILLE: Ah yes.... if he could only see me now, he'd be propah p-proud!

GRANVILLE'S SON: Are you sure he wouldn't be furious with you and Roy Clarke for desecrating the memory of the original series with this load of fucking shite?

GRANVILLE: N-now now, Granville's Son! There's, there's n-no need f's-swearin'!

GRANVILLE'S SON: It's just hilarious how you're picking up his s-stutter... I wonder if there's any other deviancies you've developed that he had?

GRANVILLE: I told you not to mention that. You were lucky you were even born, all things considered. I only had it off with women to pretend I wasn't one of them. And I nearly ran off with Julian from the laundrette down the road in the '90s... but I was guilted into being a proper father to you, you ungrateful, unwanted little feh-fuckah.

[Huxleys Babkins]

GRANVILLE: 'Ere, Cyril. Tell me, what's it like? To be out and p-proud?

CYRIL: I don't know what you mean!

GRANVILLE: Come on, you're the biggest woofter down this street!

CYRIL: How dare you? This is simply a very, very broad performance like I do in everything I appear in! I chew scenery, not cock!

GRANVILLE: Fair enough, I suppose. Just your usual order then?

CYRIL: Yes, please.

GRANVILLE: I'm afraid we didn't receive your industrial strength p-peh-peh-peh-p-poppers, but I've chucked in a kilo of butter so you don't b-beh-beh-b-bleed.

[Glebe]

ARKWRIGHT: They're all Opened all the Hours by the time I'm fer-finished with 'em!

[Glebe]

Granville applies the Rainbow Flag to his Facebook photo. "Poor old Arkwright had to hide in the closet... now they're all at it, the dirty beggers!"

[Cursus]

G-G-Granville, f-f-fetch your cloth! I've only gone and spilt cream all over the bathtub again.

(Granville sighs). So that's where you'd got to Arkwright. I was looking everywhere for you. You know, there was another young man in here earlier asking after you. He said he'd had word that you were on the lookout for faggots...

F-f-f-f-f-faggots lad?

Aye. And I thought that was odd as we'd only had a fresh delivery of Mr Brain's yesterday morning...

Well now, I just w-w-wanted to stock a better c-c-class of product for once.

It didn't sound like these were going to be very high quality though. He mentioned something about rough trade... (Arkwright pulls a face) And twinks...

T-t-t-t-winks? Why he must of meant The r-r-r-right Reverend Spinks who lives over in Charnley Street. You remember him don't you lad?

And Grindr?

G-g-g-grindr Granville? They're the butchers over Blaxton way. It's them what finds the faggots for me. Now enough with the questions, and let me b-borrow your bike... I want to see if I can catch up with that young man... (Exit Arkwright)

[Glebe]

ARKWRIGHT: Er, I have a v-very important client c-coming, Granville, so you can finish up early tod-today.

GRANVILLE: Oh, well that's a bit of good news! I'll just get the sweeping done!

HANDSOME YOUNG MAN: Hello, is Arkwright here?

ARKWRIGHT: Oh h-hello, pah-please come through to my, orifice, I MEAN my, er... o-office!

HANDSOME YOUNG MAN: Do we have to do it in your office?

GRANVILLE: Well isn't that were most business meetings take place?

HANDSOME YOUNG MAN: Well hello, sailor! You joining in too?

GRANVILLE: Nah, I'm sweeping up and heading off.

ARKWRIGHT: Yah-yes, you just d-do that... but before you go... fer-fetch a condom, Granville!

[Glebe]

ARKWRIGHT: Gunna re-per-paint the shop, Granville. W-what do you think, ser-Sunset Yellow or dah-Deacon ber-Blue?

GRANVILLE: I've noticed you've become 'good with colours' of late, uncle!

NURSE GLADYS EMMANUELLE: Hello, you two! Arkwright, I want a word!

ARKWRIGHT: Gre-Granville, would you mer-mind popping out for a moment?

NURSE GLADYS: Now that we're alone, Arkwright... are you going to explain why you've cooled off on me lately?

ARKWRIGHT: Ler-look, Gladys... I've told you, I've ber-bent a different way of late... I feel all qua-qua-qua-queer!

AUDIENCE: HAHAHA!!!

GLADYS: Now look, Arkwright... I'll never stop lovin' you... there's no way you'll stop me pursuing you, until my dying day!

GRANVILLE returns after a short while.

GRANVILLE: You two finished y'private chat yet? I-NURSE GLADYS! Arkwright, she's... she's...

ARKWRIGHT: Fer-fetch a shovel, Granville.

[Glebe]

NURSE GLADYS: I just hope I don't open the backroom/kitchen door and discover Arkwright doing gay things!

NURSE GLADYS opens the door. ARKWRIGHT is having it off with a load of gays.

NURSE GLADYS: ARKWRIGHT!

ARKWRIGHT: Oh dear, I dun it again. S-sorry Nurse Gladys, I jus' carn't h-help meself!