Hi-De-Hi legends Su Pollard (who played Peggy Ollerenshaw) and Jeffrey Holland (Spike Dixon) are bringing back two of their beloved comedy characters for a sitcom sequel. Su, 75, and Jeffrey, 78, worked together on the BBC sitcom You Rang, M’Lord? from 1988 until 1993 after Hi-De-Hi ended. Created by the same writers, David Croft and Jimmy Perry, the series ended Jeffrey's footman James Twelvetrees and Su'd maid Ivy Teasdale out of domestic service and consider opening a boarding house by the sea.
A spin-off series was suggested at the time but didn't get off the ground. However just over thirty years later, David Croft’s directors and right hand men Roy Gould and Robin Carr, have written a brand new series which reunites Jeffrey and Su as James and Ivy. The show will also bring back many other actors from the original series including Perry Benson as bootboy Henry Livingstone, Susie Brann as Poppy, youngest daughter of Lord Meldrum, and John D. Collins as her upper-crust friend, Jerry.
The sitcom, simply entitled titled James and Ivy, will appear as an audio download later this year with recording taking place next month.
Reflecting on the new production writer Roy Gould said: “When we finished the show, all those years ago, I said to David Croft that I’d love to write the follow-up. He said: ‘Talk to Jimmy!’. I did, and he was all for it.
"All these years later, we have written it. We may all look a little older but we all sound the same!
"I’m getting the Croft and Perry repertory company back together and I can’t be more excited! It’s good quality, belly-laugh British comedy. Audiences have had enough of ‘Woke’!”
In February this year lead actor Jeffrey also lamented "woke" comedy as he prepared to release his memoir The First Rule Of Comedy.
He exlusively told Express.co.uk: "It's a shame. I'm really set against this woke thing of you've just got to be so careful what you say or don't say now. And I have no time for it.
"I'm afraid my time has been back in the 80s when you could say that sort of thing, you could infer whatever inuenndo. And it's a good, clever, funny, cheap way of doing it," he said
You Rang, M’Lord? still enjoys huge popularity with re-runs and even spawned a novelisation of James and Ivy stories.
