LOTSW - Production - History and Development

History and Development

In 1972, Duncan Wood, the BBC's Head of Comedy, watched a drama on television called The Misfit. Impressed by writer Roy Clarke's ability to inject comedy into the drama, Wood offered Clarke the opportunity to write a sitcom. Clarke nearly turned the job down as he felt that the BBC's idea for a programme about three old men was a dull concept for a half-hour sitcom. Instead, Clarke proposed that the men should all be unmarried, widowed, or divorced and either unemployed or retired, leaving them free to roam around like adolescents in the prime of their lives, unfettered and uninhibited.

Clarke chose the original title, The Last of the Summer Wine, to convey the idea that the characters are not in the autumn of their lives but the summer, even though it may be "the last of the summer". BBC producers hated this at first and insisted that it remain a temporary working title, while the cast worried that viewers would forget the name of the show. The working title was changed later to The Library Mob, a reference to one of the trio's regular haunts early in the show. Clarke switched back to his original preference shortly before production began, a title that was shortened to Last of the Summer Wine after the pilot show.

The Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of BBC's Comedy Playhouse on 4 January 1973. The pilot, "Of Funerals and Fish", received enough positive response that a full series was commissioned to be broadcast before the end of the year. Although the initial series did not do well in the ratings, the BBC ordered a second series in 1975.