Ronnie Barker on Porridge (Image: BBC)
A of Porridge brought choas to the set, as allegedly “walked off” mid filming. According to an audience member, the actor leaving his post was due to a “technical glitch”.
Posting to IMDB, the fan of the show shared their first hand experience of watching the much-loved prison sitcom being filmed. The audience member, Clive Gardener, wrote: “Around halfway through the recording session some sort of technical ‘glitch’ occurred.
“Whilst the director and technicians put their heads together to sort things out, Ronnie Barker left the studio set and came forwards to address the audience in person. His off-the-cuff, ad-lib performance was every bit as good as he appears on screen delivering carefully scripted dialogue.”
The poster continued: “It was actually a shame and a disappointment when the ‘all clear’ was given and he had to end his personal one-to-one with the audience after being called back to work in the . As a result, the audience lost none of its energy through the unforeseen break in proceedings and were more than ready to receive the remainder of the story with equal gusto.”
The Desperate Hours was a festive special episode, first airing in 1976, which saw Ronnie’s character Fletcher and Godber (Richard Beckinsale) brewing illegal hooch.
The episode was a Christmas special back in the 70s (Image: BBC)
As they were marched into the Governor’s office by Mackay (Fulton Mackay), the governor was suffering horrendously from “the turkey trots”.
Elsewhere, Urwin (Dudley Sutton) was busy holding everyone hostage with a gun he had made in the metalshop and was demanding a helicopter and a safe passage to Mexico.
In choatic scenes, Mackay had a supposedly foolproof plan to knock Urwin out with tranquilizers in his coffee – but Barrowclough (Brian Wilde) mistakenly gives the cup to Fletcher instead by mistake.
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Ronnie Barker allegedly walked off set (Image: Getty)
After he had accidentally taken the knock-out drops Barraclough intended for Urwin, Fletch came to and successfully disarmed his captor, talking him into giving himself up.
Back in the cell Barraclough tells Fletch that the matter of the hooch will be dropped because of his heroism but Fletch now has something to hold over the screw.
In a major revelation, it is all soon revealed that Barrowclough had been up to no good with the Governor’s secretary.