PORRIDGE is perhaps the most successful of the many big screen adaptations of British comedy TV series of the 1970s. It's certainly the funniest. The writing of this film is near-perfect, featuring the same cast that we all know and love and yet expanding the storyline with extra characters and a bigger plot than usual. I thought that it was actually better than the bigger budgeted ESCAPE TO VICTORY which tells almost exactly the same storyline.

The film is a success thanks to Ronnie Barker, whose Fletcher remains the life and soul of the party. He's witty, articulate, and always ready with a funny one-liner. The supporting cast of character actors are fine too: Peter Vaughan is reptilian and frightening, Richard Beckinsale warm-hearted and goofy, and Fulton Mackay strict but human. The inclusion of new faces like Julian Holloway, Sam Kelly, and Gorden Kaye is a delight. There isn't a great deal of plotting here, but the football match is well staged and funny and there's never a slow moment - just lots of funny ones.

PORRIDGE is one of the most fondly remembered TV shows Britain has ever produced . It never hit the heights of comedy genius that John Cleese and Connie Booth managed with FAWLTY TOWERS but scriptwriters Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement managed to craft a character driven comedy set in a British prison with an excellent cast of comedy actors . This is the film version of the television show released almost two years after the final episode was broadcast

What is striking is that how much this film version emulates the television comedy . The colourful characters are true to form with the bossy arrogant Mr Mckay , the naive Mr Barraclough , the prison Mr Big Grouty , the sneaky Ives , the posh educated Banyard , and the two protagonists who carried the show Lenny Godber and Norman Stanley Fletcher . Perhaps the biggest disappointment from the cast is the lack of on screen scary black Scotsman Mclaren due to scheduling difficulties involving Tony Osoba

It's difficult to graft a strong plot onto a character driven comedy and a plot involving a prison breakout is perhaps a too obvious plot but at least the writers tried . Up until the escape we're kept amused by the snappy one liners the show was renowned for . It also contains some abrasive bitchy dialogue that sounds totally natural :

" I bet if we brought Michael Parkinson and the Goodies you wouldn't have held them for questioning ? "

" Probably not . But you didn't did you ? "

All in all this is an effective film adaptation of a classic British sit-com

PORRIDGE was without doubt one of the greatest (if not the greatest) sitcoms ever produced on British TV,and two years after it's final episode (and a year after the sequel GOING STRAIGHT),everyone involved decided to produce a big screen version with all the familiar elements at hand.Looking at the rather cheap-jack and crude attempts in previous years (STEPTOE AND SON,ON THE BUSES and ARE YOU BEING SERVED? instantly come to mind among others),most critics and audiences would have dreaded such a prospect,as the film version of another great sitcom DAD'S ARMY was the only one that adequately cut the mustard.

The cinema version of PORRIDGE generally comes across rather well,though with definite flaws.The first half-hour or so is certainly the best,with plenty of very funny incident and occasionally hilarious one-liners,with such performers as Brian Wilde,Richard Beckinsale,Fulton Mackay,Peter Vaughan and of course,the brilliant Ronnie Barker,more than effectively repeating their memorable comic characterisations from the classic TV series.In the film's final two-thirds however,inspiration begins to flag,with a somewhat over-stretched plot involving the smuggling out of a new con (Barrie Rutter) during a football match.And much unlike virtually every episode of the TV version,the incidents depicted become rather foolish,flabby and lacking in credulity,which inevitably would have been far more subtle,taut and concise in it's regular half hour sitcom format.Being filmed almost wholly on location in the middle of winter also doesn't help;it all looks very bleak and morose which gives the film a rather pessimistic mood,in stark contrast to the TV version which despite the obviously grim countenance of a prison,still managed to amuse with spectacular success with a minimum of location work,and mainly being set in a convincingly constructed studio set with less harsh lighting,which despite it's claustrophobic feel still managed to produce a consistent vein of optimism.

Still,the performances from Barker,Beckinsale,Mackay and co. remain as good as ever to the final shot,and there's enough amusing moments to prevent the film from being anything near the vapid quality of most TV to film spin-offs from this period of British film history.With the execption of the forgettable sitcom BLOOMERS,it was sadly the final released work to feature the immensely talented young actor Richard Beckinsale;he had previously made a name for himself in the slight but amusing sitcom THE LOVERS,before he really hit the big time with his performances in PORRIDGE and another great sitcom of the 1970's, RISING DAMP (arguably the best example of this genre the ITV network ever produced) opposite Leonard Rossiter.He would undoubtedly have become a very big star in the 1980's and 1990's had it been not for his tragically premature death of a heart attack in 1979 aged only 31.Like his fellow co-stars,his performance isn't quite as good as it was in the peerless TV series,but it is still a perfectly acceptable epitaph to his talents and a genuinely classic BBC TV original.

RATING:6 and a Half out of 10.