Not On Your Nellie

Not On Your Nellie
Series 1 DVD cover
Created by	Roy Bottomley Tom Brennand
Starring	Hylda Baker John Barrett Leo Dolan David Raynor Roger Howlett Azad Ali Alexandra Dane Wendy Richard Sue Nicholls Jack Douglas
No. of series	3
No. of episodes	17
Production
Producer(s)	London Weekend Television
Running time	25 minutes per episode
Release
Original network	ITV
Picture format	4:3 colour
Original release	3 March 1974 – 29 August 1975
Chronology
Related shows	Nearest and Dearest

Not On Your Nellie is a British sitcom that ran from 1974 until 1975. It starred veteran actress Hylda Baker as Nellie Pickersgill, a Bolton woman who moves to London to help run her ailing father's Chelsea pub. Seventeen episodes of the series were produced by London Weekend Television for the ITV network.

When Jed Pickersgill (John Barrett) finds himself too ill to run his Chelsea pub, The Brown Cow, he calls upon his middle-aged daughter Nellie for help. Nellie, however, is teetotal and does not approve of alcohol (or any vice) and attempts to maintain order in the pub by keeping a watchful eye on the regulars and her wayward father. Regular customers included Charlie (Leo Dolan), a window cleaner whose pastimes included booze and women; Ali (Azad Ali), an Asian London Underground worker who was forever being assaulted in the line of duty; George (David Raynor), an effeminate gay man who runs a nearby fashion boutique; and Gilbert (Roger Howlett), his flamboyantly dressed but always silent boyfriend. There was a new busty barmaid in each series (each disapproved of by Nellie), including Beryl (Alexandra Dane), Doris (Wendy Richard), and "Big Brenda" (Sue Nicholls).

Not On Your Nellie first premiered in 1974, a year after Baker's previous series, Nearest and Dearest, ended. In a 1973 television interview with Baker (available on the Series 7 DVD of Nearest and Dearest), she stated that Not On Your Nellie was planned as a spin-off from Nearest and Dearest and would focus on the character Nellie Pledge after her brother Eli (Jimmy Jewel) deserts her following the end of their family business, Pledge's Purer Pickles.

However, Baker's character in Not On Your Nellie was not Nellie Pledge, but Nellie Pickersgill - an identical character in all but name. Not On Your Nellie was created by Roy Bottomley and Tom Brennand and was based on a stage play that they had written for Baker in the frame of the Nellie Pledge character. Bottomley and Brennand were two of the regular writers for Nearest and Dearest, but were not the series creators ("Nearest" was created by Vince Powell and Harry Driver and was produced by Granada TV). As such, neither Bottomley or Brennand (or London Weekend Television) had any rights to the character of Nellie Pledge, so this is likely what facilitated the name change to Pickersgill.