Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt!

Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt!
Created by	Roy Clarke
Directed by	Derrick Goodwin (pilot) Ronnie Baxter (tv series)
Starring	Bill Maynard Megs Jenkins Robert Keegan Rosemary Martin Lynda Baron Richard Davies Bill Dean Harold Goodwin Ray Mort
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of series	4
No. of episodes	29
Production
Running time	30mins
Release
Original network	ITV
Original release	30 September 1974 – 17 October 1978

Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt! is a ITV situation comedy which ran on the ITV network from 1974 to 1978.

The series starred Bill Maynard as Selwyn Froggitt, a council labourer, Scarsdale Working Men’s Club secretary, hapless handyman and all-round public nuisance. It was created by Roy Clarke, who wrote the pilot episode transmitted in 1974, although the series was mostly written by Alan Plater, and was made for the ITV network, by Yorkshire Television.

Set in the fictional Yorkshire town of Scarsdale, the first three series centred on the bungling exploits of Selwyn Froggitt, a burly, balding, good-natured council labourer (Maynard) usually clad in a donkey jacket, with pretensions to intellectual competence (he carried The Times rolled up in the pocket of his donkey jacket, although was hardly ever seen reading it, preferring to tell people that "There was an article about it in The Times") and an urge to improve his life and that of everyone around him. Froggitt was on the committee of his local working men's club, serving as concert secretary in charge of booking "turns".

Froggitt was fundamentally and spectacularly incompetent at everything he turned his hand to, being equally inept at his day job (digging holes and filling them in), do-it-yourself at home, and booking acts for the club. Nevertheless he was extremely honest and hard-working, unlike the other committee members, who usually sat back in comfort while Froggitt did the manual labour. They generally despised him but tolerated him because he was too stupid to realise how dishonest they were.

The show featured a number of catchphrases: Selwyn's "Magic!" accompanied by two thumbs up; and his usual order at the club was, "A pint of cooking and a bag of nuts." (Although at virtually every opportunity whilst in the bar Selwyn would order at least one bag of nuts, he would rarely, if ever, be seen eating the nuts). Raymond the barman (Ray Mort) was fond of answering the telephone with a number of highly fictitious and fanciful addresses. All decisions taken by the club committee were taken on a "Show of hands..." and "Carried unanimously". Another running gag was Selwyn's mum saying "I wish you wouldn't open that cupboard Selwyn, things fall out!" whenever he opened the cupboard in the Froggitt front room upon which a flow of objects would fall onto the floor.

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