All Gas and Gaiters

All Gas and Gaiters
All Gas and Gaiters DVD
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	Pauline Devaney Edwin Apps
Starring	Robertson Hare William Mervyn Derek Nimmo John Barron Ernest Clark
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of series	5
No. of episodes	33 + 1 short
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Release
Original network	BBC1
Original release	17 May 1966 – 17 June 1971

All Gas and Gaiters is a British television ecclesiastical sitcom which aired on BBC1 from 1966 to 1971. It was written by Pauline Devaney and Edwin Apps, a husband-and-wife team who used the pseudonym of "John Wraith" when writing the pilot. All Gas and Gaiters was also broadcast on BBC Radio from 1971 to 1972.

All Gas and Gaiters, predominantly farcical in nature, was set in the close of the fictional St Ogg's Cathedral and concerned various intrigues and rivalries among the clergy. The "gaiters" in the title refers to part of the traditional dress of bishops and archdeacons. The title itself, however, is a reference to a well-known phrase from Charles Dickens' 1839 novel Nicholas Nickleby, and later used by P. G. Wodehouse, although it had at that time a different meaning. The bishop was easygoing; his friend the archdeacon was elderly, tippling, and still appreciative of attractive women; and the bishop's chaplain was naïve and accident-prone. Their wish to live a quiet bachelor life was continually threatened by the overbearing dean, who tried to bring by-the-book rule to the cathedral.

The series initially aroused some controversy because of its portrayal of senior clergy as bungling incompetents, although some clergy enjoyed it. In the opening credits, St Albans Cathedral was shown as the fictional St Ogg's, but with the twisted spire of Church of St Mary and All Saints, Chesterfield added to the central tower. The background to the opening credits was the headmaster's garden of St. Albans School. The name "St. Ogg's" may have been taken from a fictional village in George Eliot's novel The Mill on the Floss.

It proved to be the first of a series of comedies starring Derek Nimmo in similar bumbling clerical roles - (Oh, Brother!, Oh, Father! and Hell's Bells) - but is regarded the best, partly because of a strong supporting cast (particularly the experienced farceur Robertson Hare as the archdeacon) and partly because it included some elements of gentle satire.

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