Our House

The first, but definitely not the last conversion to television of the 'Carry On...' series of films, Our House was created and principally written by Norman Huddis, who had penned the first five Carry On movies, which began with Carry On Sergeant in 1958. 

In the opening episode ('Moving Into Our House') two couples and five individuals meet at an estate agent and realise that if they pool their resources they can buy a house big enough to accommodate them all. Hattie Jacques as librarian Georgina Ruddy, who was forced to keep quiet at work and so made up for it by being extremely noisy at home, was arguably the star of the series. Charles Hawtrey was council official Simon Willow and Joan Sims starred as the unemployable Daisy Burke. The artistic newly-wed Hatton's were played by Trader Faulkner and Leigh Madison, retired Yorkshire sea dog Captain Iliffe and his French violinist wife were played by Frank Pettingell and Ina de la Haye, respectively. Herbert Keene was shy and persecuted bank clerk, Frederick Peisley, and the final resident was Norman Rossington as law student, Gordon Brent. 

The series initially ran for 13 episodes of 55-minute duration and were seen at 3.25pm on a Sunday afternoon from September to December 1960. It was then off the screen for exactly one year before returning with a host of new stars replacing those missing from the first series (Faulkner, Sims, Rossington, Pettingell and de la Haye). Adding to the Carry On connection was Bernard Bresslaw (even though he would not join the movie series until Carry On Cowboy in 1965), and Hylda Baker as Henrietta. Euginie Cavanagh starred as Marina. Johnny Vyvyan and Harry Korris also appeared. As in the first series not all the characters appeared every week. 

Although series two of Our House was comprised of 26 episodes of 45-minute duration, after just seven fortnightly airings ITV decided to stop showing them in the London area, and the remaining 19 were seen on a weekly basis elsewhere in the country. Of the 39 episodes in total (produced by Ernest Maxin) only four survive today, and although not aired since series two finished in 1962, they have been released on DVD.

Published on January 16th, 2019. Written by Laurence Marcus for Television Heaven.