Homepage Television Heaven Logo
The Hen House

The Hen House

1964 - United Kingdom

The Hen House was a one-off 30 minute sitcom broadcast as part of the Comedy Playhouse series on 10 January 1964. With CP's original writers Alan Simpson and Ray Galton busy creating comedy legend with Steptoe and Son (the first episode of the second series debuted the same week as this Comedy Playhouse offering), it was up to others to pen the one-off sitcoms in the hope that their own offering might lead to a full series. This particular one, written by George Evans and Derek Collyer, didn't-even though it starred Beryl Reid, Barbara Windsor and Dermot Kelly. 

The Hen House is a girls' hostel, Khartoum House, where the chances of a quiet bit of courting are as scarce as snowflakes in August. Only on one evening a week are the residents allowed to invite their boyfriends into the lounge-and only then for nice quiet pencil-and-paper games. As for lingering goodnights on the doorstep, they're out of the question. In the eyes of Mrs Teresa Fanwyn (Reid), hostel warden, a single kiss can lead to a postivie porchful of orgy: 'Once men and women get together, they orge...' The only way of fooling the watchful Teresa, it seems, is to install a TV set in the lounge. Then, with the lights turned low, the boyfriend evenings could become more interesting all round. Not that the girls have in mind cosy sessions with such programmes as Panorama. The set would be used-to quote Cynthia (Windsor)-'as a back row of the pictures.' But Teresa Fanwyn is anti-television; and it is the efforts of the girls and the janitor-handyman-dogsbody, Edwin (Kelly), the pursuade her to change her mind that provide the farcical flavour of The Hen House.

Published on December 21st, 2018. Based on original Radio Times article.

Read Next...

The Arthur Haynes Show

Britain's foremost sketch-show comedian of the early 1960s in his own series.

Also starring Dermot Kelly

Carry On Dick

Before the Carry On gang hung up their corsets and innuendos, they gave us Carry On Dick—a film where highway robbery wasn’t the only thing being shamelessly overacted. Cheeky? Utterly!

Also starring Barbara Windsor

Gilligan's Island

Although never a huge hit in the UK, Gilligan's Island was a massive success in its native USA, and has stood the test of time by becoming almost an icon of 1960's American sitcom.

Also released in 1964

EastEnders

"Preceded by mass publicity and weeks of TV advertisements that introduced each resident individually, the BBC had high hopes for the series even before it hit British TV screens for the first time on 19 February 1985..."

Also starring Barbara Windsor

Educating Archie

As strange as it may seem now, Archie Andrews was a ventriloquists dummy that first hit the big time on Radio!

Also starring Beryl Reid

Cuffy TV series

Bernard Cribbins as a scruffy rather mischievous tinker who lives in a shabby caravan and has a tendency to get into all sorts of trouble

Also starring Beryl Reid

David Kossoff in Little Big Business

Standard sitcom starring David Kossoff as a wise but stubborn furniture maker who resists his son's attempts at modernisation.

Also released in 1964

Wild, Wild Women tv series

In the post Victorian era a group of working-class women are discovering a feisty new spirit as their thoughts turn to the suffrage movement

Also starring Barbara Windsor

Life's Too Short TV series

Warwick Davis stars as a showbiz dwarf in this comedy written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.

Also tagged British Comedy