The grandaddy being the Bull in radio soap opera The Archers. Though, it being on the radio, there weren’t many visual clues about the beers on sale or their method of dispense.
In the 1960s the Rovers Return, the pub in Coronation Street, was serving through handpumps. By the 1970s, they had what looked like metered electric pumps. Before later reverting to beer engines. Which sort of tells the story of beer over the period.
The lads in Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads frequented a pub called the Black Horse. Which, unusually for Newcastle, had hand pumps.
If you want to see East End pubs, then The Sweeney is for you. Plenty of fairly seedy-looking pubs are featured.
Are there any obvious ones I've missed? Please let me know.
The bar in Fawlty Towers is a good source of drinking social history as it's a fairly middle class establishment, whereas most pubs of the time portrayed on TV were working class
ReplyDeleteIn the early episodes of Emmerdale Farm (Yorkshire TV, 1972), filming took place at the Falcon in Littondale. Amos Brearley (the Landlord) produces a pint in a Dimpled Glass without any handpump or keg font. It appears he must be dispensing the beer directly from the barrel using gravity. This method of dispense was used in the Falcon well into the 21st Century.
ReplyDeleteThere's a very fine Colin Welland play called Kisses at Fifty available on BBC iPlayer that has extensive scenes in a pub in 1973. Bill Maynard stars and has reached the phenomenal age of fifty, so celebrates down the pub and receives the titular kisses from one of the 'barmaids'.
ReplyDeleteNags Head, Only Fools and Horses? Ran for years so must have seen some changes in pump set ups and clips etc.
ReplyDeleteMcCoys in Fair City and Molly Malone in Glenroe.
ReplyDeleteOscar
The Woolpack in Emmerdale
ReplyDeleteInteresting photo series about the interior of the Rovers.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2325556/Coronation-Street-bosses-finally-unveil-official-pictures-refurbished-pub-Rovers-Return.html
Boon is pretty good for pubs in The West Midlands in the early 90s. An episode in series one has Boon doing a crawl of Irish pubs looking for a pair of rogues. It’s a real piece of social history and I wonder how many are left.
ReplyDeleteThe Railway Arms (Nelson's pub) in Life on Mars is supposed to be a 70's pub. The very scruffy decor is maybe authentic, but a big brassy 'Stones' pump clip, 2000's style, certainly isn't.
ReplyDeleteSuppose it was a good indication to the time warp of the whole place.
DeleteOscar