So, to answer the big question: David Jason was 35 in 1976, 40 in 1981, and 45 in 1985 during the original run. He was old enough to be your dad, playing a character who couldn't get a girlfriend.
Then, the show came back in 2013 for a sequel, Still Open All Hours. By then, David Jason was seventy-three years old. Seventy-three! And he was still playing Granville!
Now, he was an old man playing an old man. It finally made sense. The universe was back in balance. We got to see a seventy-year-old man running the same shop, finally in charge. It was a beautiful, confusing circle of life.
So next time you watch it, just remember. You’re not watching a nervous young lad. You’re watching a gifted, thirty-something genius who convinced an entire nation that he couldn't work a till or talk to a woman. Pretty impressive for a bloke who was probably thinking about his mortgage. Brilliant, isn’t it?
