admitted he had found it difficult to write about situations he had not thought up himself, and decided he was not right for the job. Maynard approached Alan Plater to take Clarke's place as writer, having worked with the playwright and screenwriter on Trinity Tales (1975). Plater was best known for writing television drama including Shoulder to Shoulder (1974) and The Stars Look Down (1975); Oh No It's Selwyn Froggitt was his only foray into sitcom writing. This has been noted as indicative of Plater's maverick and prolific approach to television writing. Plot The first three series centred on the bungling exploits of Selwyn Froggitt as Working Men's Club secretary and a council labourer in the fictional Yorkshire town of Scarsdale. Bill Maynard described Froggitt, a burly, balding and good-natured man often clad in a donkey jacket, as "this naïve boy who never grew up". Maynard took inspiration from Bottom, a comic character from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Froggitt has an urge to improve his life and that of everyone around him; he carries The Times and often tells people "there was an article about it in The Times" regarding subjects he has brought up. Maynard considered this an important part of the character, explaining "I wanted him to be intelligent, always anxious to improve himself. The easy route would've been to use old cliches, like Malapropisms and Spoonerisms, but that would have made the character too one-dimensional. By getting him to read The Times and be an ardent student of dynamic word power, we gave him the breadth to spread the comedy over a wide range of subjects. We wanted people to laugh with him, not at him". Froggitt lives with his mother (Megs Jenkins) and his brother Maurice (Robert Keegan). Maurice's girlfriend, Vera Parkinson, was played by Rosemary Martin in the first series. In the second and third series (during which Maurice and Vera marry), Vera was played by Lynda Baron. A running gag is Froggitt's mother saying, "Don't open that cupboard our Selwyn, things fall out!" whenever he opens the cupboard in the Froggitt front room, before objects fall from it. Froggitt is on the committee of his local working men's club, serving as concert secretary in charge of booking "turns". Froggitt's colleagues on the committee are the dour Scouser Jack (Bill Dean), Harry (Harold Goodwin) and excitable, stereotypical Welshman Clive (Richard Davies), often referred to