Joe's Pop Shop

Joe's Pop Shop was an English comedy that aired on UK Play in 1999.^[1] Its central story line revolved around a small record shop run by two inept friends Joe and Ben.

Outline

Following the arrest of his father Rodney, Joe takes over his father's ailing Camden Town based record shop. Realising that his father is never coming back, Joe enlist the help of his feckless, dishonest best friend Ben. Joe (played by Joe Mace) and Ben (played by Ben Dunn), through a series of hair-brained schemes manage to run the shop even further into the ground. Further plagued by Joe's sexually aggressive mother and a rogue, latent homosexual Austrian tax collector with an unconvincing afro, Joe's job is made all the harder by the presence of two old ladies who live under the record shop's counter who claim the rights of sitting tenants.

Format

The show ran as 6 half-hour episodes and always featured two music videos contemporary to the time. It also featured a number of scenes shot on outside broadcast, which contributed to its ranking as UK Play's most expensive in-house production. Complicated rights issues and the move by co-star Joe Mace away from acting and into presenting meant that the second series was never commissioned.

The show was created and written by Joe Mace and Ben Dunn^[2] and executive produced by Myfanwy Moore, producer of Little Britain.^[3]

References