Leonard Arthur "Lennie" Godber was a character in the popular BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 sitcom Porridge. He was played by Richard Beckinsale

Richard Beckinsale

Richard Arthur Beckinsale was an English actor, best known for his roles as Lennie Godber in the popular BBC sitcom Porridge and Alan Moore in the British sitcom Rising Damp....

.

Godber is from Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, supports Aston Villa F.C.

Aston Villa F.C.

Aston Villa Football Club is an English professional association football club based in Witton, Birmingham. The club was founded in 1874 and have played at their current home ground, Villa Park, since 1897. Aston Villa were founder members of The Football League in 1888. They were also founder...

, has an O Level in geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

, and studies for a history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 O Level while in prison. Before he was arrested he shared a flat with his girlfriend Denise in nearby Smethwick

Smethwick

Smethwick is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the West Midlands of England. It is situated on the edge of the city of Birmingham, within the historic boundaries of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire....

, West Midlands

West Midlands (county)

The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...

. In an effort to get her a gift, Godber broke into a neighbour's flat. He was caught, and it was for this that he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. Denise later broke up with Godber through a Dear John letter

Dear John letter

A "Dear John letter" is a letter written to a husband or boyfriend by his wife or girlfriend to inform him their relationship is over, usually because the author has found another lover. Dear John Letters are often written out of an inability or unwillingness to inform the person face to face...

.

In the first episode, Lennie arrives at Slade Prison, along with Fletch. However, unlike Fletch, who has spent several five-year spells in prison

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

, this is Godber's first stretch of 'porridge'. Fletcher felt strongly about someone of Godber's age being in prison. However, when Godber announces that upon his release he plans to 'go straight', Fletch is perplexed, announcing:

"Twenty-three and you want to go straight? What kind of talk is that? You've got your whole life before you!"

Fletch and Godber later become cell-mates, and Fletch is quick to take the naïve Godber under his wing, who learns much from him, and by the end of the series has inherited much of his cunning.

Godber also often came into conflict with the ever suspicious Mr Mackay

Mr Mackay

Mr. Mackay was a character in the popular BBC sitcom Porridge, played by Fulton Mackay.Mackay is a neurotic and tough prison warder whose constant obsession in life is to catch out Fletcher. The rivalry between Fletch and Mackay was a thing of comedy legend...

, who appeared to find it very hard to believe that Lennie was not up to something. Even when he was, MacKay found it very hard to pin anything on him, thanks to Godber's penchant for dramatics, and occasionally to the cover-up efforts of Fletch and the sympathetic Mr Barrowclough

Mr Barrowclough

Mr Barrowclough was a character in the popular BBC sitcom Porridge. He was played by the late Brian Wilde.Henry Barrowclough is a prison warder...

.

Godber works in the prison kitchen

Kitchen

A kitchen is a room or part of a room used for cooking and food preparation.In the West, a modern residential kitchen is typically equipped with a stove, a sink with hot and cold running water, a refrigerator and kitchen cabinets arranged according to a modular design. Many households have a...

 where he has ample opportunities to steal valuable commodities such as butter

Butter

Butter is a dairy product made by churning fresh or fermented cream or milk. It is generally used as a spread and a condiment, as well as in cooking applications, such as baking, sauce making, and pan frying...

 and pineapple

Pineapple

Pineapple is the common name for a tropical plant and its edible fruit, which is actually a multiple fruit consisting of coalesced berries. It was given the name pineapple due to its resemblance to a pine cone. The pineapple is by far the most economically important plant in the Bromeliaceae...

 chunks for Fletcher. Godber also briefly took up a career as a boxer

Boxing

Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...

 in the prison, although this was short-lived when he got involved in match fixing. In the show Godber is an Aston Villa supporter.

Doe-eyed, optimistic Godber was the perfect sidekick for grouchy, world-weary Fletcher, and the banter between the two became one of the main attractions of the series. This was arguably best illustrated in the ambitious episode "A Night In", a bottle episode

Bottle episode

The term bottle episode is used in episodic television to refer to episodes which are produced using the least money, and restricted in their scope to use as few, or no, non-regular cast members, effects, and sets as possible...

 set entirely in relative darkness within the confines of their cell, with only the pair's conversation for entertainment.

This concept has been imitated by many other sitcoms, such as Friends

Friends

Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...

("The One Where No One's Ready") and Bottom

Bottom (TV series)

Bottom was a British sitcom television series that originally aired on BBC2 between 1991 and 1995. It was written by comic duo Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson who star as Richie and Eddie, two flatmates living on the dole in Hammersmith, London...

("Hole"). However, few, if any of these have managed to recreate the minimalistic feel of the original, falling back on other comedy devices (the former had several characters, each with their own storyline, and the latter was set atop a Ferris Wheel, and much of the comedy derived from this setting).

In the follow-up series Going Straight

Going Straight

Going Straight is a BBC sitcom which was a direct spin-off from Porridge, starring Ronnie Barker as Norman Stanley Fletcher, newly released from the fictional Slade Prison where the earlier series had been set....

, Godber is a long-distance lorry driver, engaged to Fletch's daughter Ingrid

Ingrid Fletcher

Ingrid Rita Godber was a character in the BBC sitcom Porridge, played by Patricia Brake.Ingrid is Fletch's eldest child . She often visited her father in Slade Prison, oblivious to her appeal to the other inmates, much to her father's despair. It was on one of these trips that she met Fletch's...

 (whom he began writing to shortly after Denise broke up with him). They were married in the final episode.

Due to Beckinsale's premature death, Godber does not appear in the 2003 mockumentary

Mockumentary

A mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...

Life Beyond the Box: Norman Stanley Fletcher, although Ingrid receives a phone call from him, saying he's stuck on a motorway. They have one son, named Norman after his grandfather.