Ronnie Barker was a keen collector of saucy
seaside postcards, exemplified by the work of
Donald McGill, and had published several collections about them. The humour of
By the Sea was very much based on the colourful style of these, being based on comic stereotypes (an old randy general, a busty girlfriend, a cheeky schoolboy, etc.).
Ronnie Corbett notes in his
Autobiography of the Two Ronnies that the work may have been Barker's "most personal work of all, and I think for this reasons he had probably been a bit self-indulgent". Corbett notes that the first cut of the film assembled by Barker and an editor ran to one hour and forty minutes.
Jimmy Gilbert, BBC Head of Comedy, told Barker it was far too long and commissioned producer
Alan J. W. Bell, the director of
Last of the Summer Wine, to improve the film. Bell was given a budget to re-shoot scenes if required, but did not go so far as to do so; he re-structured the film and cut it down to fifty-five minutes. He commissioned
Ronnie Hazlehurst to write an original music score. To add comic effect and to replicate the feel of silent films, the film was also slightly undercranked to speed it up. ==Broadcast and release==