British Comedy - Television

Television

Although many popular shows of recent years began life on BBC Radio, there have been many successful and influential series which were designed purely for TV. Almost all British comedies include at least 15 episodes per year, mini-series are generally shorter, including around 6 to 7. Following the success of Hancock's Half Hour, the sitcom became firmly entrenched in the television schedules. Some of the most successful examples include As Time Goes By, Steptoe and Son, Dad's Army, Keeping Up Appearances, The Likely Lads, Fawlty Towers, Allo Allo, The Good Life, Are You Being Served?, Yes Minister, Only Fools and Horses, Absolutely Fabulous, Red Dwarf, The Vicar of Dibley, Father Ted, Blackadder, One Foot in the Grave, Some Mothers Do Ave Em, Porridge, The Thin Blue Line, The Office, The Young Ones, Coupling, Outnumbered and Game On.

The BBC has generally been dominant in television comedy, but the commercial stations have also had some successes. ITV's most successful sitcoms were generally produced in the 1970s, including Rising Damp, On the Buses, George and Mildred, Man About The House and the now unfashionable Love Thy Neighbour. Other BBC series are Early Doors with James McAvoy and Grandma's House with Simon Amstell.

Commercial station Channel 4 has been more successful than ITV with situation comedies in recent years. Some of the better-known examples are Chelmsford 123, Chance in a Million, Drop the Dead Donkey, Spaced, Father Ted (which was set in Ireland instead of Great Britain), Black Books, Peep Show, Green Wing, The Inbetweeners, The IT Crowd, Shameless and Da Ali G Show.

Other formats have also been popular, with sketch shows, stand-up comedy, impressionists and even puppet shows finding success. Although impressionists experienced a lull in popularity in the 1990s, the recent success of Dead Ringers (another BBC Radio cross-over) and Alistair McGowan's Big Impression has been notable.

The most notable satirical comedies are the ground-breaking 1960s series That Was The Week That Was and ITV's controversial puppet show Spitting Image. British satire has also washed over into Quiz shows – popular examples include the news quiz Have I Got News for You, Mock the Week and music-based Never Mind The Buzzcocks.

One of the most influential sketch shows was Monty Python's Flying Circus, a comedy from the late 1960s and early 1970s that introduced both British and American audiences to such luminaries as John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam. The Pythons went on to produce several feature films and had a profound influence on British comedy. They themselves had been influenced by The Goons and Spike Milligan's Q series. Python found surprising popularity in the United States in the 1970s, as did the less cerebral humour of Benny Hill and his ITV sketch series The Benny Hill Show.

Other notable sketch-based series include Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies, The Goodies, French and Saunders, Absolutely, Little Britain, The Catherine Tate Show and The Fast Show.

In the 1980s, alternative comedy was spearheaded by Ben Elton and the The Comic Strip group which included Alexei Sayle, Rik Mayall, and French and Saunders.

Vic Reeves Big Night Out influenced the style of a whole new generation of comics in the 1990s until the present day.

The 1990s and 2000s (decade) have also seen the rise of a new set of British comedians who have made innovative contributions mainly in the form of sitcoms. Programmes such as Green Wing, Peep Show, Black Books, Spaced, Smack the Pony, Big Train, The Office, and Extras have used editing, surreal humour and cultural references to great effect. A loose clique of stars, including Simon Pegg, Dylan Moran, Jessica Stevenson, Mark Heap, Ricky Gervais, Tamsin Greig and Bill Bailey have revolved around these series, with the most obvious acknowledgement of this coming in the scene in the film Shaun of the Dead when the two groups of survivors troop past each other, with cameos galore.