Britcoms
I am and always have been an enthusiastic television viewer. Well, there was a lengthy period in my younger adult life when I actually viewed very little on the goggle box. Dating my wife-to-be, going to the theatre, art galleries, movies, concerts—occasionally even the opera and the ballet—as well as holidays and weekends away, all featured very strongly in my life, pushing out the more sedentary occupation of "telly viewing". Now, of course, I'm old, lazy and falling to bits, so I'm returning (somewhat) to my pre-adolescent fascination. The pandemic may also have something to do with that. I haven't "been t' pictures" since 2019 (to see Apollo 11 at Cineworld, Watford), to a concert since 2015 (Nils Lofgren at the Sheffield City Hall), to an art gallery since 2014 (Paul Klee exhibition at Tate Modern), nor the theatre since 2015 (Twelfth Night at St Paul's, Covent Garden).
I fear I'm turning into a Philistine.
Well, if such writers as the late Clive James (ironically the title of a TV series of his own some years before his demise) consider TV to be worthy of serious artistic criticism, who am I to argue?
This was going to be a brief run-down of my personal top ten of British situation comedy over my lifetime. (I'm as fond of popular culture as I am of the more elevated kind. Let's not be snobbish.) Trouble is, it's a top ten list with fifteen entries, and additional contextual callouts of various others. I've been as factual as I can (and apologise for any errors), but these jottings are fundamentally based on my opinions.
- Blackadder the Third
- Derry Girls
- Detectorists
- Dinner Ladies
- Fawlty Towers
- The Likely Lads/Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?
- One Foot in the Grave
- Only Fools and Horses
- Peter Kay's Car Share
- Porridge/Going Straight
- Red Dwarf
- Steptoe and Son
- The Thick of It
- Twenty-Twelve/W1A
- Yes, Minister/Yes, Prime Minister
There are others, too, of note, quality and social importance. For example Channel 4's Desmond's, which (like The Cosby Show) placed black performers front and centre and appealed to a broad, mainstream audience.
Rising Damp is, I think, the only ITV sitcom I'd care to mention with positivity—although again it's rather downbeat. The series featured Richard Beckinsale and Leonard Rossiter (the latter appearing in two Kubrick pictures—2001: A Space Odyssey and the staggeringly beautiful Barry Lyndon). Its premise was that an unsophisticated, mean-spirited, socially awkward and somewhat prejudiced landlord called Rigsby (Rossiter) has a run-down property where the scenarios and relationships with his various tenants are played out. They include the aforementioned Beckinsale (Alan, a medical student), Frances De La Tour (who later featured in the Harry Potter films, her character in Rising Damp being Ruth, a university staff member) and Don Warrington (playing Phillip, another student, who claims to be an African Prince and is handsome, suave, sophisticated, and the object of Ruth's desire: everything that Rigsby isn't, resents and would like to be.
Rab C Nesbitt, was a Glasgow-set sitcom about a semi-derelict, self-proclaimed alcoholic waster (doesn't sound promising, does it?) and something of a negative Scots stereotype but, since it was actually produced by BBC Scotland, I don't feel guilty about liking it. His Scots patter was only semi-comprehensible to me, which of itself I found hilarious. The show was unafraid to tackle socially awkward subject matter. The character, played by the wonderful Gregor Fisher, was developed from a regular segment in Scottish TV sketch show Naked Video.
More recent TV comedies have had a yet harder edge and include Rev, Shameless (also reinterpreted on American TV), Bluestone-42, Fleabag and This is Going to Hurt. Of these I have only seen episodes of Bluestone-42 and Fleabag. I admire their sharper approach and can appreciate their quality, but they have not captured my heart. Maybe it's my age?
County loyalty means I must at least make mention Roy Clarke's Last of the Summer Wine. Was it any good? Hmm... Not really. Yet it lasted from 1973 to 2010 in 31 seasons over an astonishing 37 years and, while its ratings remained high throughout its run and it begat many "Christmas Specials", a couple of TV films and a prequel series in First of the Summer Wine, it was (or certainly became) a dull affair.
Beginning in the BBC TV's Comedy Playhouse strand (effectively a rolling series of pilots, and the spawning ground of many a successful sitcom) the original premise featured central characters who were middle aged and were either unemployed or recently made redundant, filling their empty hours with reminiscence and senile-come-juvenile mischief in the Yorkshire countryside. Over its long run it built a large ensemble cast of elderly Brit character actors Including Peter Sallis (the original voice for Aardman's Wallace, of Wallace and Gromit fame) and, later, even Bert Kwouk. Needless to say, over 37 years it became predictable, and was felt by many (including Auntie Beeb) to be passed it. They were right. Even at its best it was fairly broad and lightweight, increasingly unbelievable, and repetition could only weaken it. Early on, I kind of liked it and I retain an enjoyment of the TV film Getting Sam Home that includes the high jinks of repeatedly moving a dead body around, avoiding notice. Another (perhaps the main) reason I retain a nostalgic affection for it is that the show is filmed around Holmfirth, a small, former quarrying and textile-producing town in West Yorkshire, set amidst very pleasant countryside. It wasn't far from my own youthful stamping ground.
I remark in some of the above reviews that changing social circumstances were the spur for the BBC to broaden their output to include more realistic portrayal of regional and working Britain. It's true, and their output in the sitcom vein was generally better than their rivals, the various regional producers and broadcasters (like ABC, Granada, Rediffusion etc, and later Thames, London Weekend, Yorkshire Television and others) that together constituted Independent Television. The latter came onto the scene as an ad-funded, more commercially orientated broadcaster, while the BBC had higher ideals, with its license-funded, Reithian remit to "Inform, educate and entertain" as a national broadcaster. In the days of only two TV channels in any region, the BBC and whichever ITV company had the license, the former generally sloped toward the aspirational (or more toward comfortable middle-classness, some might say), the ITV toward the populist and the more easily digested. This attitude was especially visible in sitcoms, the conception and writing of which were generally stronger in the BBC.
The BBC then gained a second channel, at the time more culturally orientated, allowing their first channel to concentrate more on entertainment. In time the independent Channel 4 was launched, an advertising-funded but publicly owned company with a remit to be innovative and diverse in its programming. Edgier, if you like. ITV has since consolidated, with all its productions branded as such. Later, a fifth, independent and advertising-funded terrestrial channel was launched, the last of its kind before satellite, cable and streaming broadened (or swamped) the market.
I mention all this as I suggested that I thought less of ITV comedies. They were relatively unsophisticated and mired in unimaginative scenarios, and, while the BBC certainly continued to produce comfy, often bland sitcom depictions of middle-class life (with one or two exceptions), their depictions of working people in comedy tended—in my opinion—to be well-written and more substantial.