Browse content similar to British Sitcom: 60 Years of Laughing at Ourselves. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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The situation comedy is one of the defining and most-enduring genres | 0:00:02 | 0:00:04 | |
of British television. | 0:00:04 | 0:00:06 | |
Oh... | 0:00:06 | 0:00:07 | |
God... | 0:00:07 | 0:00:08 | |
Al...mighty! | 0:00:08 | 0:00:10 | |
I think people remember the sitcom landmarks of British television | 0:00:10 | 0:00:15 | |
more than they remember anything else. | 0:00:15 | 0:00:18 | |
I think the sitcom is kind of the Holy Grail of doing comedy. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:22 | |
For 60 years, sitcom | 0:00:23 | 0:00:24 | |
has brought us together and made us laugh. | 0:00:24 | 0:00:27 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER | 0:00:27 | 0:00:29 | |
Whoever you were, there are certain sitcom characters | 0:00:29 | 0:00:32 | |
that everyone was familiar with. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:34 | |
You felt like it was a, sort of, shared experience | 0:00:34 | 0:00:37 | |
with other people who you couldn't see. | 0:00:37 | 0:00:39 | |
It was a kind of feeling that you just don't get | 0:00:39 | 0:00:41 | |
from any other form of television. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:43 | |
It has shown us many aspects of the British character. | 0:00:44 | 0:00:47 | |
You snobs! | 0:00:47 | 0:00:49 | |
We like laughing at people who are rude to each other. | 0:00:49 | 0:00:52 | |
Bloody blasphemous Scouse git! | 0:00:52 | 0:00:55 | |
We like seeing people in pain. | 0:00:55 | 0:00:57 | |
Social discomfort. | 0:00:58 | 0:00:59 | |
You're not going to lose your job. | 0:00:59 | 0:01:01 | |
You're not going to lose your job. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:02 | |
You know, you're not going to lose your job. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:04 | |
Awkwardness. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:05 | |
What? | 0:01:05 | 0:01:06 | |
Don't matter. | 0:01:08 | 0:01:09 | |
Someone who has fooled themselves into thinking | 0:01:09 | 0:01:11 | |
that they can put themselves across as better than they are. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:15 | |
That's automatically going to be funny. | 0:01:16 | 0:01:18 | |
Alan, you've, er... come free at the side. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:21 | |
Oh! Sorry. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:23 | |
One of the things I love about sitcom was I think, | 0:01:23 | 0:01:25 | |
in some ways, it's often very realistic. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:26 | |
I think sitcoms, particularly in Britain, reflect the world | 0:01:26 | 0:01:30 | |
and the times that you're living in. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:33 | |
That's what's so funny, quite often. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:35 | |
They come over and get all their false teeth, false eyeballs... | 0:01:35 | 0:01:38 | |
Sitcoms often challenge us directly | 0:01:38 | 0:01:40 | |
to reconsider who we are and what we think. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:42 | |
Got their £2,000, go home, | 0:01:42 | 0:01:44 | |
start up in business, a new man! | 0:01:44 | 0:01:46 | |
Trying to find taboo subjects, and find a way of doing them | 0:01:46 | 0:01:50 | |
so that no-one can be offended, | 0:01:50 | 0:01:52 | |
is a very interesting challenge in sitcom. | 0:01:52 | 0:01:55 | |
That's it, now. In you go. | 0:01:55 | 0:01:57 | |
Isn't that better? Good man. | 0:01:57 | 0:01:58 | |
This will keep you nice and warm. | 0:01:58 | 0:02:00 | |
Sitcoms, in particular, can give voice to... | 0:02:00 | 0:02:04 | |
..attitudes that dare not speak their name. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:07 | |
And in that way, it's quite cathartic, because once you've | 0:02:07 | 0:02:11 | |
said things out in the open, you've acknowledged | 0:02:11 | 0:02:12 | |
this prejudice that you have, you've sort of...anaesthetised it. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:16 | |
This hasn't been cleaned out for years. | 0:02:16 | 0:02:18 | |
Hey, there's a little Japanese soldier in here, | 0:02:18 | 0:02:20 | |
still fighting the war. | 0:02:20 | 0:02:21 | |
You daft racist. | 0:02:21 | 0:02:23 | |
So the British sitcom is not just a way to lift the spirits, | 0:02:23 | 0:02:27 | |
but a way to enlighten us, and tonight, | 0:02:27 | 0:02:29 | |
we're going to look at how sitcom has dealt with everything | 0:02:29 | 0:02:32 | |
from our obsession with class | 0:02:32 | 0:02:33 | |
to our attitudes to homosexuality, | 0:02:33 | 0:02:36 | |
and from gender politics to race. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:38 | |
You've got it now, white boy. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:41 | |
The roots of British sitcom are found in the work | 0:02:52 | 0:02:55 | |
of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. | 0:02:55 | 0:02:57 | |
These ground-breaking writers gave us | 0:02:57 | 0:02:59 | |
the first landmark British sitcoms | 0:02:59 | 0:03:01 | |
with Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe And Son, | 0:03:01 | 0:03:04 | |
shows which created the blueprints for much of the comedy to come | 0:03:04 | 0:03:07 | |
over the next 60 years. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:09 | |
BBC television presents Tony Hancock in... | 0:03:09 | 0:03:11 | |
Hancock's Half Hour. | 0:03:14 | 0:03:15 | |
Hancock's Half Hour featured Tony Hancock | 0:03:15 | 0:03:17 | |
as the central character, | 0:03:17 | 0:03:19 | |
Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock, a man with delusions of grandeur | 0:03:19 | 0:03:23 | |
who was constantly thwarted by his own inadequacy. | 0:03:23 | 0:03:26 | |
I loved Hancock... | 0:03:30 | 0:03:31 | |
Stone me, this is hopeless. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:34 | |
..because it perfectly captured a sort of Little Englander mentality | 0:03:34 | 0:03:39 | |
that is both contemptible and lovable at the same time. | 0:03:39 | 0:03:43 | |
-Everybody gets colds. -Not like I get them. | 0:03:43 | 0:03:46 | |
-Oh, of course they do. -No, they don't. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:48 | |
Samples, that's all they get. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:49 | |
Me, I get the full output of the entire germ kingdom. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:54 | |
There's a slight inherent negativity, | 0:03:54 | 0:03:57 | |
glass-half-empty attitude that Hancock had that permeates sitcoms | 0:03:57 | 0:04:02 | |
right through the decades, and it's something that captures | 0:04:02 | 0:04:07 | |
an essence of Britishness. | 0:04:07 | 0:04:09 | |
The Hancock character always thought he should be living better | 0:04:09 | 0:04:12 | |
than he was but, I mean, that's why he, at times, | 0:04:12 | 0:04:16 | |
wore the astrakhan coat and the Homburg hat. | 0:04:16 | 0:04:18 | |
It gave him that sense of success. | 0:04:18 | 0:04:21 | |
BELL RINGS | 0:04:23 | 0:04:24 | |
Good afternoon. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:28 | |
I wish to fly to Australia. | 0:04:28 | 0:04:30 | |
What, on that or the carpet? | 0:04:30 | 0:04:31 | |
What I loved about Hancock in particular was that there was also | 0:04:33 | 0:04:37 | |
an aspiration to be artistic, and what that allowed for is | 0:04:37 | 0:04:42 | |
some material that was... that's ostensibly quite esoteric, like, | 0:04:42 | 0:04:47 | |
you know, he'd have things about poetry, | 0:04:47 | 0:04:49 | |
he'd talk about Bertrand Russell and make these references that, | 0:04:49 | 0:04:54 | |
ordinarily, you might think were beyond the ken of most people | 0:04:54 | 0:04:59 | |
and yet, that sitcom had huge viewing figures. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
As the good poet Oscar Khayyam put it... | 0:05:02 | 0:05:05 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER | 0:05:05 | 0:05:06 | |
..you can fool some of the people half of the time, | 0:05:06 | 0:05:08 | |
you can fool half of the people all of the time, | 0:05:08 | 0:05:10 | |
but you cannot fool, all of the time, some of the people | 0:05:10 | 0:05:12 | |
who last laughed. Good luck. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:15 | |
After the success of Hancock's Half Hour, | 0:05:15 | 0:05:18 | |
Galton and Simpson created another pioneering sitcom. | 0:05:18 | 0:05:21 | |
Steptoe And Son gave us not only a mixture of laughter and pathos, | 0:05:21 | 0:05:25 | |
but also British sitcom's first working class family. | 0:05:25 | 0:05:29 | |
Steptoe And Son kind of broke the mould in that it was about, | 0:05:29 | 0:05:34 | |
you know, real situations and a tricky relationship, | 0:05:34 | 0:05:40 | |
and it was set on the streets of London. | 0:05:40 | 0:05:42 | |
What was interesting about Steptoe And Son, for me, | 0:05:42 | 0:05:45 | |
was that it just reflected an England that I saw then. | 0:05:45 | 0:05:48 | |
There was the rag-and-bone man. | 0:05:48 | 0:05:50 | |
Steptoe And Son tapped into the intergenerational conflict | 0:05:50 | 0:05:54 | |
that was increasingly common in 1960s Britain. | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
Harold Steptoe was an aspirational, | 0:05:57 | 0:05:59 | |
if sometimes pretentious, man who dreamed of a better life. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:02 | |
But in a decade when many people of his age were moving out | 0:06:03 | 0:06:06 | |
and living independent lives, | 0:06:06 | 0:06:08 | |
Harold was stuck in a down-at-heel rag and bone yard | 0:06:08 | 0:06:11 | |
with his grubby, lazy and stubborn father. | 0:06:11 | 0:06:14 | |
With Steptoe, the father and son | 0:06:15 | 0:06:17 | |
and love-hate relationship works so well because it was very funny, | 0:06:17 | 0:06:23 | |
also quite sad at times... | 0:06:23 | 0:06:25 | |
-I was thinking of going on holiday on my own this year, anyway. -Oh? | 0:06:25 | 0:06:29 | |
Cos you saw this son trying to leave his environment, and yet, | 0:06:30 | 0:06:35 | |
he couldn't really leave his father. | 0:06:35 | 0:06:37 | |
He needed his father as well. | 0:06:37 | 0:06:39 | |
We've been on holiday together since you was that high. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:42 | |
I know we have, Dad. | 0:06:42 | 0:06:43 | |
That's what I mean. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:45 | |
He is trapped by his father, | 0:06:45 | 0:06:47 | |
and this job that he doesn't really want to do, | 0:06:47 | 0:06:49 | |
and he knows he's sort of, better than it, | 0:06:49 | 0:06:51 | |
and he wants to move on and every time he does move on, | 0:06:51 | 0:06:53 | |
you get the "Oh, don't leave me!" | 0:06:54 | 0:06:56 | |
The more I see of Steptoe, the more I think it's in line with, | 0:07:01 | 0:07:06 | |
you know, Harold Pinter and Noel Coward and stuff like that, | 0:07:06 | 0:07:10 | |
in terms of, sort of, family and tension and torture. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:13 | |
If you're mucking about, I'll wallop you! | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER | 0:07:16 | 0:07:17 | |
We were very honoured to have that on our screens. | 0:07:17 | 0:07:19 | |
In 1964, with the arrival of BBC Two, | 0:07:21 | 0:07:24 | |
television gained a new outlet for situation comedy, | 0:07:24 | 0:07:28 | |
and in December that year came the first sitcom | 0:07:28 | 0:07:30 | |
to be set in the North of England. | 0:07:30 | 0:07:32 | |
Written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, | 0:07:32 | 0:07:35 | |
The Likely Lads centred on the lives of two young men in Tyneside, | 0:07:35 | 0:07:38 | |
set against the background of the huge social and economic revolution | 0:07:38 | 0:07:42 | |
of the '60s and '70s. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:44 | |
I was talking to somebody the other day who was saying | 0:07:44 | 0:07:46 | |
when his dad first saw The Likely Lads, | 0:07:46 | 0:07:48 | |
he was thrilled just to see his part of the world on the screen. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:54 | |
I thought you might fancy this at half-time. | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
It's not my birthday, is it? | 0:07:59 | 0:08:00 | |
The original Likely Lads ran for three series | 0:08:00 | 0:08:03 | |
and dealt with the friendship of Bob and Terry | 0:08:03 | 0:08:05 | |
as they navigated the changing times of the '60s. | 0:08:05 | 0:08:08 | |
# Oh, what happened to you? | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
# Whatever happened to me? # | 0:08:11 | 0:08:13 | |
These two Geordie characters returned to our screens in 1973 | 0:08:13 | 0:08:17 | |
in Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads?, | 0:08:17 | 0:08:20 | |
delivering not just laughs, but also powerful social commentary. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:24 | |
And of course, they've moved on, or Bob certainly has, | 0:08:26 | 0:08:28 | |
and Terry is the one wishing it were not that way. | 0:08:28 | 0:08:32 | |
The fact that he'd been out of the UK for five years | 0:08:32 | 0:08:36 | |
automatically meant you were going to touch on the social landscape, | 0:08:36 | 0:08:39 | |
social issues, because Terry was new to it all. | 0:08:39 | 0:08:41 | |
He felt that he'd missed it. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:43 | |
Death of censorship. A new morality. | 0:08:43 | 0:08:46 | |
Oh, Calcutta! Topless waitresses in see-through knickers. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:49 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER | 0:08:49 | 0:08:51 | |
They never caught on. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:53 | |
The topless waitresses. | 0:08:54 | 0:08:56 | |
Well, that's a crumb of comfort. | 0:08:56 | 0:08:58 | |
At least, I'd like to have been here to see them not catching on! | 0:08:58 | 0:09:01 | |
Permissive society, I missed it all. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:05 | |
It provided a commentary on these people who were... | 0:09:05 | 0:09:08 | |
who were trying to improve themselves, | 0:09:08 | 0:09:10 | |
and drink wine with their meals. | 0:09:10 | 0:09:12 | |
Now, I've got white, red or fizzy rose. | 0:09:12 | 0:09:15 | |
Well, Thelma prefers white. | 0:09:15 | 0:09:17 | |
It's a very interesting vignette of what, perhaps, was going on | 0:09:17 | 0:09:20 | |
at the time socially, with groups of people thinking, | 0:09:20 | 0:09:24 | |
"I just don't want to be like that any more. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:26 | |
"I want to improve myself, I want to get on," | 0:09:26 | 0:09:27 | |
and yet, there was Terry reminding us, | 0:09:27 | 0:09:29 | |
"Are you sure? Is that what you want?" | 0:09:29 | 0:09:31 | |
Oh, and these lovely table mats. These are new. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:34 | |
Wow, hunting scenes. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:35 | |
Just haven't had them out before. | 0:09:35 | 0:09:37 | |
They were a present from Auntie Elsie. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
Oh, your auntie Elsie. | 0:09:40 | 0:09:41 | |
How is she, Brenda? Is she still a cleaner down the brewery? | 0:09:41 | 0:09:44 | |
The social and political change in Britain of the '60s and '70s | 0:09:48 | 0:09:51 | |
also inspired one of the most opinionated characters ever seen | 0:09:51 | 0:09:54 | |
in a British sitcom. | 0:09:54 | 0:09:56 | |
No-one was quite prepared for the force of nature | 0:09:56 | 0:09:58 | |
that was Alf Garnett. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:00 | |
Johnny Speight said to me one day, | 0:10:00 | 0:10:02 | |
cos I was his agent as well, | 0:10:02 | 0:10:04 | |
"I want to write a series about, um... | 0:10:04 | 0:10:08 | |
"a family where the father keeps arguing with the son-in-law." | 0:10:08 | 0:10:12 | |
So I said that to the BBC and they said, | 0:10:15 | 0:10:17 | |
"Oh, well, we'll do that, then." | 0:10:17 | 0:10:18 | |
The series addressed political issues at a difficult time | 0:10:21 | 0:10:24 | |
in British society. As a result of post-war government policy, | 0:10:24 | 0:10:28 | |
the number of migrants to Britain rose in the '50s and '60s | 0:10:28 | 0:10:31 | |
and with mass immigration came the rise of racial prejudice, | 0:10:31 | 0:10:35 | |
a subject which was directly addressed in the show. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:38 | |
Look what's happening to your National Health Service! See? | 0:10:40 | 0:10:43 | |
In Till Death Us Do Part, conservative Alf Garnett | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
was constantly at war with his more progressive and socially liberal | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
daughter, Rita, and his son-in-law, Mike. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
Look, up £100 million in one year, the cost of your health service! | 0:10:53 | 0:10:57 | |
100 million increase on it, innit? | 0:10:57 | 0:10:59 | |
-So? -So? That's all your bloody foreigners, innit? | 0:10:59 | 0:11:02 | |
And all the antibiotics | 0:11:02 | 0:11:04 | |
for all their new diseases they're bringing... | 0:11:04 | 0:11:06 | |
He was a very political writer, and Till Death, | 0:11:06 | 0:11:10 | |
it was a very political show. | 0:11:10 | 0:11:12 | |
It felt very real. | 0:11:12 | 0:11:13 | |
It felt like the conversations people were having... | 0:11:13 | 0:11:17 | |
in their sitting rooms and kitchens and bedrooms around the country. | 0:11:17 | 0:11:22 | |
Johnny Speight was doing the most difficult thing, | 0:11:22 | 0:11:26 | |
which is treading the line of irony, really, | 0:11:26 | 0:11:28 | |
in which you have to be careful that you don't write characters | 0:11:28 | 0:11:31 | |
that are so awful that a percentage of your audience think, | 0:11:31 | 0:11:37 | |
"I like this guy. He's... Finally, there's a man on television | 0:11:37 | 0:11:40 | |
"speaking the truth." | 0:11:40 | 0:11:41 | |
The ingenious thing about Speight | 0:11:41 | 0:11:43 | |
is that he'll put in a couple of things that would just tickle the, | 0:11:43 | 0:11:47 | |
you know, the nation's conscience and so, you'd be laughing with him, | 0:11:47 | 0:11:50 | |
too, because he'll say things that people said, felt, | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
but daren't say. But on the whole, yeah, you were laughing at him. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:57 | |
The tricky question of whether the audience was laughing | 0:11:58 | 0:12:01 | |
at Alf Garnett or with him was addressed by Johnny Speight himself | 0:12:01 | 0:12:04 | |
in a 1973 interview with Michael Parkinson. | 0:12:04 | 0:12:07 | |
I often wonder about Garnett. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:10 | |
Was he a throwback to your childhood, | 0:12:10 | 0:12:11 | |
or is he a discernible character that you see around you? | 0:12:11 | 0:12:14 | |
I see him around me all the time, not only in the East End. | 0:12:14 | 0:12:17 | |
I see him in the middle classes, the working...the upper classes, | 0:12:17 | 0:12:21 | |
I think there's too many Garnetts around. You know? | 0:12:21 | 0:12:23 | |
Far too many ignorant, bigoted people. | 0:12:23 | 0:12:25 | |
Johnny Speight did not escape criticism | 0:12:26 | 0:12:29 | |
when Till Death Us Do Part was broadcast. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:31 | |
Mary Whitehouse and the Clean Up TV campaign | 0:12:31 | 0:12:34 | |
were not amused by Alf Garnett. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:36 | |
However, Mary wasn't troubled so much by his shocking views | 0:12:37 | 0:12:40 | |
as by his shocking language. | 0:12:40 | 0:12:42 | |
Today's post brings a flood of letters bitterly criticising | 0:12:44 | 0:12:47 | |
remarks made in the previous week's Till Death Us Do Part. | 0:12:47 | 0:12:51 | |
All of them, I think, objecting to the blasphemy. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:55 | |
"The reason why God and the Virgin Mary hadn't had any more children, | 0:12:55 | 0:12:58 | |
"except Jesus Christ, was perhaps because they were on the pill." | 0:12:58 | 0:13:01 | |
People who pontificate about things like Alf Garnett, | 0:13:01 | 0:13:04 | |
"We shouldn't let him go on television," say, they themselves | 0:13:04 | 0:13:07 | |
are never affected by it, but they believe that everybody else is. | 0:13:07 | 0:13:10 | |
They're speaking on behalf of people they don't know. | 0:13:10 | 0:13:13 | |
And they're assuming the audience is idiots. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:15 | |
Well, of course, the audience | 0:13:15 | 0:13:16 | |
are smarter than anybody who sets themselves up as an arbiter | 0:13:16 | 0:13:19 | |
of what should or shouldn't be allowed to be said on television. | 0:13:19 | 0:13:22 | |
Johnny Speight responded to the criticism from Mary Whitehouse | 0:13:22 | 0:13:25 | |
in the most powerful way he could - | 0:13:25 | 0:13:27 | |
by making Alf Garnett her number one fan. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:30 | |
You want to read something a bit edifying, something a bit educative? | 0:13:30 | 0:13:34 | |
-Educative? -Yeah. -Well, what are you reading anyway, Mickey Spillane? | 0:13:34 | 0:13:37 | |
No. No, not Mickey Spillane. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:40 | |
Mrs Whitehouse, innit? | 0:13:40 | 0:13:42 | |
Mrs Mary Whitehouse. | 0:13:42 | 0:13:44 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER | 0:13:44 | 0:13:45 | |
And the thing about Alf Garnett, he was weak. | 0:13:45 | 0:13:48 | |
He was vulnerable. You know. | 0:13:48 | 0:13:51 | |
And his way of dealing with that was to attack. Was to... | 0:13:51 | 0:13:55 | |
was to apport blame to immigrants, or, you know... | 0:13:55 | 0:13:59 | |
And it was a big political statement at the time. | 0:13:59 | 0:14:02 | |
But I think the thing about these monster characters, | 0:14:02 | 0:14:05 | |
who sometimes will say the most ridiculous things, | 0:14:05 | 0:14:07 | |
the important thing is, they don't get away with it. | 0:14:07 | 0:14:10 | |
You're Jewish, aren't you? | 0:14:10 | 0:14:11 | |
I AM NOT JEWISH! | 0:14:11 | 0:14:14 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER | 0:14:14 | 0:14:15 | |
You are! | 0:14:16 | 0:14:17 | |
You know you are. | 0:14:17 | 0:14:19 | |
They all know you, round this area. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:21 | |
And listen, your grandfather's name was Solly Diamond! | 0:14:21 | 0:14:26 | |
LIES! It's all lies! | 0:14:26 | 0:14:29 | |
-Lies! Lies! -It is not lies! | 0:14:29 | 0:14:32 | |
Race has probably moved on in the last half-century, | 0:14:32 | 0:14:37 | |
more than quite a few other attitudes. | 0:14:37 | 0:14:40 | |
And so the attitude to race then looks...bad, you know? | 0:14:41 | 0:14:46 | |
But it doesn't look as bad as Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes | 0:14:46 | 0:14:49 | |
in Curry And Chips. | 0:14:49 | 0:14:50 | |
Curry And Chips was a short-lived sitcom from 1969, | 0:14:50 | 0:14:55 | |
based on an idea by Spike Milligan and written by Johnny Speight, | 0:14:55 | 0:14:58 | |
starring Milligan as an Asian immigrant. | 0:14:58 | 0:15:01 | |
Short-lived, and indeed, more than a little ill-judged. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
Curry And Chips wasn't received all that well at the time, | 0:15:05 | 0:15:08 | |
and probably cos it wasn't quite up to standard, to be honest. | 0:15:08 | 0:15:13 | |
I hardly remember it, that's not a good sign, is it? | 0:15:13 | 0:15:16 | |
Hey! | 0:15:16 | 0:15:17 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER | 0:15:17 | 0:15:19 | |
What's your name? | 0:15:19 | 0:15:20 | |
O'Grady. | 0:15:20 | 0:15:21 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER | 0:15:21 | 0:15:23 | |
Kevin O'Grady. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:28 | |
That's an Irish name. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:31 | |
Yes, I'm Irish. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:32 | |
How did Spike Milligan get away with that? | 0:15:32 | 0:15:34 | |
But, you know, I speak to my mum and my aunts, | 0:15:34 | 0:15:37 | |
and they talk about watching that. | 0:15:37 | 0:15:39 | |
You know, and they said, "Yeah, we did watch Curry And Chips. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:41 | |
"We watched it." And... | 0:15:41 | 0:15:42 | |
But I think, because there was no representation at all of diversity, | 0:15:42 | 0:15:47 | |
I think they felt, "Well, yeah, OK, we will watch this and, you know..." | 0:15:47 | 0:15:51 | |
But, yeah, I do look back at that now and go, | 0:15:51 | 0:15:53 | |
"I'm not quite sure how you got away with that." | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
It wasn't that it was racist or homophobic or anything terrible, | 0:15:55 | 0:16:00 | |
it just wasn't very good. | 0:16:00 | 0:16:02 | |
The show came to the attention | 0:16:02 | 0:16:04 | |
of the Independent Television Authority | 0:16:04 | 0:16:06 | |
and they declared that it was offensive, | 0:16:06 | 0:16:08 | |
and it was cancelled after just six episodes. | 0:16:08 | 0:16:10 | |
The subject of race was at the core of another sitcom, | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
broadcast on the ITV network from 1972. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:20 | |
Love Thy Neighbour was written by Vince Powell and Harry Driver, and | 0:16:20 | 0:16:24 | |
it explored the tensions that arose | 0:16:24 | 0:16:26 | |
when a black couple moved next door | 0:16:26 | 0:16:28 | |
to a suburban, white working-class couple in south London. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:31 | |
We must face the facts fairly and squarely. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:33 | |
A coloured family have come to live next door, | 0:16:34 | 0:16:36 | |
and it's up to us to come to terms with it. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:38 | |
We'll move. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:41 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER | 0:16:41 | 0:16:42 | |
And that was a real issue, I think, in the '70s. | 0:16:42 | 0:16:46 | |
And you know, you heard words like "Paki" and "whitey" and "honky", | 0:16:48 | 0:16:52 | |
and all these words, which you heard on the street or at the office, | 0:16:52 | 0:16:57 | |
but you didn't see on television. | 0:16:57 | 0:16:58 | |
And it was a breath of fresh air. | 0:16:58 | 0:17:00 | |
I don't understand you, Eddie Booth. For years, | 0:17:00 | 0:17:02 | |
you've been shooting off your mouth about socialism and equality. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:05 | |
"Equal rights for all." | 0:17:05 | 0:17:06 | |
Equal rights does not entitle nig-nogs to move next door. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:09 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER | 0:17:09 | 0:17:10 | |
With Love Thy Neighbour, I thought it was very... | 0:17:10 | 0:17:12 | |
It was...mild. | 0:17:12 | 0:17:13 | |
You know? The fact is, they're only calling me a nig-nog. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:16 | |
Compared to the names we were getting in the classroom, | 0:17:16 | 0:17:18 | |
on the playground, in the streets, you know... | 0:17:18 | 0:17:21 | |
This was a very, very mild show. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:23 | |
What's wrong with me being a blood donor? | 0:17:23 | 0:17:25 | |
I do have blood, you know. | 0:17:25 | 0:17:27 | |
Yes. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:28 | |
I know that, but it's coloured blood. | 0:17:28 | 0:17:30 | |
Love Thy Neighbour has been criticised for its | 0:17:30 | 0:17:33 | |
politically incorrect handling of issues of racism, | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
and is one of a number of sitcoms that are no longer repeated | 0:17:36 | 0:17:39 | |
as a result of changing attitudes. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:41 | |
We did watch it, and, yes, you look back, and you go... | 0:17:41 | 0:17:45 | |
Some of that stuff definitely wouldn't sit right today. | 0:17:45 | 0:17:48 | |
But, in a funny kind of way, it had its place at that time. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
Our blood has matured over thousands of years. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:55 | |
You make it sound like wine! | 0:17:55 | 0:17:56 | |
Exactly. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:57 | |
You could say it's more like vintage champagne. | 0:17:57 | 0:18:00 | |
Yeah, you could... | 0:18:00 | 0:18:01 | |
And what's ours? Brown ale? | 0:18:01 | 0:18:03 | |
They might have been very big, stereotypical characters, | 0:18:05 | 0:18:07 | |
they might have been the butt of jokes at times, | 0:18:07 | 0:18:10 | |
but it was somebody who looked like our uncle. | 0:18:10 | 0:18:13 | |
You know? And that was...! | 0:18:13 | 0:18:15 | |
There's something quite warming and quite, you know... | 0:18:15 | 0:18:17 | |
There's quite a connection in that, really. | 0:18:17 | 0:18:19 | |
As well as dramatic changes in race relations, | 0:18:20 | 0:18:23 | |
the 1960s saw a transformation in the role of women in society. | 0:18:23 | 0:18:26 | |
There was a boom in the number of jobs available to young, | 0:18:26 | 0:18:29 | |
single women, and more girls went on to higher education. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:33 | |
Having lived away from home and with greater intellectual | 0:18:33 | 0:18:36 | |
and financial independence, | 0:18:36 | 0:18:37 | |
many women could now have aspirations | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
beyond being a wife or mother. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
And in 1969, a sitcom came along that reflected just that. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:47 | |
The Liver Birds was written by a young Liverpudlian, Carla Lane. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:59 | |
And in another first, the script put two women at the heart of the story. | 0:18:59 | 0:19:03 | |
It took a woman writer, Carla Lane, to really put women | 0:19:03 | 0:19:08 | |
at the centre of the screen, and write fully-rounded women. | 0:19:08 | 0:19:13 | |
And explore their problems and issues and conflicts | 0:19:13 | 0:19:16 | |
from a woman's point of view. | 0:19:16 | 0:19:18 | |
How do I look? | 0:19:18 | 0:19:20 | |
Well, you won't exactly make Queen Magazine. | 0:19:20 | 0:19:23 | |
I'll be lucky if I make Horse And Hound in this! | 0:19:23 | 0:19:26 | |
Women had always been girlfriends and wives and sisters before, | 0:19:26 | 0:19:31 | |
and we were the first women who were actually the so-called stars of it. | 0:19:31 | 0:19:37 | |
Remember your mum when Gloria got engaged? | 0:19:37 | 0:19:40 | |
"Oh, my daughter, my innocent little daughter!" | 0:19:40 | 0:19:43 | |
Yeah, and there was our Gloria, | 0:19:43 | 0:19:44 | |
scoffing her pill with her elevenses. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:46 | |
Carla did tap in on the gradual emancipation of women, really. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:55 | |
That women were beginning to feel, | 0:19:55 | 0:19:59 | |
"Actually, we stand on our own two feet." | 0:19:59 | 0:20:02 | |
I tell you what, I'm going dead off this marriage lark. | 0:20:02 | 0:20:05 | |
The only ring I'm going to wear is the ring of confidence. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:08 | |
Yes. Freedom... | 0:20:08 | 0:20:09 | |
And it was reflected right through, really, in the theatres, | 0:20:09 | 0:20:12 | |
in the television, and the politics, that women began to matter. | 0:20:12 | 0:20:17 | |
# I am what I am | 0:20:17 | 0:20:20 | |
# What I am | 0:20:20 | 0:20:22 | |
# What I am... # | 0:20:22 | 0:20:23 | |
Attitudes in society were changing, | 0:20:23 | 0:20:25 | |
some more quickly than others. | 0:20:25 | 0:20:27 | |
But lagging way behind the rest was the attitude towards homosexuality. | 0:20:27 | 0:20:31 | |
# People have the right | 0:20:32 | 0:20:33 | |
# To be just who they are... # | 0:20:33 | 0:20:35 | |
For a long time, gay men were either ignored, | 0:20:35 | 0:20:38 | |
warily alluded to, | 0:20:38 | 0:20:39 | |
or camped up to within an inch of their screen life. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:42 | |
Originally, a gay artist or whatever, it wasn't discussed much. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:46 | |
Some now and again, I think it was rather hidden. | 0:20:46 | 0:20:49 | |
As though it was not going to be acceptable, or normal, or whatever. | 0:20:49 | 0:20:53 | |
So, with Frankie Howerd, for example... | 0:20:53 | 0:20:57 | |
..it wasn't referred to, but you would... He would use gestures... | 0:20:58 | 0:21:02 | |
..over the top. | 0:21:04 | 0:21:06 | |
And that's where the humour came from. You know. | 0:21:06 | 0:21:09 | |
John Inman used to do that, really over the top. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:13 | |
Mr Humphreys, are you free? | 0:21:13 | 0:21:15 | |
I'm busy pricing my ties, Captain Peacock. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:17 | |
The gentleman wishes to try on a dress. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:19 | |
I'm free! | 0:21:19 | 0:21:20 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER | 0:21:20 | 0:21:21 | |
I think the popular thing to do is to diss them, | 0:21:21 | 0:21:24 | |
but, you know... If your only experience of what... | 0:21:24 | 0:21:27 | |
What a gay man is like is Melvyn Hayes | 0:21:28 | 0:21:32 | |
in It Ain't Half Hot, Mum... I clung to them. | 0:21:32 | 0:21:35 | |
I've warned you once before! | 0:21:35 | 0:21:37 | |
Next time, I'll... | 0:21:37 | 0:21:38 | |
-Knock it off! -He nearly did! | 0:21:38 | 0:21:40 | |
We needed more, we needed better. | 0:21:40 | 0:21:43 | |
The bottom line was they were funny, | 0:21:43 | 0:21:44 | |
so it didn't really bother me too much. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:46 | |
It took until 1979 for sitcom to give us the first witty, | 0:21:46 | 0:21:51 | |
non-camp gay couple, | 0:21:51 | 0:21:53 | |
when Michael Grade commissioned the sitcom Agony. | 0:21:53 | 0:21:55 | |
# I'm feeling kind of on the shelf | 0:21:55 | 0:21:58 | |
# Sometimes I... # | 0:21:58 | 0:21:59 | |
The show featured Maureen Lipman as an agony aunt who lived | 0:21:59 | 0:22:02 | |
next door to Rob and Michael, | 0:22:02 | 0:22:04 | |
her more down-to-Earth neighbours. | 0:22:04 | 0:22:07 | |
We wanted two guys who looked like they had ordinary jobs, | 0:22:07 | 0:22:11 | |
and loved each other. | 0:22:11 | 0:22:12 | |
Well, now, how long has it been for you two? | 0:22:12 | 0:22:15 | |
-It's three years today since you introduced us. -No! | 0:22:15 | 0:22:18 | |
And you're still happily unmarried? | 0:22:18 | 0:22:20 | |
Made for each other. | 0:22:20 | 0:22:21 | |
The only reason we row is because we enjoy kissing and making up. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:24 | |
It seemed to us that if we could establish these people | 0:22:24 | 0:22:28 | |
as nice people, that would be good. | 0:22:28 | 0:22:31 | |
-Home-made nut roast. -Ooh! -It's organic. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:34 | |
Not to make them saints, but to say, | 0:22:34 | 0:22:36 | |
as we had all said to each other in private conversation, | 0:22:36 | 0:22:40 | |
"You could live next door, you'd never know." | 0:22:40 | 0:22:42 | |
I keep thinking of Lawrence having a great time | 0:22:42 | 0:22:44 | |
with a different girl each night, | 0:22:44 | 0:22:45 | |
and me sitting at home with two gay boys. Nothing personal. | 0:22:45 | 0:22:48 | |
No, no. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:49 | |
To see the first gay couple that felt real, rather than... | 0:22:50 | 0:22:53 | |
..the more Dick Emery version of it, you know, | 0:22:54 | 0:22:56 | |
was to some people shocking, and some people just unusual, | 0:22:56 | 0:23:00 | |
and to some people a brilliant move. You know. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:02 | |
It... But it was definitely something that made you go, | 0:23:02 | 0:23:04 | |
you know, "I've not seen that before." | 0:23:04 | 0:23:06 | |
-I've got the answer. -What was the question? | 0:23:06 | 0:23:08 | |
The question of cheering you up! | 0:23:08 | 0:23:10 | |
Why don't you become gay and forget about men altogether? | 0:23:10 | 0:23:13 | |
Didn't work for you, did it? | 0:23:13 | 0:23:14 | |
People seemed to like it, too. People enjoyed it. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:18 | |
Not just the gay community, who finally found expression | 0:23:18 | 0:23:22 | |
on television in a way that wasn't, kind of, music hall. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
It was real. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:26 | |
But also, the whole audience enjoyed it, | 0:23:28 | 0:23:30 | |
and I think it did move sitcom forward quite a bit. | 0:23:30 | 0:23:35 | |
As the sexual and social revolution progressed, | 0:23:35 | 0:23:38 | |
sitcoms continue to explore a wide range of themes and attitudes. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:42 | |
But there was one British preoccupation | 0:23:42 | 0:23:44 | |
that was returned to again and again and again. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:47 | |
Class. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:48 | |
If you're writing fiction in this country, for a British audience, | 0:23:48 | 0:23:53 | |
you have to be very secure in what class your characters sit. | 0:23:53 | 0:23:58 | |
Otherwise, the audience doesn't know where they are. | 0:23:58 | 0:24:00 | |
And, you know, if it's a cosy, middle-class show like... | 0:24:01 | 0:24:06 | |
..Terry And June, that's fine. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:09 | |
It knows where it sits in the hierarchy. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:13 | |
Despite the economic woes of the '70s, | 0:24:17 | 0:24:19 | |
there was a rise in consumerism | 0:24:19 | 0:24:22 | |
and increased spending on leisure activities and foreign holidays. | 0:24:22 | 0:24:26 | |
As a result, middle-class sitcoms were springing up quicker | 0:24:26 | 0:24:29 | |
than you could say, "Avocado bathroom suite". | 0:24:29 | 0:24:32 | |
Terry And June, Butterflies and The Good Life | 0:24:32 | 0:24:35 | |
all became huge hits. | 0:24:35 | 0:24:37 | |
If you look at the '70s sitcoms, stuff like The Good Life, | 0:24:38 | 0:24:41 | |
they're obsessed with class. | 0:24:41 | 0:24:43 | |
The point is, Barbara, I got it home, I put it on, | 0:24:43 | 0:24:46 | |
and I said to myself, | 0:24:46 | 0:24:47 | |
"Margo, that simply looks cheap and nasty." | 0:24:47 | 0:24:50 | |
So I wondered if you'd like it? | 0:24:50 | 0:24:51 | |
Class is a subject that absolutely runs through British comedy. | 0:24:51 | 0:24:55 | |
Because comedy at some point, in some way, is always about | 0:24:55 | 0:24:59 | |
conflict, and about wanting to get somewhere where you can't go. | 0:24:59 | 0:25:03 | |
And class, in the past, not so much now, I don't think, | 0:25:03 | 0:25:06 | |
has always been the great barrier to it, isn't it? | 0:25:06 | 0:25:10 | |
You know, you can't... Posh is a club you can't join. | 0:25:10 | 0:25:12 | |
Top of almost every classic British sitcom list is Fawlty Towers. | 0:25:15 | 0:25:19 | |
And in Basil Fawlty, we found the epitome of the class-obsessed, | 0:25:19 | 0:25:23 | |
frustrated, social-climbing middle Englander. | 0:25:23 | 0:25:26 | |
I don't think there can be a greater example of someone who was | 0:25:28 | 0:25:32 | |
trying to improve their social status than Basil Fawlty. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:36 | |
Beg your pardon? | 0:25:36 | 0:25:37 | |
Would you put both your names, please? | 0:25:37 | 0:25:39 | |
Well, would you give me a date? | 0:25:39 | 0:25:41 | |
I only use one. | 0:25:41 | 0:25:42 | |
You don't have a first name? | 0:25:42 | 0:25:44 | |
No, I am Lord Melbury, so I simply sign Melbury. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:46 | |
Go away. | 0:25:50 | 0:25:52 | |
He's fooled by anyone who's in a higher status than him, | 0:25:52 | 0:25:55 | |
as happens when the aristocrat comes to stay | 0:25:55 | 0:25:58 | |
and tries to borrow money. | 0:25:58 | 0:26:00 | |
And Fawlty does it, simply because he thinks this man is an aristocrat, | 0:26:00 | 0:26:04 | |
and therefore, he's to be trusted, there's no questions about it. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:08 | |
Lord Melbury, may I offer you a little aperitif, as our guest? | 0:26:08 | 0:26:11 | |
That's very kind of you. Dry sherry, if you please. | 0:26:11 | 0:26:14 | |
What else? | 0:26:14 | 0:26:16 | |
What's more interesting, to me, is, we're still talking about that, | 0:26:16 | 0:26:19 | |
as a thing. And we are still... | 0:26:19 | 0:26:22 | |
Sort of, even at a subconscious level, looking, immediately, | 0:26:22 | 0:26:25 | |
at a character and going, "What class are they? | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
"What do they say?" You know, | 0:26:27 | 0:26:28 | |
"What's their thing?" And it's often defined by that. | 0:26:28 | 0:26:31 | |
At the beginning of the 1980s, the new Conservative government | 0:26:32 | 0:26:35 | |
brought sweeping changes to Britain. | 0:26:35 | 0:26:37 | |
They moved to liberalise the economy through privatisation | 0:26:37 | 0:26:41 | |
and the promotion of entrepreneurialism. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:44 | |
It was a profound change that was quickly incorporated | 0:26:44 | 0:26:46 | |
into the world of sitcom. | 0:26:46 | 0:26:48 | |
The country seemed to be in the thrall of this new Prime Minister. | 0:26:48 | 0:26:52 | |
There was a whole sway, a whole generation of people, | 0:26:52 | 0:26:55 | |
who were very much anti-Thatcherite, | 0:26:55 | 0:26:57 | |
and a, sort of, groundswell of political activism, | 0:26:57 | 0:26:59 | |
especially with young people and students that sort of... | 0:26:59 | 0:27:02 | |
were very vociferous in their... antiestablishment-ism. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:06 | |
# Once in every lifetime | 0:27:07 | 0:27:09 | |
# Comes a love like this... # | 0:27:10 | 0:27:11 | |
When The Young Ones came along, to me it was a real revelation, | 0:27:12 | 0:27:16 | |
because I was a student at the time, | 0:27:16 | 0:27:20 | |
and it seemed to voice all the things I was preoccupied with, | 0:27:20 | 0:27:23 | |
in a way that many other sitcoms hadn't, | 0:27:23 | 0:27:25 | |
because they were different times. | 0:27:25 | 0:27:28 | |
It wasn't a sitcom for the people who'd been watching sitcoms. | 0:27:28 | 0:27:32 | |
It wasn't a family sitcom, it wasn't a middle-aged sitcom, | 0:27:32 | 0:27:35 | |
it wasn't a, "Let's sit cosy in front of the fire | 0:27:35 | 0:27:37 | |
"and all laugh at this" sitcom. | 0:27:37 | 0:27:39 | |
It was for teenagers, wasn't it? | 0:27:39 | 0:27:41 | |
No! No! | 0:27:42 | 0:27:43 | |
We are not watching The bleeding Good Life! | 0:27:43 | 0:27:46 | |
Bloody, bloody, bloody! | 0:27:46 | 0:27:49 | |
I hate it! It's so bloody nice! | 0:27:49 | 0:27:53 | |
When Ade Edmonson smashes through the titles of The Good Life, | 0:27:53 | 0:27:57 | |
and goes, "This is rubbish!", | 0:27:57 | 0:27:59 | |
I found myself going, "Yeah, it's rubbish, The Good Life. | 0:27:59 | 0:28:02 | |
"I'm going to be one of these people | 0:28:02 | 0:28:03 | |
"that thinks The Good Life is rubbish." | 0:28:03 | 0:28:05 | |
Even though I didn't think that. | 0:28:05 | 0:28:06 | |
It made me think I should think that way. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:09 | |
And now, as you're older, you go, God, The Good Life was brilliant! | 0:28:09 | 0:28:12 | |
And it's definitely, it's probably stood the test of time | 0:28:12 | 0:28:15 | |
more than The Young Ones. But I still love The Young Ones for... | 0:28:15 | 0:28:17 | |
You know, just shaking it all up. | 0:28:19 | 0:28:20 | |
Well, how ruddy considerate, Vivian! | 0:28:26 | 0:28:28 | |
Thank you very much! | 0:28:28 | 0:28:30 | |
Yeah, thanks, Viv, that petrol bomb's really cleared my sinuses. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:33 | |
The Young Ones was a show made by | 0:28:33 | 0:28:35 | |
a group of young and left-leaning comedians. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:37 | |
It threatened the middle-class and suburban status quo | 0:28:37 | 0:28:40 | |
that dominated British comedy in the 1970s, | 0:28:40 | 0:28:43 | |
and was aimed squarely at the next generation. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:45 | |
Well, then, I shall write to the lead singer | 0:28:45 | 0:28:47 | |
of Echo and the Bunnymen! | 0:28:47 | 0:28:48 | |
I remember, when I first saw the first episode, thinking, | 0:28:48 | 0:28:51 | |
"Oh, there are other people like me, who think like that." | 0:28:51 | 0:28:54 | |
And that was quite encouraging to me, from a creative standpoint, | 0:28:54 | 0:28:58 | |
because it felt like the attitudes I had | 0:28:58 | 0:29:02 | |
would resonate with other people. | 0:29:02 | 0:29:03 | |
My parents wouldn't get it, and that made its appeal all the greater. | 0:29:03 | 0:29:08 | |
-Hello, Vivian. -Piss off! | 0:29:08 | 0:29:10 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER | 0:29:10 | 0:29:12 | |
That's no way to talk to your mother, Vivian! | 0:29:12 | 0:29:14 | |
All right, then. | 0:29:14 | 0:29:15 | |
Piss off, Mum. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:17 | |
Viv was such an exaggeration of the punk cliche, | 0:29:18 | 0:29:22 | |
and Rick was such a great, still valid, | 0:29:22 | 0:29:27 | |
caricature of right-on politics. | 0:29:27 | 0:29:30 | |
Well, I'm going to tell Thatcher that we've got a bomb. | 0:29:30 | 0:29:33 | |
And that if she doesn't do something to help the kids | 0:29:33 | 0:29:35 | |
by this afternoon... | 0:29:35 | 0:29:36 | |
AUDIENCE LAUGHTER | 0:29:36 | 0:29:38 | |
..we're going to blow up England! | 0:29:38 | 0:29:39 | |
There are perfect episodes of The Young Ones, | 0:29:39 | 0:29:41 | |
and I just loved the... | 0:29:41 | 0:29:44 | |
..utter energy of it, and the stupidity of it, | 0:29:45 | 0:29:48 | |
and the violence of it. | 0:29:48 | 0:29:50 | |
-Here goes... -I'm completely bloody sick of this! | 0:29:50 | 0:29:53 | |
# Gotta get up... # | 0:29:56 | 0:29:57 | |
While The Young Ones' rebellion set the tone for much of the | 0:29:57 | 0:30:00 | |
alternative comedy to come in the '80s, more mainstream sitcoms | 0:30:00 | 0:30:04 | |
were also dealing with the fallout of the new political regime. | 0:30:04 | 0:30:07 | |
Carla Lane set her 1980s sitcom in a period of mass unemployment | 0:30:07 | 0:30:12 | |
in her native Liverpool. | 0:30:12 | 0:30:15 | |
Bread was on the runway when I arrived as controller of BBC One. | 0:30:15 | 0:30:19 | |
I was a huge fan of Carla's, | 0:30:19 | 0:30:21 | |
and I looked at it and thought, "Yeah, this is a really great show." | 0:30:21 | 0:30:24 | |
Bread was firmly set in Thatcher's Britain, | 0:30:24 | 0:30:27 | |
and charted the ups and downs of the larger-than-life Boswell family. | 0:30:27 | 0:30:30 | |
Number one. | 0:30:30 | 0:30:32 | |
House! | 0:30:32 | 0:30:34 | |
With most of the family out of work, they relied on trading stolen goods, | 0:30:34 | 0:30:38 | |
and getting every last penny they could from the benefits office. | 0:30:38 | 0:30:42 | |
She got a lot of criticism for writing about scroungers, | 0:30:42 | 0:30:44 | |
you know, they were living off the Welfare State. | 0:30:44 | 0:30:47 | |
I had friends who were like, | 0:30:47 | 0:30:48 | |
"Oh, it's a dreadful representation of unemployed people. | 0:30:48 | 0:30:51 | |
"Dreadful representation of Liverpool!" | 0:30:51 | 0:30:54 | |
But it still made me laugh. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:55 | |
We have got a case of incontinence in the family, | 0:30:55 | 0:31:00 | |
and I understand you have a special allowance for this? | 0:31:00 | 0:31:02 | |
We do, yes. | 0:31:02 | 0:31:05 | |
But owing to the sudden rush of incontinent 19-year-olds, | 0:31:05 | 0:31:09 | |
we're only giving it to those who qualify. | 0:31:09 | 0:31:12 | |
The benefit culture in Liverpool was something Carla recognised, | 0:31:12 | 0:31:17 | |
understood and felt confident enough to write about. | 0:31:17 | 0:31:20 | |
But again, it was a family, so they were very much redeemed, | 0:31:20 | 0:31:26 | |
because they were all struggling to survive, | 0:31:26 | 0:31:28 | |
and make their way in the world. | 0:31:28 | 0:31:30 | |
Another family adapting to the new political landscape in the 1980s | 0:31:32 | 0:31:36 | |
were the Trotters from Peckham. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:38 | |
In Only Fools And Horses, | 0:31:38 | 0:31:40 | |
Del Boy embraced the Conservative ideals with open arms, | 0:31:40 | 0:31:43 | |
and approached life with an entrepreneurial spirit | 0:31:43 | 0:31:46 | |
that Thatcher would surely have been proud of. | 0:31:46 | 0:31:49 | |
# Cos where it all comes from is a mystery... # | 0:31:49 | 0:31:51 | |
He was definitely a Thatcherite, wasn't he? | 0:31:51 | 0:31:53 | |
He would definitely have voted Tory at that point - | 0:31:53 | 0:31:58 | |
and constantly wanting... | 0:31:58 | 0:32:00 | |
It was all about self-improvement and dragging yourself up. | 0:32:00 | 0:32:03 | |
Tremendously British theme to it, wasn't it? | 0:32:03 | 0:32:06 | |
Executive mobile phone. | 0:32:06 | 0:32:08 | |
State-of-the-art. | 0:32:08 | 0:32:09 | |
You can phone someone from the top of a mountain | 0:32:09 | 0:32:11 | |
with one of these, you know. | 0:32:11 | 0:32:13 | |
It's all to do with... statellites or something. | 0:32:13 | 0:32:16 | |
My dad, who's a kind of old hippy left-winger, | 0:32:16 | 0:32:19 | |
hates Margaret Thatcher, loves Del Boy. | 0:32:19 | 0:32:22 | |
There's something about him - it's given a kind of human face | 0:32:22 | 0:32:24 | |
to that kind of money-grabbing, '80s Toryism, really. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:29 | |
It was about seeing a barrow boy | 0:32:29 | 0:32:33 | |
and wondering what his world was like, and going into that - | 0:32:33 | 0:32:35 | |
and the sort of pathos of someone's ambition. | 0:32:35 | 0:32:38 | |
Tell you what, I'll show you how it works, | 0:32:38 | 0:32:39 | |
I'll give you a little demonstration. | 0:32:39 | 0:32:41 | |
First of all, press that... | 0:32:41 | 0:32:43 | |
KEYPAD BEEPS | 0:32:43 | 0:32:44 | |
You'd see those characters make idiots of themselves, | 0:32:51 | 0:32:53 | |
again and again and again - | 0:32:53 | 0:32:55 | |
but half the time you felt for them, as well, you felt it, | 0:32:55 | 0:32:59 | |
and that's what makes it so good. | 0:32:59 | 0:33:01 | |
It's not just someone that you don't know or care about slipping up, | 0:33:01 | 0:33:04 | |
it's someone that you actually kind of do care about. | 0:33:04 | 0:33:08 | |
# From the long warm nights with the ocean breeze | 0:33:08 | 0:33:10 | |
# To the damp and to the rain of London city... # | 0:33:10 | 0:33:12 | |
Meanwhile, in another part of Peckham in the 1980s, | 0:33:12 | 0:33:15 | |
more history was being made. | 0:33:15 | 0:33:17 | |
Desmond's was the first sitcom to feature a predominantly black cast | 0:33:17 | 0:33:21 | |
in the workplace, and portray the black community | 0:33:21 | 0:33:23 | |
within a British context. | 0:33:23 | 0:33:25 | |
Based in a south London barbershop, | 0:33:25 | 0:33:27 | |
it would go on to become Channel 4's longest-running sitcom. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:31 | |
The whole family thing | 0:33:31 | 0:33:32 | |
was the fact about just reflecting the black experience | 0:33:32 | 0:33:36 | |
in this country, | 0:33:36 | 0:33:38 | |
and it's one of mobility, of education, of wanting to do well, | 0:33:38 | 0:33:43 | |
and every family felt that. | 0:33:43 | 0:33:45 | |
Hah! | 0:33:45 | 0:33:46 | |
-Father, I can't read the paper... -You can't read? | 0:33:47 | 0:33:49 | |
After all the education I gave you, | 0:33:49 | 0:33:52 | |
my son, the bank manager, can't read? | 0:33:52 | 0:33:54 | |
The show looked at the differing experiences | 0:33:54 | 0:33:57 | |
of the original immigrant members of the family | 0:33:57 | 0:34:00 | |
and their children, who were growing up in Britain, | 0:34:00 | 0:34:02 | |
and it remains one of the most successful sitcoms | 0:34:02 | 0:34:05 | |
that Channel 4 has ever made. | 0:34:05 | 0:34:06 | |
What's your paper called? | 0:34:08 | 0:34:09 | |
I never wrote Desmond's for black people. | 0:34:11 | 0:34:13 | |
We know who we are. | 0:34:13 | 0:34:14 | |
I wrote them for white people, so they can know who we are. | 0:34:14 | 0:34:17 | |
There goes my street cred. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:21 | |
It was from a completely different world | 0:34:21 | 0:34:23 | |
to what I was living in in Devon - | 0:34:23 | 0:34:25 | |
but the thing about a sitcom is, | 0:34:25 | 0:34:26 | |
because you're welcomed into that world, | 0:34:26 | 0:34:28 | |
it kind of brings other areas into your living room | 0:34:28 | 0:34:33 | |
that you can't see on a day-to-day basis, | 0:34:33 | 0:34:36 | |
and it's a very good way of creating social integration | 0:34:36 | 0:34:39 | |
without people even realising what they're watching. | 0:34:39 | 0:34:42 | |
Listen, you two, after you've had this, | 0:34:42 | 0:34:44 | |
I want you to go. | 0:34:44 | 0:34:45 | |
This is not a cafe, you know. | 0:34:45 | 0:34:46 | |
Come on, Shirl, don't be like that - | 0:34:46 | 0:34:48 | |
it's people like us that keep this shop going. | 0:34:48 | 0:34:50 | |
Without us, this place wouldn't be the same. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:52 | |
Without you, this place would be a barbershop. | 0:34:52 | 0:34:55 | |
Instead of a bookie and a social club. | 0:34:56 | 0:34:59 | |
Where we lived, in a little village outside of High Wycombe, | 0:34:59 | 0:35:02 | |
was not particularly diverse - | 0:35:02 | 0:35:04 | |
and here was a world that I was not exposed to, | 0:35:04 | 0:35:08 | |
yet here are characters that I absolutely love | 0:35:08 | 0:35:11 | |
and associate with. | 0:35:11 | 0:35:13 | |
I've got a couple of tickets | 0:35:13 | 0:35:14 | |
for me boxing club dinner and dance in a couple of weeks' time. | 0:35:14 | 0:35:17 | |
I'm fighting, I'll knock him out first round if you come. | 0:35:17 | 0:35:19 | |
How about it, then, eh? | 0:35:19 | 0:35:20 | |
SHE SPEAKS FRENCH | 0:35:21 | 0:35:23 | |
But even as an Asian family, we would connect with that, | 0:35:25 | 0:35:28 | |
we really would connect with that. | 0:35:28 | 0:35:29 | |
We felt it was talking about us, in a way. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:32 | |
We felt it was saying something about the immigrant life in Britain. | 0:35:32 | 0:35:37 | |
The great thing about Desmond's, and comedy specifically, | 0:35:37 | 0:35:40 | |
it gave you a platform to ridicule, debate or, indeed, expand on - | 0:35:40 | 0:35:44 | |
not necessarily your view, | 0:35:44 | 0:35:46 | |
but the collective view of your culture at the time. | 0:35:46 | 0:35:49 | |
# They say I might as well face the truth... # | 0:35:51 | 0:35:54 | |
Writers have often used sitcom to study our attitudes | 0:35:54 | 0:35:56 | |
to different sections of society, | 0:35:56 | 0:35:58 | |
and, in 1990, David Renwick decided it was time | 0:35:58 | 0:36:01 | |
to investigate how we treat our senior citizens. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:04 | |
Of course, the biggest problem of all | 0:36:04 | 0:36:06 | |
was - how do you ever replace a man | 0:36:06 | 0:36:08 | |
like Victor Meldrew? | 0:36:08 | 0:36:09 | |
Well, basically, with this box... | 0:36:09 | 0:36:11 | |
Because Meldrew is in that position of having to retire early, | 0:36:11 | 0:36:16 | |
you've still got a very active mind, | 0:36:16 | 0:36:18 | |
and someone who's full of creativity, if you like, | 0:36:18 | 0:36:22 | |
and doesn't have any focus for that. | 0:36:22 | 0:36:25 | |
So his domestic life becomes a drama around him, because of that. | 0:36:25 | 0:36:30 | |
Afternoon! | 0:36:36 | 0:36:37 | |
I think, after Del Boy falling through the bar, | 0:36:37 | 0:36:40 | |
the greatest moment ever in British sitcom | 0:36:40 | 0:36:42 | |
is Victor Meldrew picking up the small dog - | 0:36:42 | 0:36:44 | |
which I watch on YouTube once a month. | 0:36:44 | 0:36:45 | |
PHONE RINGS | 0:36:45 | 0:36:46 | |
4291? | 0:36:47 | 0:36:49 | |
Where the bloody hell did you come from? | 0:36:51 | 0:36:54 | |
PHONE RINGS | 0:36:54 | 0:36:55 | |
Bugger off! | 0:36:55 | 0:36:58 | |
A lot of people didn't actually realise | 0:36:58 | 0:37:00 | |
how subversive One Foot In The Grave is. | 0:37:00 | 0:37:03 | |
It's an extraordinarily surreal sitcom. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:05 | |
I've certainly wheeled a lot of old ladies about, Mrs Meldrew. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:10 | |
But who's going to wheel me about? | 0:37:12 | 0:37:14 | |
The show challenged the traditional boundaries | 0:37:14 | 0:37:17 | |
of more conventional sitcoms, | 0:37:17 | 0:37:19 | |
dealing with subjects such as death and old age | 0:37:19 | 0:37:21 | |
with pathos and black comedy. | 0:37:21 | 0:37:23 | |
Victor! | 0:37:31 | 0:37:33 | |
I think the marvellous thing about Victor Meldrew | 0:37:34 | 0:37:38 | |
was that, there but for the grace of God go I. | 0:37:38 | 0:37:43 | |
The things that irritated him actually irritated nearly everybody. | 0:37:43 | 0:37:47 | |
I was out the back working in the garden when he arrived, | 0:37:47 | 0:37:50 | |
so I asked him if, for the time being, | 0:37:50 | 0:37:51 | |
he'd put in the downstairs toilet for me. | 0:37:51 | 0:37:53 | |
And you know what he's done?! | 0:37:53 | 0:37:55 | |
He's only planted it in the bowl! | 0:37:55 | 0:37:57 | |
He's trapped by the conventions of old age, isn't he? | 0:37:59 | 0:38:03 | |
Trapped by the idea that you have to be a particular sort of person. | 0:38:03 | 0:38:07 | |
But also playing fantastically on the idea that, as you get older, | 0:38:07 | 0:38:11 | |
you really don't care much any more, | 0:38:11 | 0:38:12 | |
so you can just be as rude as you like. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:14 | |
In the 1990s, Britain was awash with a new sense of optimism. | 0:38:16 | 0:38:21 | |
New Labour were on the rise, Britpop was cool, | 0:38:21 | 0:38:24 | |
and, for a while, it seemed that things could only get better. | 0:38:24 | 0:38:27 | |
Likewise, many of the hit sitcoms of the era | 0:38:27 | 0:38:29 | |
were big, bold and even brash. | 0:38:29 | 0:38:32 | |
Brightest of all was a satire on excess, | 0:38:32 | 0:38:34 | |
which started out life as a sketch | 0:38:34 | 0:38:36 | |
from two of the country's funniest women - | 0:38:36 | 0:38:38 | |
Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. | 0:38:38 | 0:38:41 | |
Where is it you're going? | 0:38:41 | 0:38:43 | |
-Aberdeen. -Aber-bloody-deen! | 0:38:43 | 0:38:46 | |
I don't know anybody | 0:38:46 | 0:38:48 | |
in Aber-bloody-deen, darling! | 0:38:48 | 0:38:51 | |
I think the '90s was quite a kind of surface, kind of facile decade. | 0:38:51 | 0:38:57 | |
It was kind of between the fear of the Cold War | 0:38:57 | 0:39:00 | |
and the fear of post-9/11, | 0:39:00 | 0:39:02 | |
there was this era which was obsessed with celebrity and fashion | 0:39:02 | 0:39:07 | |
and kind of just having fun. | 0:39:07 | 0:39:09 | |
# Wheels on fire... # | 0:39:11 | 0:39:14 | |
You talk about a sitcom that completely caught the moment | 0:39:14 | 0:39:17 | |
and absolutely bottled it, and that was it. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:19 | |
When we started it, I remember the late George Melly on a review show | 0:39:19 | 0:39:24 | |
saying, "Dear, oh, dear, oh, dear, | 0:39:24 | 0:39:26 | |
"there is nothing funny about recovering alcoholics." | 0:39:26 | 0:39:29 | |
To which my response is, "Who said they were recovering?" | 0:39:29 | 0:39:32 | |
You're not eating, Patsy? | 0:39:32 | 0:39:33 | |
No, liquid lunch for me, Mrs M. | 0:39:33 | 0:39:35 | |
Ab Fab is just about excess, isn't it? | 0:39:35 | 0:39:38 | |
And that feeling, which I think was very prevalent at that point, | 0:39:38 | 0:39:41 | |
of how things looked being the most important thing. | 0:39:41 | 0:39:45 | |
Opening a shop, Pats. | 0:39:45 | 0:39:47 | |
Ooh, what are you going to sell? | 0:39:47 | 0:39:48 | |
-Ooh, just gorgeous things, you know. -Ooh, lovely! | 0:39:48 | 0:39:50 | |
What sitcom's brilliant at | 0:39:50 | 0:39:53 | |
is identifying a kind of social movement or type and skewering it, | 0:39:53 | 0:39:58 | |
and going, "This is stupid." | 0:39:58 | 0:40:00 | |
What we need is a princess with a press following | 0:40:00 | 0:40:02 | |
and a designer dress on her back! | 0:40:02 | 0:40:04 | |
Jonathan Swift said satire is a glass | 0:40:04 | 0:40:07 | |
wherein each man sees every face except his own - | 0:40:07 | 0:40:11 | |
and it's an interesting thing, | 0:40:11 | 0:40:13 | |
that when you set out with something like Ab Fab, | 0:40:13 | 0:40:15 | |
which is about a bit of an industry, if you like, | 0:40:15 | 0:40:18 | |
and you're poking fun at it. | 0:40:18 | 0:40:20 | |
DANCE MUSIC PLAYS | 0:40:20 | 0:40:21 | |
-They loved it, they loved it. -No, they hated me, they hated me! | 0:40:21 | 0:40:24 | |
No, they love, love, loved... Oh! | 0:40:24 | 0:40:26 | |
When Jennifer wrote it, what she was really trying to do, I think, | 0:40:26 | 0:40:30 | |
was to say, "Look at these people, they are a waste of space, | 0:40:30 | 0:40:33 | |
"they're a waste of air. | 0:40:33 | 0:40:35 | |
"PR is a kind of nonevent." | 0:40:35 | 0:40:39 | |
I'm going down in history, Pats, | 0:40:39 | 0:40:41 | |
as the woman that put Princess Anne in a Vivienne Westwood basque! | 0:40:41 | 0:40:44 | |
But it was interesting, | 0:40:44 | 0:40:45 | |
how the people who immediately embraced Ab Fab | 0:40:45 | 0:40:49 | |
and took it to their bosoms were, first, people in fashion and PR. | 0:40:49 | 0:40:53 | |
So either we got it wrong - which I don't think we did - | 0:40:53 | 0:40:56 | |
or are they just went, "Hooray! PR, you noticed! We're valuable! | 0:40:56 | 0:41:01 | |
"We're useful to the community." | 0:41:01 | 0:41:02 | |
What do you see when you look in the mirror, darling? | 0:41:02 | 0:41:04 | |
Me looking fabulous, what do you see? | 0:41:04 | 0:41:06 | |
It also objectified the time, which was materialistic, | 0:41:06 | 0:41:11 | |
it was putting the wrong emphasis on labels, and... | 0:41:11 | 0:41:16 | |
You know, not the sort of thing that was meaningful, really. | 0:41:16 | 0:41:21 | |
It wasn't very meaningful - | 0:41:21 | 0:41:23 | |
but she was being meaningful... flagging it up. Clever girl. | 0:41:23 | 0:41:28 | |
BOTH: # They say our love won't pay the rent... # | 0:41:28 | 0:41:31 | |
I'm Cher, Patsy! | 0:41:31 | 0:41:33 | |
I'm doing the Cher bit. | 0:41:33 | 0:41:35 | |
While Jennifer captured the zeitgeist | 0:41:35 | 0:41:37 | |
with her satire of the fashion and PR worlds, | 0:41:37 | 0:41:39 | |
her comedy partner, Dawn, was equally timely | 0:41:39 | 0:41:42 | |
with a sitcom about a very different issue affecting Britain at the time. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:46 | |
Good evening. Centuries of tradition and decades of campaigning | 0:41:46 | 0:41:50 | |
came to an end tonight | 0:41:50 | 0:41:51 | |
when the Church of England ordained its first women priests. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:55 | |
# The Lord is my shepherd... # | 0:41:55 | 0:41:56 | |
Just eight months after the historic ordination | 0:41:56 | 0:41:59 | |
of women in the Church of England, | 0:41:59 | 0:42:01 | |
the Vicar Of Dibley arrived on BBC One. | 0:42:01 | 0:42:04 | |
Written by Richard Curtis, the show introduced us to Geraldine Granger, | 0:42:04 | 0:42:08 | |
the surprise arrival in a small English village. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:11 | |
-Oh, dear. -Oh, my God! | 0:42:11 | 0:42:13 | |
You were expecting a bloke? | 0:42:15 | 0:42:16 | |
Beard, Bible, bad breath? | 0:42:16 | 0:42:18 | |
-Yes, that sort of thing. -Yeah. | 0:42:18 | 0:42:20 | |
And instead, you've got a babe with a bob cut and a magnificent bosom. | 0:42:20 | 0:42:23 | |
So I see. | 0:42:23 | 0:42:24 | |
The argument was in the air, | 0:42:24 | 0:42:26 | |
and I was very interested in the argument, | 0:42:26 | 0:42:28 | |
and I got to know a woman called Joy Carroll, | 0:42:28 | 0:42:31 | |
who was a female vicar, and I remember going to see her | 0:42:31 | 0:42:35 | |
in one of the synods where they were all arguing about the issue, | 0:42:35 | 0:42:38 | |
so I knew a fight was on, | 0:42:38 | 0:42:40 | |
and it was always my feeling | 0:42:40 | 0:42:42 | |
that if someone could just see a woman in that job, | 0:42:42 | 0:42:45 | |
their doubts would instantly evaporate, | 0:42:45 | 0:42:47 | |
and I think that was one of the helpful things | 0:42:47 | 0:42:49 | |
about The Vicar Of Dibley - | 0:42:49 | 0:42:51 | |
people just knew, "Oh, no, it makes total sense" - | 0:42:51 | 0:42:53 | |
in fact, it makes no sense that you would say a woman can't do this job. | 0:42:53 | 0:42:56 | |
I did actually write The Vicar Of Dibley | 0:42:56 | 0:42:57 | |
in order to try and win the argument. | 0:42:57 | 0:43:00 | |
Ah, Owen, this is Geraldine - | 0:43:00 | 0:43:04 | |
she's the new vicar. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:05 | |
Hello. | 0:43:05 | 0:43:07 | |
No, she isn't. | 0:43:07 | 0:43:08 | |
Why not? | 0:43:08 | 0:43:09 | |
She's a woman! | 0:43:09 | 0:43:10 | |
Oh, you noticed! | 0:43:10 | 0:43:12 | |
These are such a giveaway, aren't they? | 0:43:12 | 0:43:14 | |
It's a studio sitcom, it's family-orientated. | 0:43:14 | 0:43:17 | |
You kind of forget that the idea of a woman vicar, | 0:43:17 | 0:43:21 | |
at the time, felt kind of controversial - | 0:43:21 | 0:43:26 | |
or it was a new thing. | 0:43:26 | 0:43:29 | |
It's kind of amazing that sitcom can take an idea like that | 0:43:29 | 0:43:34 | |
and smuggle it in to 8:30 on a Thursday night on BBC One, | 0:43:34 | 0:43:38 | |
or whenever it was on, and make that feel normal and accepted, | 0:43:38 | 0:43:42 | |
and that's kind of a brilliant thing | 0:43:42 | 0:43:44 | |
that Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, who wrote it, did. | 0:43:44 | 0:43:47 | |
The idea that, having seen Geraldine Granger at work, | 0:43:47 | 0:43:51 | |
you would ever think, "Well, of course there shouldn't..." | 0:43:51 | 0:43:53 | |
You know, "The idea of women priests is nonsense." | 0:43:53 | 0:43:56 | |
She's unanswerable, really. Every parish should be so lucky. | 0:43:56 | 0:44:00 | |
-RAPS: -Nothing could be hotter Nothing could be slicker | 0:44:00 | 0:44:02 | |
Lock up your son and daughter Cos here comes the vicar! | 0:44:02 | 0:44:06 | |
I was really keen, in The Vicar Of Dibley, | 0:44:06 | 0:44:08 | |
to write someone nice and funny - | 0:44:08 | 0:44:10 | |
because I think that's the British joke, really, | 0:44:10 | 0:44:13 | |
which is that we're always in trouble trying to be nice - | 0:44:13 | 0:44:16 | |
we can never break the truth to people. | 0:44:16 | 0:44:18 | |
And there is great tradition of angry people in sitcoms. | 0:44:18 | 0:44:22 | |
You know, the Arthur Lowe, Basil Fawlty - | 0:44:22 | 0:44:26 | |
the greatest of them all - | 0:44:26 | 0:44:28 | |
One Foot In The Grave. Blackadder's in that tradition, | 0:44:28 | 0:44:30 | |
and I was really glad to be in the nice tradition, as well. | 0:44:30 | 0:44:33 | |
While Dibley was quietly subversive on the subject of women vicars, | 0:44:35 | 0:44:39 | |
another clerical comedy was about to air | 0:44:39 | 0:44:41 | |
which was equally subversive, | 0:44:41 | 0:44:43 | |
and had much to say about our neighbours in Ireland | 0:44:43 | 0:44:46 | |
and the role religion played in national life. | 0:44:46 | 0:44:49 | |
We originally thought no-one would want to do a sitcom | 0:44:49 | 0:44:52 | |
about Irish people, | 0:44:52 | 0:44:53 | |
so we wrote it in the form of a series of mock documentaries | 0:44:53 | 0:44:56 | |
with a different character every week - | 0:44:56 | 0:44:58 | |
and the one we handed in as an example was Father Ted. | 0:44:58 | 0:45:01 | |
They liked it, but they said, | 0:45:01 | 0:45:04 | |
"No-one will want to see a different character every week. | 0:45:04 | 0:45:07 | |
"Can you do this character and do him every week?" | 0:45:07 | 0:45:10 | |
And we were like, "Really?!" | 0:45:10 | 0:45:11 | |
They actually asked us for an Irish sitcom. | 0:45:11 | 0:45:14 | |
..eck! Arse! | 0:45:15 | 0:45:17 | |
These really do work, don't they, Dougal? | 0:45:17 | 0:45:19 | |
Oh, you're right, there, Ted. | 0:45:19 | 0:45:20 | |
Feck! Arse! Feck! | 0:45:20 | 0:45:23 | |
The British-Irish relationship has not always been a happy one. | 0:45:23 | 0:45:28 | |
I can well see why the idea of putting across these stereotypes | 0:45:28 | 0:45:33 | |
almost in an ironic sense, "OK, if you want that kind of Irishmen, | 0:45:33 | 0:45:38 | |
"here they are," you know? | 0:45:38 | 0:45:39 | |
We used to like taking the extreme approach to everything. | 0:45:39 | 0:45:44 | |
So, if Jack was going to be an alcoholic, | 0:45:44 | 0:45:47 | |
then he was going to drink things like Toilet Duck. | 0:45:47 | 0:45:49 | |
-Oh, no, Ted. Look at this. -Oh, God... | 0:45:49 | 0:45:52 | |
And if Dougal was going to be stupid, | 0:45:52 | 0:45:55 | |
then he was going to be stupid to an extent | 0:45:55 | 0:45:57 | |
that you've never seen before. | 0:45:57 | 0:45:58 | |
Like, someone who, when you turn out the light, turn it back on again, | 0:45:58 | 0:46:02 | |
he thinks he's had a sleep. | 0:46:02 | 0:46:03 | |
Anyway, night, Dougal. | 0:46:03 | 0:46:05 | |
Night, Ted. | 0:46:05 | 0:46:06 | |
Oh, damn! | 0:46:08 | 0:46:10 | |
Oh... | 0:46:10 | 0:46:11 | |
Ahh! | 0:46:12 | 0:46:14 | |
'To be able to go in and explode a few myths...' | 0:46:18 | 0:46:21 | |
DOUGAL WHISTLES | 0:46:21 | 0:46:22 | |
No, Dougal it's not morning. | 0:46:22 | 0:46:23 | |
'..we built him in an image that we liked | 0:46:23 | 0:46:26 | |
'and we had fun with.' | 0:46:26 | 0:46:27 | |
I don't know, it was healthy. | 0:46:27 | 0:46:29 | |
The larger than life approach to sitcom would continue | 0:46:29 | 0:46:32 | |
throughout the decade, | 0:46:32 | 0:46:33 | |
and was exemplified by the outrageous flat-share sitcom | 0:46:33 | 0:46:36 | |
Gimme Gimme Gimme. | 0:46:36 | 0:46:38 | |
Following in the footsteps of the huge characters | 0:46:38 | 0:46:40 | |
in Absolutely Fabulous, Tom Farrell and Linda La Hughes | 0:46:40 | 0:46:44 | |
were queenie, camp and a long, long way over the top. | 0:46:44 | 0:46:47 | |
The show revelled in innuendo, | 0:46:47 | 0:46:49 | |
and in Tom it also gave us the most out and proud gay character | 0:46:49 | 0:46:53 | |
we'd seen in British sitcom. | 0:46:53 | 0:46:55 | |
# Gimme, gimme, gimme a man! # | 0:46:55 | 0:46:58 | |
The differentiation between him and, say, John Inman's character | 0:46:58 | 0:47:00 | |
in Are You Being Served? was at least Tom had a dick | 0:47:00 | 0:47:04 | |
and he was going out and he was copping off, and he was openly gay. | 0:47:04 | 0:47:08 | |
He wasn't in the closet. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:09 | |
'He was an actively sexual gay man, | 0:47:11 | 0:47:15 | |
'so that was the difference for me - | 0:47:15 | 0:47:17 | |
'that that step forward was being taken. | 0:47:17 | 0:47:19 | |
'The gay press hated it.' | 0:47:20 | 0:47:22 | |
I had done that play and film, Beautiful Thing, | 0:47:22 | 0:47:25 | |
which had a rose-tinted ending and positive role models | 0:47:25 | 0:47:28 | |
for young gay people, and then here I write a... | 0:47:28 | 0:47:32 | |
a comedy show about a vile, camp queen, | 0:47:32 | 0:47:35 | |
and I suppose they were hoping it would be the next role model, | 0:47:35 | 0:47:38 | |
but it wasn't. | 0:47:38 | 0:47:39 | |
Did you have a good evening, sir? | 0:47:39 | 0:47:41 | |
I am twatted. | 0:47:41 | 0:47:43 | |
Is that a Welsh name, sir? | 0:47:43 | 0:47:44 | |
Linda and Tom are not an ideal couple... | 0:47:45 | 0:47:49 | |
Do you have to eat with your mouth open?! | 0:47:49 | 0:47:51 | |
How else am I supposed to get the bleedin'...? | 0:47:51 | 0:47:53 | |
'..but we love them.' | 0:47:53 | 0:47:55 | |
We love them for the extremity of what they do. | 0:47:55 | 0:47:58 | |
I'm reading my stars. Shush. | 0:47:58 | 0:48:00 | |
Is the moon in Uranus? | 0:48:00 | 0:48:02 | |
One was not quite as pretty as she thought she was, | 0:48:02 | 0:48:04 | |
and neither was the other. | 0:48:04 | 0:48:06 | |
# Knowing me, knowing you | 0:48:06 | 0:48:07 | |
# Ah-ha... # | 0:48:07 | 0:48:09 | |
Towards the end of the decade, | 0:48:09 | 0:48:11 | |
we got another sitcom character with ideas above his station. | 0:48:11 | 0:48:15 | |
We'd previously seen and heard Alan Partridge on a radio show, | 0:48:15 | 0:48:19 | |
in a sketch show and a mock chat show. | 0:48:19 | 0:48:22 | |
You'd better believe it, babe. There's a new chat in town. | 0:48:22 | 0:48:25 | |
His latest incarnation, I'm Alan Partridge, | 0:48:25 | 0:48:28 | |
explored the character who was trying to change with the times - | 0:48:28 | 0:48:31 | |
and usually got it wrong. | 0:48:31 | 0:48:33 | |
Current affairs... | 0:48:33 | 0:48:34 | |
Would it be terribly rude to stop listening to you | 0:48:34 | 0:48:36 | |
and go and speak to somebody else? | 0:48:36 | 0:48:38 | |
'The character's definitely evolved.' | 0:48:38 | 0:48:40 | |
The pathos creeps in more and more as the years go on. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:44 | |
He's playing catch-up with changing social attitudes, | 0:48:44 | 0:48:47 | |
and when we write the character, we grapple with those things. | 0:48:47 | 0:48:50 | |
We're not gay! | 0:48:50 | 0:48:52 | |
I've nothing against them, it's just... | 0:48:52 | 0:48:54 | |
As I see it, God created Adam and Eve. | 0:48:54 | 0:48:56 | |
He didn't create Adam and Steve. | 0:48:56 | 0:48:59 | |
Whereas before, it would have been funny to laugh at someone | 0:48:59 | 0:49:01 | |
who was just prejudiced and narrow-minded, | 0:49:01 | 0:49:03 | |
it was funny to see Alan struggle with attitudes | 0:49:03 | 0:49:06 | |
that maybe don't come naturally to him, | 0:49:06 | 0:49:08 | |
but he tries to be modern, if you like. | 0:49:08 | 0:49:11 | |
-Can I have a sniff? -Yeah, sure. -Great. | 0:49:11 | 0:49:13 | |
HE SNIFFS | 0:49:13 | 0:49:14 | |
Mm... | 0:49:14 | 0:49:15 | |
Actually, sorry, I shouldn't touch members of staff - | 0:49:15 | 0:49:17 | |
unless I'm reprimanding them, | 0:49:17 | 0:49:19 | |
and then I'll put you across my knee and smack your bare bottoms. | 0:49:19 | 0:49:23 | |
Normally, comic characters live within their thing and their world, | 0:49:23 | 0:49:27 | |
and that's where it exists. | 0:49:27 | 0:49:29 | |
It is incredibly rare to have a character | 0:49:29 | 0:49:32 | |
just to span...a lifetime within your lifetime | 0:49:32 | 0:49:37 | |
and never, ever let you down. | 0:49:37 | 0:49:39 | |
-Ben, can you take this up to my room? -Yeah, sure, no problem. | 0:49:39 | 0:49:42 | |
Cheers. | 0:49:42 | 0:49:44 | |
Cheers. | 0:49:44 | 0:49:45 | |
'There's something about...' | 0:49:45 | 0:49:47 | |
putting it in a comedy, also, which allows you licence | 0:49:47 | 0:49:50 | |
to talk about things that, otherwise, you wouldn't be able to. | 0:49:50 | 0:49:54 | |
# Curly, black and kinky... | 0:49:54 | 0:49:56 | |
# Mixed with yellow chinky. # | 0:49:56 | 0:49:59 | |
Can you still say that? | 0:49:59 | 0:50:01 | |
Oh, you're all right with that, like, | 0:50:01 | 0:50:03 | |
cos it's a race of people, AND it's a food. | 0:50:03 | 0:50:05 | |
Chinese... | 0:50:05 | 0:50:07 | |
Yeah, you're absolutely right, yeah. | 0:50:07 | 0:50:08 | |
'Alan Partridge, in his ignorance, can say things' | 0:50:08 | 0:50:11 | |
which reflect deeply held prejudices, | 0:50:11 | 0:50:14 | |
and can say them out loud, and people will laugh at them | 0:50:14 | 0:50:18 | |
because they realise the joke is on Alan. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:20 | |
If I were to say some of the things Alan said, | 0:50:20 | 0:50:23 | |
as myself, unironically, I'd be in deep trouble. | 0:50:23 | 0:50:26 | |
You're listening to North Norfolk Digital, | 0:50:26 | 0:50:29 | |
Norfolk's...North Norfolk's best music mix. | 0:50:29 | 0:50:31 | |
In his modern incarnation, | 0:50:31 | 0:50:33 | |
he tries to reflect those social changes, | 0:50:33 | 0:50:35 | |
so Alan is aware that, for example, it's OK to be gay, | 0:50:35 | 0:50:40 | |
'so he tries to reflect those things. | 0:50:40 | 0:50:42 | |
'He's aware of the zeitgeist, and tries to fit in with it.' | 0:50:42 | 0:50:46 | |
..kicking off your shoes and socks | 0:50:46 | 0:50:47 | |
and sharing an expensive bottle of wine with the woman in your life. | 0:50:47 | 0:50:51 | |
Or the man in your life, if you're a woman. | 0:50:51 | 0:50:53 | |
Or, the man in your life, if you're gay. | 0:50:53 | 0:50:55 | |
Yeah - oh, y-yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely, yes. Um... | 0:50:55 | 0:50:59 | |
I will be the first to hold my hands up and say, | 0:50:59 | 0:51:02 | |
in the past, circa 1983, I developed a fairly robust dislike | 0:51:02 | 0:51:08 | |
for the gay community - | 0:51:08 | 0:51:09 | |
but that was before I met Dale Winton. | 0:51:09 | 0:51:12 | |
The '90s was the era of outrageous characters | 0:51:14 | 0:51:17 | |
and exaggerated situations, | 0:51:17 | 0:51:19 | |
but the following decade saw a distinct change in direction, | 0:51:19 | 0:51:22 | |
and a new realism began to appear in sitcom. | 0:51:22 | 0:51:25 | |
Characters still had their flaws, | 0:51:25 | 0:51:27 | |
but now they found themselves in more naturalistic surroundings. | 0:51:27 | 0:51:31 | |
Ten years ago, the big things in British sitcom | 0:51:31 | 0:51:35 | |
were The Royle Family and The Office. | 0:51:35 | 0:51:37 | |
It set an agenda to be very naturalistic and real. | 0:51:37 | 0:51:41 | |
Are you going to make that cup of tea, Barb, or what? | 0:51:41 | 0:51:44 | |
The Royle Family, I think, | 0:51:45 | 0:51:47 | |
is probably the most important comedy that I ever watched. | 0:51:47 | 0:51:55 | |
It was the first time I had ever seen on TV... | 0:51:55 | 0:51:59 | |
a family like mine, watching TV. | 0:51:59 | 0:52:04 | |
The feeling of my dad in his regular seat, my mum there, | 0:52:04 | 0:52:08 | |
one or both of my sisters, | 0:52:08 | 0:52:10 | |
me, and then watching almost this sort of mirror image, | 0:52:10 | 0:52:15 | |
not in terms of situation or set, but just the dynamics of family. | 0:52:15 | 0:52:22 | |
Dad! Stop fiddling with yourself. | 0:52:22 | 0:52:25 | |
I'm not fiddling with meself. | 0:52:25 | 0:52:27 | |
I paid a quid for these underpants. | 0:52:27 | 0:52:28 | |
I've got 50-pence worth stuck up me arse. | 0:52:28 | 0:52:30 | |
I think if it hadn't been for The Royle Family, I don't know if... | 0:52:30 | 0:52:33 | |
I don't know if Gavin & Stacey would exist. | 0:52:33 | 0:52:36 | |
One of the great things about sitcom is we've been able to fit in... | 0:52:36 | 0:52:39 | |
We haven't got imprisoned by the form, | 0:52:39 | 0:52:42 | |
which you sometimes think American sitcoms have, | 0:52:42 | 0:52:44 | |
that they expect a certain level of brightness | 0:52:44 | 0:52:47 | |
and a certain level of noise, | 0:52:47 | 0:52:48 | |
and I think one of the brilliant things | 0:52:48 | 0:52:50 | |
that particularly the BBC has done | 0:52:50 | 0:52:52 | |
is experiment with the shape, form and texture of sitcom | 0:52:52 | 0:52:56 | |
over the years. | 0:52:56 | 0:52:57 | |
One of the boldest sitcoms the BBC has ever produced | 0:52:57 | 0:53:00 | |
turned out to be one of the most successful. | 0:53:00 | 0:53:02 | |
The Office was a mockumentary set in the Slough branch | 0:53:02 | 0:53:05 | |
of the Wernham Hogg paper company. | 0:53:05 | 0:53:07 | |
While the format was relatively new, | 0:53:07 | 0:53:10 | |
the themes that the show dealt with were familiar to British audiences. | 0:53:10 | 0:53:13 | |
Lovely Dawn. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:15 | |
Dawn Tinsley. Receptionist... | 0:53:15 | 0:53:17 | |
Social awkwardness, self-importance, | 0:53:17 | 0:53:19 | |
frustration and desperation. | 0:53:19 | 0:53:21 | |
I'd say, at one time or another, | 0:53:21 | 0:53:23 | |
every bloke in the office has woken up at the crack of dawn. | 0:53:23 | 0:53:25 | |
-HE SNIGGERS -What?! | 0:53:25 | 0:53:27 | |
The Office would have captured that feeling at the time | 0:53:28 | 0:53:32 | |
of the early noughties, of kind of, you know, "Why have a job? | 0:53:32 | 0:53:36 | |
"Why have a career? | 0:53:36 | 0:53:38 | |
"Why do you want to spend your life doing this?" | 0:53:38 | 0:53:41 | |
And that does reflect that people are no longer | 0:53:41 | 0:53:44 | |
going in to having a job for life, you know? | 0:53:44 | 0:53:47 | |
It was saying, "Hey, look, it's all changed | 0:53:47 | 0:53:49 | |
"and we haven't even noticed." | 0:53:49 | 0:53:51 | |
There's these brilliant kind of examinations of people's attitude | 0:53:51 | 0:53:56 | |
to things like race and sexism, | 0:53:56 | 0:54:00 | |
and how that laddishness of the '90s | 0:54:00 | 0:54:03 | |
against the politically correct movement in the '90s | 0:54:03 | 0:54:06 | |
clashed together. | 0:54:06 | 0:54:07 | |
Do you mind kissing me on the nose? | 0:54:07 | 0:54:08 | |
-No. Put your quid in. -OK. | 0:54:08 | 0:54:11 | |
-Kiss me on the nose. -Ooh! | 0:54:11 | 0:54:13 | |
Hey, what do I get for a tenner? | 0:54:13 | 0:54:15 | |
-Oh, no! -Squeal, piggy, squeal. | 0:54:15 | 0:54:17 | |
HE SQUEALS | 0:54:17 | 0:54:19 | |
..and I think David Brent and the character Finchy | 0:54:19 | 0:54:22 | |
embody that really well, and there's just really good little set pieces | 0:54:22 | 0:54:25 | |
that actually deal with things | 0:54:25 | 0:54:28 | |
that maybe, you know, it would take someone to write a 10,000-word thesis | 0:54:28 | 0:54:32 | |
at university to deal with, | 0:54:32 | 0:54:34 | |
and they deal with it in six lines, or something. | 0:54:34 | 0:54:37 | |
Real lives were back in vogue, | 0:54:39 | 0:54:42 | |
and another hugely relatable situation - | 0:54:42 | 0:54:44 | |
the classic boy meets girl story - | 0:54:44 | 0:54:46 | |
was playing out in both Essex and South Wales. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:49 | |
WOMAN LAUGHS | 0:54:49 | 0:54:50 | |
Stop it! | 0:54:53 | 0:54:54 | |
Everyone's looking at me. | 0:54:56 | 0:54:58 | |
Another big hit, this sitcom was about the modern experience | 0:54:58 | 0:55:01 | |
of parenthood, family life, loyalty, friendship and love. | 0:55:01 | 0:55:05 | |
It was unconventional in that it didn't rely on | 0:55:05 | 0:55:07 | |
the anguish or frustration of the central characters for laughs. | 0:55:07 | 0:55:11 | |
Oh, can you believe we're actually going to meet tomorrow? | 0:55:11 | 0:55:14 | |
Only 17 hours to go now, babes. | 0:55:14 | 0:55:17 | |
For a British sitcom, it was remarkably pain free. | 0:55:17 | 0:55:20 | |
One of the things about sitcom is it can be as far away, | 0:55:20 | 0:55:23 | |
like Blackadder, as you like, from any life that you know, | 0:55:23 | 0:55:27 | |
and then incredibly close - | 0:55:27 | 0:55:28 | |
and just the kind of intimate realism of Gavin & Stacey I adore. | 0:55:28 | 0:55:32 | |
I also love the fact that Gavin & Stacey is nice. | 0:55:32 | 0:55:34 | |
That's one of the great things about sitcom - | 0:55:34 | 0:55:36 | |
it doesn't need to point towards catastrophe. | 0:55:36 | 0:55:38 | |
It can point towards resolution, unlike most drama. | 0:55:38 | 0:55:42 | |
Stacey. | 0:55:42 | 0:55:44 | |
Oh, my God! | 0:55:44 | 0:55:45 | |
Hiya. | 0:55:45 | 0:55:47 | |
-When did you get here? -I thought you weren't going to come. | 0:55:47 | 0:55:49 | |
-Of course I was going to come. -I've only been here ten minutes. | 0:55:49 | 0:55:52 | |
-I like your cardie. -Cheers. River Island. | 0:55:52 | 0:55:55 | |
Oh, so is my belt! Amazing. | 0:55:55 | 0:55:57 | |
I don't think we set out to make a show that was warm, | 0:55:57 | 0:56:02 | |
but we definitely wanted to make a show that had a heart in it. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:07 | |
What's all the noise? | 0:56:07 | 0:56:08 | |
Everything all right? | 0:56:08 | 0:56:09 | |
Oh, don't worry, Pam, your little prince is fine! | 0:56:09 | 0:56:11 | |
It was about people | 0:56:11 | 0:56:13 | |
who loved each other, mostly. | 0:56:13 | 0:56:14 | |
Even when they would have rows or not get on, | 0:56:14 | 0:56:17 | |
it was still from a place of warmth, you know? | 0:56:17 | 0:56:20 | |
Very, very unusual in British comedy to be completely positive. | 0:56:20 | 0:56:24 | |
You've got to have a character who's annoyed or upset | 0:56:24 | 0:56:27 | |
or hasn't achieved - but it didn't have any of those. | 0:56:27 | 0:56:29 | |
It was just a really sweet love story | 0:56:29 | 0:56:34 | |
peopled by very funny characters. | 0:56:34 | 0:56:37 | |
Don't promise me nothing. | 0:56:37 | 0:56:39 | |
If this is all it's meant to be, I'm still so happy I met you. | 0:56:39 | 0:56:43 | |
I think there has always been shows that have | 0:56:45 | 0:56:47 | |
reflected where we're at as a country. | 0:56:47 | 0:56:50 | |
I mean, if we sat down to try and write Gavin & Stacey today, | 0:56:50 | 0:56:53 | |
it would be a very different show - purely because of social media. | 0:56:53 | 0:56:58 | |
You know, you can't make a boy meets girl... | 0:56:58 | 0:57:03 | |
Characters who don't... | 0:57:03 | 0:57:05 | |
Who've only seen a photo of each other, | 0:57:05 | 0:57:06 | |
and don't know much about each other's life, | 0:57:06 | 0:57:09 | |
because you are in a world of Facebook and googling people | 0:57:09 | 0:57:12 | |
and Skype and FaceTime, and all of those things, | 0:57:12 | 0:57:14 | |
and Twitter feeds and stuff like that, so... | 0:57:14 | 0:57:18 | |
that, on a very linear level, will always reflect the times. | 0:57:18 | 0:57:23 | |
If you say it, I'll say it back. | 0:57:23 | 0:57:25 | |
-I love you. -I love you too. -Ooh! | 0:57:28 | 0:57:30 | |
In the last 60 years, | 0:57:31 | 0:57:32 | |
British sitcom has entertained and challenged in equal measure, | 0:57:32 | 0:57:36 | |
and done an excellent job of showing us who we are. | 0:57:36 | 0:57:40 | |
The gift of making the whole nation laugh | 0:57:40 | 0:57:42 | |
for half an hour every week is a very special moment. | 0:57:42 | 0:57:46 | |
Light, light... | 0:57:46 | 0:57:48 | |
The great sitcom characters can have as much impact on our lives | 0:57:48 | 0:57:51 | |
as real people. | 0:57:51 | 0:57:54 | |
I do think about Jim Royle. | 0:57:54 | 0:57:56 | |
I wonder if Anthony went to university. | 0:57:56 | 0:57:58 | |
I hope he did. Do you know what I mean? | 0:57:58 | 0:58:01 | |
There's something profoundly satisfying | 0:58:01 | 0:58:03 | |
about the way that sitcoms are shaped. | 0:58:03 | 0:58:05 | |
If you had to say... What I watch now most on TV, | 0:58:05 | 0:58:08 | |
we're in a golden age | 0:58:08 | 0:58:10 | |
of situation comedy, or half-hour comedy. | 0:58:10 | 0:58:12 | |
British sitcom continues | 0:58:12 | 0:58:13 | |
to point out our strengths and our faults, | 0:58:13 | 0:58:16 | |
and proves time and again | 0:58:16 | 0:58:18 | |
that the best way to take on a serious subject | 0:58:18 | 0:58:20 | |
is to make it funny. | 0:58:20 | 0:58:22 | |
If you can make someone laugh, | 0:58:22 | 0:58:24 | |
it is a pleasure that doesn't cost any money, | 0:58:24 | 0:58:26 | |
so it's a life-affirming thing | 0:58:26 | 0:58:28 | |
that you can do...that you don't need any equipment for. | 0:58:28 | 0:58:33 |