0:00:02 > 0:00:06Fatherhood - what all men are destined for.
0:00:06 > 0:00:09Protector, provider, role-model.
0:00:09 > 0:00:12But not in comedy.
0:00:13 > 0:00:15Up your pipe!
0:00:15 > 0:00:18Right...up you!
0:00:19 > 0:00:22Fathers may be the head of the family,
0:00:22 > 0:00:24a potent symbol of authority,
0:00:24 > 0:00:29but they've always been the butt of some of our biggest laughs in British sitcom.
0:00:29 > 0:00:31With very few exceptions,
0:00:31 > 0:00:35the father character in all sitcoms tends to be the kind of hapless adult.
0:00:37 > 0:00:40- Have a good day at the office. - I won't.
0:00:40 > 0:00:43Over the last five decades, some of our most iconic comedy dads
0:00:43 > 0:00:46have been left bewildered by a changing world.
0:00:46 > 0:00:48It's a boy! I've got a boy!
0:00:48 > 0:00:52It's a girl, Mr Spencer!
0:00:52 > 0:00:55He's gone back to childhood, here.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57He's a child in a world of adults.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02They have struggled with the work-life balance.
0:01:02 > 0:01:04Ahhh!
0:01:04 > 0:01:07He doesn't just hate his job or his mother-in-law,
0:01:07 > 0:01:09he ends up hating the whole of humanity, pretty much.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12Grapefruit, my arse.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15They may be of low status in the modern home
0:01:15 > 0:01:18but still they struggle to stay in charge.
0:01:18 > 0:01:20Where does he get his authority from?
0:01:20 > 0:01:22He gets it from holding the remote!
0:01:24 > 0:01:28These dads have coped with every curve ball the writers threw at them.
0:01:28 > 0:01:30There must be something wrong with me.
0:01:30 > 0:01:33- I'm living in a world I don't understand.- And in the process,
0:01:33 > 0:01:35changed the course of British comedy.
0:01:35 > 0:01:40- They remain our most enduring men about the house.- Wonderful(!)
0:01:47 > 0:01:51'A country has never been so prosperous.
0:01:51 > 0:01:54'As the Prime Minister has said, the standard of living has gone up,
0:01:54 > 0:02:00'more people have motorcars, television and a host of other things,
0:02:00 > 0:02:05'which only a few years ago, were the luxuries of the few.'
0:02:06 > 0:02:08The '60s consumer boom
0:02:08 > 0:02:11gave Britain more mod cons than ever before.
0:02:11 > 0:02:15But beyond the financial tonic, there were also big cultural changes.
0:02:15 > 0:02:20A new generation of writers were giving an authentic and unfettered voice to the working class.
0:02:22 > 0:02:26Two very different sitcoms featured family conflict
0:02:26 > 0:02:28with the father at the very heart of the chaos.
0:02:32 > 0:02:37In 1962, after penning the sublime Hancock's Half Hour,
0:02:37 > 0:02:39writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson
0:02:39 > 0:02:41turned their attention to rag and bone.
0:02:44 > 0:02:46STEPTOE AND SON THEME TUNE
0:02:46 > 0:02:49This sitcom rarely touched on the business of junk
0:02:49 > 0:02:52but concentrated solely on family wreckage
0:02:52 > 0:02:56and the extremes of love and hate between a father and son.
0:03:03 > 0:03:06Originally, when the writers were putting the programme together,
0:03:06 > 0:03:09they wanted to make a programme about rag-and-bone men
0:03:09 > 0:03:12and it was only once they hit on the idea of father and son,
0:03:12 > 0:03:14that you set up that tension
0:03:14 > 0:03:17whereby you have Harold who wants to leave,
0:03:17 > 0:03:20who has his class aspirations,
0:03:20 > 0:03:23who doesn't like the life that his father has lived,
0:03:23 > 0:03:26and actually doesn't seem to like his father as a person.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41Oh, you dirty old man!
0:03:41 > 0:03:43What are you doing?
0:03:43 > 0:03:46I'm having me bath and I'm having me dinner.
0:03:46 > 0:03:48Steptoe and Son bickered incessantly
0:03:48 > 0:03:50but it was the inescapable family bond
0:03:50 > 0:03:53that glued these two characters together.
0:03:53 > 0:03:57He needed Harold's guilt to keep him there -
0:03:57 > 0:03:59without the guilt, he would just go.
0:03:59 > 0:04:02He would rather go and live in a cardboard box than stay there.
0:04:02 > 0:04:05It probably wouldn't have worked even as a father figure,
0:04:05 > 0:04:07it had to be that close bond to work
0:04:07 > 0:04:09and to get the comedy and get all the pathos from it.
0:04:09 > 0:04:13You are beginning to annoy me, Father.
0:04:13 > 0:04:17You're casting aspersions on my ability.
0:04:17 > 0:04:19- I'm not, Harold, really. - Oh, yes you are.
0:04:19 > 0:04:23I have sympathy for Harold and I think the programme does as well.
0:04:23 > 0:04:25You can understand why he would want to leave that.
0:04:25 > 0:04:30We also have sympathy towards him because we can understand his dignity in not leaving
0:04:30 > 0:04:34because of the emotional relationship he's got towards his dad.
0:04:35 > 0:04:38Yeah, up your pipe!
0:04:39 > 0:04:43It's perfect for the sitcom because it means you can have
0:04:43 > 0:04:47really extreme ideas of conflict that these characters can say,
0:04:47 > 0:04:50really horrifically but funny things to each other
0:04:50 > 0:04:54which colleagues or friends would never put up with.
0:04:54 > 0:04:58It's a laugh, you're always the same, taking things up,
0:04:58 > 0:05:02buying all the gear, wasting your money and then you're a scrub out.
0:05:02 > 0:05:07If you don't shut up, I shall ram this shuttlecock straight up your Khyber and set fire to the feathers!
0:05:09 > 0:05:14The success of the show not only centred on Albert's failure to escape from his father
0:05:14 > 0:05:18but also his fruitless attempts to improve his lot.
0:05:18 > 0:05:23Steptoe And Son is a classic illustration of the British obsession with class.
0:05:23 > 0:05:25These two characters, the dad and the son,
0:05:25 > 0:05:28and the son is desperate to move out of his class,
0:05:28 > 0:05:30as so many people were at the time.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34- Oh, Mother, isn't it absolutely super?- Delightful.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38The younger Steptoe wants to get away from this kind of rag-and-bone world,
0:05:38 > 0:05:41he wants to get away from the working-class environment that,
0:05:41 > 0:05:44as he sees it, is suffocating him and dragging him down.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48Pater, show Mrs Kennington-Stroud a chair.
0:05:49 > 0:05:51Over there.
0:05:52 > 0:05:54That's a chair.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58Of course, the comedy lies in the fact that his father keeps
0:05:58 > 0:06:03dragging him back in and he never manages to escape this environment.
0:06:03 > 0:06:05It's such a common theme of sitcoms.
0:06:05 > 0:06:10Look, missus, if there's any fleas in here, you brought them in in that thing.
0:06:10 > 0:06:13How dare you! Ahh!
0:06:13 > 0:06:15Sitcoms delight in puncturing people's pretensions
0:06:15 > 0:06:21and they delight in showing how they are brought back down to earth, how you can't escape your background.
0:06:21 > 0:06:22SHE CONTINUES SCREAMING
0:06:22 > 0:06:24Mrs Stroud, come back!
0:06:24 > 0:06:26Bunty, please. Hang on a minute.
0:06:26 > 0:06:28How dare you!
0:06:28 > 0:06:30I must have been mad!
0:06:31 > 0:06:33But, Bunty, I wasn't walloping you!
0:06:35 > 0:06:39Like all sitcoms, the conflict never ended.
0:06:39 > 0:06:44Steptoe And Son remained locked in a timeless struggle between generations.
0:06:48 > 0:06:51There were also clashes on the political stage throughout the '60s
0:06:51 > 0:06:56as our old patricians recognised that change was going to come.
0:06:56 > 0:07:00The wind of change is blowing through this country.
0:07:00 > 0:07:06Whether we like it or not, growth, national consciousness is a political fact.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11It was this war of ideas between generations
0:07:11 > 0:07:17that was the focus of the 1960s' other iconic sitcom.
0:07:25 > 0:07:28Till Death Us Do Part began life as a one-off play
0:07:28 > 0:07:32but there were immediate doubts from its star as to the show's long-term prospects.
0:07:36 > 0:07:37My first impression was,
0:07:37 > 0:07:41you couldn't make a series out of this - a family arguing.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44I couldn't see how it could be a success
0:07:44 > 0:07:48because we had had the pattern of nice comedy shows,
0:07:48 > 0:07:54everything was nice, particularly the American ones - it was all chocolate box.
0:07:54 > 0:08:00I remember saying at the time, you can't make a series out of this - just arguments.
0:08:00 > 0:08:02But I was wrong.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05HE SNORES
0:08:11 > 0:08:14What are you bloody doing, you bloody fool?
0:08:15 > 0:08:17Go to sleep!
0:08:17 > 0:08:19I don't want to go to sleep.
0:08:19 > 0:08:25In terms of fatherhood, the interesting thing about Alf is, he's so powerless.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27He's constantly in this huge rage
0:08:27 > 0:08:32because he lacks all authority over his own household.
0:08:32 > 0:08:36His wife doesn't listen to him and she puts him down whenever she can.
0:08:36 > 0:08:38You wait till you're bloody ill! >
0:08:38 > 0:08:43I can't afford to be ill and lay in bed.
0:08:43 > 0:08:47If I'm ill, you still expect your dinners, your clean washing.
0:08:49 > 0:08:51Drunken pig!
0:08:51 > 0:08:56He is mortified by the presence of his son-in-law,
0:08:56 > 0:08:58the Tony Booth character,
0:08:58 > 0:09:01who despises him and mocks him at every turn.
0:09:01 > 0:09:05His own daughter always sides with Tony Booth, she never sides with Alf.
0:09:05 > 0:09:08Did you say "prince" or "princess"?
0:09:08 > 0:09:10It looks more like a bird than a fella.
0:09:10 > 0:09:12All right, laugh, very funny.
0:09:12 > 0:09:14Don't be so bloody facetious, the pair of you.
0:09:14 > 0:09:17Adding to this constant bickering as well as the comedy
0:09:17 > 0:09:21was a very claustrophobic aspect of family life in the '60s.
0:09:21 > 0:09:26At that time, a lot of young people, because of the economic situation,
0:09:26 > 0:09:31could not afford a home of their own, so they stayed with their in-laws
0:09:31 > 0:09:35and that led to the difficulty that happened -
0:09:35 > 0:09:39the clash between the younger generation and the older generation and the clash of ideas and ideals.
0:09:39 > 0:09:41That was an ideal setting for it.
0:09:41 > 0:09:46From the outset, Alf Garnett was offensive and confrontational
0:09:46 > 0:09:51because the character was an attempt to satirise the entrenched racism in British culture.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54What's the coon doing here?
0:09:56 > 0:09:57Eh?
0:10:00 > 0:10:03He's giving blood, the same as us.
0:10:03 > 0:10:08Alf Garnett was very typical of a lot of men at that time.
0:10:08 > 0:10:10Although funny,
0:10:10 > 0:10:12he spoke about things that were taboo.
0:10:12 > 0:10:15We need to speak about things that are taboo.
0:10:15 > 0:10:18Are they going to bung his blood into anybody?
0:10:18 > 0:10:19Yeah, why not?
0:10:19 > 0:10:21WHY NOT?!
0:10:22 > 0:10:24How do you do?
0:10:25 > 0:10:28The battle that's going on with Alf Garnett
0:10:28 > 0:10:32is this idea that the next generation have a completely different set of political views,
0:10:32 > 0:10:35a completely different understanding of the world
0:10:35 > 0:10:40and Alf Garnett is so angry, so full of rage, so confused about the world
0:10:40 > 0:10:42because everything that's coming after him
0:10:42 > 0:10:47is disagreeing with what he's done, it's undermining the way in which he thinks about the world.
0:10:47 > 0:10:51We will rise again, don't you worry about that.
0:10:51 > 0:10:54We will rise like lions and get our empire back.
0:10:54 > 0:10:59The bloody great British Empire that your bloody Labour rubbish gave away to...
0:10:59 > 0:11:01To the people it belonged to.
0:11:01 > 0:11:04To a load of bloody coons and wogs!
0:11:04 > 0:11:10Alf's generation, I felt very sorry for them because they were a lost generation.
0:11:10 > 0:11:15They were taught that we were a superior people
0:11:15 > 0:11:20and that gave them great expectations when there was nothing to give to them.
0:11:20 > 0:11:24People were laughing at Alf Garnett, not with Alf Garnett.
0:11:24 > 0:11:28God, here we go, Paki-bashing again.
0:11:28 > 0:11:30Don't start him off.
0:11:30 > 0:11:33- Me?- You know you don't like them.
0:11:33 > 0:11:37- I don't like them? - I- don't like them?- Well, you don't.
0:11:37 > 0:11:40They don't bloody like each other!
0:11:40 > 0:11:44Bringing life to a character is the actor's trade
0:11:44 > 0:11:47but playing Alf Garnett called for courage as well as craft.
0:11:47 > 0:11:51The beautiful thing about Warren's performance is that he pulled no punches.
0:11:53 > 0:11:55I admire him for that. He played it straight down the middle.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59Well, I think if you're playing a character it's difficult to hate him.
0:11:59 > 0:12:01I mean, if I had to play Adolf Hitler
0:12:01 > 0:12:05I would have to play him as though I believed what he was saying,
0:12:05 > 0:12:10and I'm Jewish, so it would be very difficult, but I would have had to do it.
0:12:10 > 0:12:16And so the same was true, I had to believe what I was saying as Alf.
0:12:16 > 0:12:21Both Till Death Us Do Part and Steptoe And Son struck a chord with the public
0:12:21 > 0:12:24in ridiculing two dysfunctional dads.
0:12:28 > 0:12:32It may often be a decade noted for cultural change and progress,
0:12:32 > 0:12:37but its two most successful sitcoms saw the dark side of family.
0:12:40 > 0:12:42But of course the highpoints of comedy will be dark,
0:12:42 > 0:12:45because comedy by its very nature, is dark.
0:12:45 > 0:12:50It's always frustrated ambitions, it's failure, it's disaster,
0:12:50 > 0:12:53it's the sort of Sword of Damocles, of catastrophe,
0:12:53 > 0:12:56that's about to descend on the protagonist's head.
0:12:56 > 0:12:58That's ALWAYS what we find funny.
0:12:59 > 0:13:07Aside from loon pants and disco, the 1970s were marked by Britain's spiral into economic chaos.
0:13:10 > 0:13:14It was also a unique period in British sitcom,
0:13:14 > 0:13:19with hugely successful shows dominating every channel.
0:13:19 > 0:13:23Within these shows was writing of real originality and insight,
0:13:23 > 0:13:27that milked fatherhood for very different belly laughs.
0:13:30 > 0:13:35But our first father from the '70s defies classification.
0:13:35 > 0:13:36Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em
0:13:36 > 0:13:41featured one family guy's endless struggle with life's simplest tasks.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55In a sense, you know, you could argue he's an incompetent father,
0:13:55 > 0:14:00you know, this is an incompetent husband, incompetent father, incompetent man,
0:14:00 > 0:14:03and you could root it in the '70s when men are kind of being challenged.
0:14:04 > 0:14:08I think it makes more sense actually to see it as going back to
0:14:08 > 0:14:11this kind of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin style.
0:14:14 > 0:14:18I think it's more about this kind of venerable comic tradition
0:14:18 > 0:14:23than it is about what's going on in 1974 or whatever.
0:14:27 > 0:14:29It's almost as if he's lost the plot.
0:14:29 > 0:14:34He's gone back to childhood here, he's a child in a world of adults.
0:14:34 > 0:14:36Could you come and sit down a minute, Frank.
0:14:36 > 0:14:39And he's married! That is what I couldn't understand.
0:14:43 > 0:14:45There's going to be...
0:14:45 > 0:14:49a little addition to our family.
0:14:49 > 0:14:54When writer Raymond Allen employed a well-worn plot device in the second series,
0:14:54 > 0:14:58Frank Spencer could now labour with a whole new set of challenges.
0:14:58 > 0:15:00How do you mean?
0:15:02 > 0:15:05We're going to hear the patter of tiny little feet.
0:15:08 > 0:15:10Oh, no, no, no, no, Betty.
0:15:11 > 0:15:13I'm not having another cat in this house.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19When you find out in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em that his wife's pregnant,
0:15:19 > 0:15:21you kind of worry for the child.
0:15:21 > 0:15:27In reality, Social Services would be there in about five minutes of the birth to take the baby away.
0:15:27 > 0:15:28That's right. Push down.
0:15:28 > 0:15:30Push down.
0:15:30 > 0:15:32Push down, Betty. Push down!
0:15:32 > 0:15:34Extraordinary.
0:15:34 > 0:15:36Because you think, "How did that happen?"
0:15:36 > 0:15:40There was absolutely no intimacy between them.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43He was consistently doing weird things, she was totally the boss
0:15:43 > 0:15:45and yet he did become a father and a lovable father.
0:15:45 > 0:15:48It's a boy! I've got a boy.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51It's a girl, Mr Spencer!
0:15:54 > 0:15:56Well, what's that then?
0:15:57 > 0:16:00That is the umbilical cord.
0:16:01 > 0:16:04Ooh, I say! It was going on and on.
0:16:05 > 0:16:10What's going on in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em is you have a character who's completely incompetent
0:16:10 > 0:16:16in terms of being a father, completely incompetent in terms of being a member of the work force,
0:16:16 > 0:16:23but who completely understands as a father and as a husband, there are roles he is required to play,
0:16:23 > 0:16:27and pretty much every episode is him trying to play those roles.
0:16:27 > 0:16:31He wants to be a good dad. He wants to provide for his wife and for his child.
0:16:39 > 0:16:40I'm a success.
0:16:42 > 0:16:45I suppose the viewer...
0:16:45 > 0:16:48had a certain level of generosity towards him,
0:16:48 > 0:16:51and a real wish that he would get it right.
0:16:51 > 0:16:53I suppose that is what's around now with parents
0:16:53 > 0:16:55who are really struggling with their children.
0:16:55 > 0:17:00But Frank Spencer probably makes people like me get grey hairs!
0:17:05 > 0:17:07Beyond Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em,
0:17:07 > 0:17:11another '70s sitcom, was very much of its time.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin featured a suburban dad
0:17:18 > 0:17:21trying to maintain some presence in the family home,
0:17:21 > 0:17:24whilst coping with the relentless pressures at work.
0:17:24 > 0:17:28The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin is an absolutely key programme
0:17:28 > 0:17:34for understanding what happened to Britain in the '70s and has continued to happen afterwards.
0:17:36 > 0:17:40People start complaining in the mid-'70s that they don't have as much time for family life,
0:17:40 > 0:17:44for leisure, they don't have as much time to spend with their wives and children.
0:17:44 > 0:17:48Thank you, no, that'll do me for the moment.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52They work longer hours, they're in danger of getting the sack. They don't have a job for life.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56Their job might disappear because it might be outsourced, it might be replaced by a computer.
0:17:56 > 0:18:00So, of course, there is an impact on family life.
0:18:00 > 0:18:05Suddenly the corporate world meant that men had to leave at 7 o'clock,
0:18:05 > 0:18:076 o'clock in the morning, came back at 8 o'clock.
0:18:07 > 0:18:12The kids were in bed or gone, so he was becoming the absent father.
0:18:14 > 0:18:17- Back at the usual time?- Of course.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21Oh, wait. There's a piece of white cotton on your coat.
0:18:21 > 0:18:24A narrow escape. London businessman saved from white cotton terror.
0:18:24 > 0:18:27- Have a good day at the office. - I won't.
0:18:27 > 0:18:31Again, it's notable, loads of episodes of Reggie Perrin begin with him leaving home
0:18:31 > 0:18:33and end with him coming home,
0:18:33 > 0:18:39and so the programme is very clearly saying "OK, the home matters, but what's taking up most of his time
0:18:39 > 0:18:40"is going to work."
0:18:40 > 0:18:45Well, actually what's taking up most of his time is getting to work and getting home.
0:18:48 > 0:18:55And you look back at it and you do kind of think, you can see that this man is falling apart at the seams,
0:18:55 > 0:18:58but it doesn't blame the domestic for that, it blames work for that.
0:18:58 > 0:19:02- Are you losing your drive? - No, CJ, I'm not losing my drive.
0:19:02 > 0:19:06Good. We're not one of those firms that thinks a chap is no good after he's 46.
0:19:06 > 0:19:08Goodbye, Reggie.
0:19:10 > 0:19:16He doesn't just hate his job or his mother-in-law, he ends up hating the whole of humanity pretty much.
0:19:17 > 0:19:22Out of all humanity, Reggie Perrin still managed to retain his special hatred,
0:19:22 > 0:19:26like so many fathers before him, for his son-in-law.
0:19:26 > 0:19:29- Why am I a bearded prick? - You really want to know?- Yes.
0:19:29 > 0:19:32Cos you have a bright red open-plan Finnish playpen,
0:19:32 > 0:19:36you put supposedly witty adverts in the Cookham and Thames Ditton Chronicle,
0:19:36 > 0:19:38you brew your own parsnip and nettle wine,
0:19:38 > 0:19:41you smoke revolting briar pipes, built a gothic stone folly in your garden,
0:19:41 > 0:19:44and you called your children Adam and Jocasta
0:19:44 > 0:19:47and made them eat garlic bread the moment they were off the breast.
0:19:48 > 0:19:50I see. Thank you.
0:19:50 > 0:19:54It is a very funny show, but it is an incredibly dark one.
0:19:54 > 0:19:58It's a man who is basically going through a nervous breakdown.
0:19:58 > 0:20:03It's David Nobb's genius that he makes all of that very funny
0:20:03 > 0:20:05and addictive and compelling viewing,
0:20:05 > 0:20:10and we never really succumb to the darkness, as in all great sitcoms,
0:20:10 > 0:20:12because that's kept at bay by the jokes.
0:20:15 > 0:20:17Argh!
0:20:17 > 0:20:21So tonight in Line-Up Review we'll be talking about television comedy.
0:20:21 > 0:20:24TV sitcom was traditionally the domain of white males,
0:20:24 > 0:20:29who, aided with some free booze, occasionally did their best
0:20:29 > 0:20:32to unravel the mysteries of comedy for the viewers,
0:20:32 > 0:20:34and the result was chaos.
0:20:34 > 0:20:36It doesn't work...
0:20:36 > 0:20:39Look, 20 years ago...
0:20:39 > 0:20:44Yes, Lucille Ball, Dick van Dyke.
0:20:44 > 0:20:48- 20 years ago comedy writers wrote jokes.- It didn't start with you, comedy, or me.
0:20:48 > 0:20:52If Dickens had been writing for TV, he'd be writing Coronation Street.
0:20:53 > 0:20:56By the way, look, we're having a spot of bother hearing what exactly
0:20:56 > 0:20:59is being said, because it's a splendidly lively discussion,
0:20:59 > 0:21:02marvellously lively but just a bit too loud so nobody can hear...
0:21:02 > 0:21:05Male dominance in comedy would continue,
0:21:05 > 0:21:09but outside of television, women were fighting for emancipation and equality.
0:21:15 > 0:21:21Like any other industry, television would slowly begin to concede to this challenge to the status quo.
0:21:25 > 0:21:30A sitcom written by a woman was a rare commodity, but there were exceptions.
0:21:30 > 0:21:37Carla Lane had already penned a hit sitcom, The Liver Birds, by the time she created Butterflies.
0:21:41 > 0:21:47Apparently a gentle sitcom about suburban family life, this show was about so much more.
0:21:53 > 0:21:57Again, a family domestic unit, but a mother, Ria,
0:21:57 > 0:22:01who is thinking about having an affair, and what is very,
0:22:01 > 0:22:04at the time, was controversial about the programme,
0:22:04 > 0:22:08was that the programme is sympathetic towards her thinking about having an affair.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16You know it all, don't you?
0:22:18 > 0:22:20'I'm in some sort of trouble here.
0:22:20 > 0:22:22'I can feel it.
0:22:22 > 0:22:24'It's not the ordinary kind.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27'The kind one cures with a box of chocolates and a theatre ticket.
0:22:27 > 0:22:29'It's something tucked away in her mind.
0:22:29 > 0:22:31'Brooding and fermenting.
0:22:31 > 0:22:36'Oh, God. I can see hope running towards the horizon with its arse on fire.'
0:22:37 > 0:22:41In Butterflies, the whole angle was towards Wendy Craig,
0:22:41 > 0:22:45and she was the one that was the butt of a lot of material, the jokes about the food,
0:22:45 > 0:22:51the father and two sons would gang up on her, albeit in a pretty light-hearted way,
0:22:51 > 0:22:56but that was one of those very few sitcoms where the mother took the brunt of the stick,
0:22:56 > 0:22:58rather than the dad.
0:22:58 > 0:23:01- Custard, Adam?- Thanks.
0:23:04 > 0:23:08What I think is really interesting about Butterflies is the portrayal of Ben, the father.
0:23:11 > 0:23:12Very good.
0:23:12 > 0:23:18It could have been very easy for the programme to portray him as a husband who is very uncaring
0:23:18 > 0:23:22or is brutal in some kind of way, and actually you have a portrayal that is very sympathetic.
0:23:22 > 0:23:26In fact, I would go so far as to say this is absolutely...
0:23:26 > 0:23:28nice.
0:23:28 > 0:23:32It's quite a traditional dad, going out - the dentist -
0:23:32 > 0:23:37coming back, you know, sitting down, awful meal in front of him,
0:23:37 > 0:23:41but I felt there was something quite generous in the way he would be still quite OK
0:23:41 > 0:23:46about the meal in front of him, tried to keep the boys under control.
0:23:46 > 0:23:48We do not communicate.
0:23:48 > 0:23:52There's a great, awesome chasm between us. I work, he doesn't.
0:23:52 > 0:23:58- I pay tax, he doesn't. I believe in respectability and self-sufficiency, he doesn't.- I have fun, he doesn't.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02When your children hit their teenage years, you know,
0:24:02 > 0:24:06there's a bit of jealousy that creeps in there, so the generosity that would flow
0:24:06 > 0:24:11between fathers and their children, particularly fathers and their sons, perhaps isn't there.
0:24:12 > 0:24:16- You're not jealous of your sons, are you?- Of course I'm jealous!
0:24:16 > 0:24:19Not the green-eyed, evil jealous, just the gentle,
0:24:19 > 0:24:23"wish I'd been born later, why did I miss it all?" jealous.
0:24:23 > 0:24:28It was an odd thing because you kind of felt you should have much more sympathy for him as the dad,
0:24:28 > 0:24:31but again, there was a touch of the doltish about him
0:24:31 > 0:24:34not recognising there was something going on in his wife's life -
0:24:34 > 0:24:40that she wanted something more, and you know, he couldn't fulfil it and he wasn't noticing it.
0:24:40 > 0:24:48I want to pretend that we're meeting...in secret.
0:24:49 > 0:24:51All right.
0:24:51 > 0:24:55You go up to bed, and I'll go out into the garden and swarm up the drain pipe.
0:24:57 > 0:25:03In the latter series, there's sequences where Ben starts to realise that Ria might be thinking about
0:25:03 > 0:25:08leaving him and having an affair, and those scenes are portrayed very sympathetically towards him.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16'It might be nothing.
0:25:16 > 0:25:18'It might be a stage she's going through.
0:25:20 > 0:25:22'Children are always going through stages.
0:25:24 > 0:25:26'It might be something.'
0:25:27 > 0:25:29He's very upset. He's very scared.
0:25:29 > 0:25:31He's worried about that.
0:25:31 > 0:25:34And you can see that they kind of love each other,
0:25:34 > 0:25:39but at the same time, marriage isn't working for them, in some way.
0:25:39 > 0:25:44And so, yeah, we get to see him as a victim of the institution of marriage as much as you see her.
0:25:44 > 0:25:45Ben!
0:25:45 > 0:25:47Where are you?
0:25:49 > 0:25:51I'm on my way home.
0:25:56 > 0:25:59Good morning, Mrs Thatcher!
0:26:00 > 0:26:02We all know what shaped the '80s.
0:26:02 > 0:26:06Our first woman prime minister may have been a victory for equality,
0:26:06 > 0:26:09but on gaining the keys to Number 10,
0:26:09 > 0:26:10she gave thanks to one person.
0:26:10 > 0:26:16Well, of course, I just owe almost everything to my own father, I really do. He brought me up
0:26:16 > 0:26:21to believe all the things that I do believe, and they're just the values on which I fought the election.
0:26:23 > 0:26:27Margaret Thatcher's landslide victory signalled radical social change
0:26:27 > 0:26:34that some welcomed, but others took to the streets, resulting in huge civil unrest across Britain.
0:26:34 > 0:26:36# I ran so far away... #
0:26:36 > 0:26:42It was this social change that would come to define so much of modern Britain.
0:26:42 > 0:26:44# I ran so far away... #
0:26:44 > 0:26:48Three '80s sitcoms addressed the issue of fatherhood
0:26:48 > 0:26:52in their own unique and timely way and could be seen as a response to this new political age.
0:26:57 > 0:26:59# Stick a pony in me pocket... #
0:26:59 > 0:27:02In what was to become Britain's most successful sitcom,
0:27:02 > 0:27:07fatherhood was very much to the fore in this irresistible comedy
0:27:07 > 0:27:10about two struggling brothers in south London.
0:27:10 > 0:27:12# I'm your man... #
0:27:12 > 0:27:14I would be very proud to have written
0:27:14 > 0:27:20Only Fools and Horses, which is about as domestic and family-oriented
0:27:20 > 0:27:22as you can get, but it's brilliant.
0:27:23 > 0:27:28# Why do only fools and horses work...? #
0:27:28 > 0:27:31Del Boy's a really interesting character, because on the one hand
0:27:31 > 0:27:37he is your classic sitcom figure of the working-class protagonist with delusions of grandeur.
0:27:37 > 0:27:43I always thought if we could make a success of it, that eventually we would go legit.
0:27:43 > 0:27:50You know, we would register the name "Trotters Independent Traders" as a proper, McCoy company.
0:27:50 > 0:27:53At the same time, Del is a pure Thatcherite.
0:27:53 > 0:27:56He's a London entrepreneur,
0:27:56 > 0:28:02a small businessman who doesn't mind cutting a few corners...
0:28:02 > 0:28:06My dream starts the way every success starts, with a great big rip-off.
0:28:06 > 0:28:12He lives in a council flat, he lives in effectively a broken home, broken family,
0:28:12 > 0:28:14he's having to bring up Rodney.
0:28:14 > 0:28:19Despite Rodney being 57, Del is having to bring him up.
0:28:19 > 0:28:23Rodney, I'm going to whip down the shops and get another packet of Smash and some brew.
0:28:23 > 0:28:27In the absence of their dad and their mother, sadly departed,
0:28:27 > 0:28:29Del Boy became a father to Rodney,
0:28:29 > 0:28:31guiding his younger, more naive brother
0:28:31 > 0:28:33through the harsh lessons in life.
0:28:33 > 0:28:36So, you want to get a nice tan for the girl then, do you?
0:28:38 > 0:28:41I'll give you a nice tan, all right!
0:28:41 > 0:28:46But he never lost sight of the joys of sibling rivalry.
0:28:46 > 0:28:50Come on, Rodney, Oi, come on, bring your cheese.
0:28:50 > 0:28:53I really think Rodney should go to hospital with his face.
0:28:53 > 0:28:56Yeah, I know, I've been telling him that for years.
0:29:01 > 0:29:03To see a sibling...
0:29:03 > 0:29:10being as cruel as he was to Rodney, it doesn't have the same take as a dad, who perhaps has
0:29:10 > 0:29:15that sort of sarcasm and the humour that comes into that relationship.
0:29:15 > 0:29:16It's a slightly...
0:29:16 > 0:29:20I find it quite uneasy to take in terms of them being siblings,
0:29:20 > 0:29:23but I think he was trying to replicate being the dad.
0:29:23 > 0:29:25ROMANTIC MUSIC PLAYS
0:29:27 > 0:29:29Ooh, in't 'alf dark in here, innit?
0:29:30 > 0:29:32Oh, put him down, Janice, put him down.
0:29:32 > 0:29:35You don't know where he's been.
0:29:35 > 0:29:38Well now, what we got going on here? I'll have a drop of that.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41Thanks. 'Ere, look, we don't want all this rubbish on, do we, eh?
0:29:41 > 0:29:43That's better.
0:29:43 > 0:29:47Siblings who have to take on adult relationships have a very hard time,
0:29:47 > 0:29:50because, really, they don't have the authority to do this.
0:29:50 > 0:29:53The younger sibling will often object and, really, will be very
0:29:53 > 0:29:56aware of the fact that "We're siblings, you're not my dad"!
0:29:56 > 0:29:58- You're in, are you, Del?- Hm?
0:29:58 > 0:30:00Yes, yes, I'm in, Rodders.
0:30:00 > 0:30:03Really, dads are there, they have the authority,
0:30:03 > 0:30:06they have the gravitas, and children expect them to be the way they are.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09We don't expect it from our siblings!
0:30:09 > 0:30:11- Yeah, by the way, 'scuse me a minute, Janice.- Sorry, Janice.
0:30:11 > 0:30:15Yeah. Your bondage ropes, they're in the garage, all right?
0:30:15 > 0:30:19And Grandad has washed your whip, and he's put it in the airing cupboard.
0:30:19 > 0:30:21I don't think it's shrunk.
0:30:21 > 0:30:23I'll leave you two lovebirds alone,
0:30:23 > 0:30:26- and I shall just say, "Buenos Aires".- Del...
0:30:27 > 0:30:31Only Fools and Horses was a huge hit.
0:30:31 > 0:30:36By the seventh series, the show deployed some trusted plot devices.
0:30:36 > 0:30:38Marriage was the first development,
0:30:38 > 0:30:41and from John Sullivan's point of view, I'd imagine you think,
0:30:41 > 0:30:43"Let's put him in that situation"
0:30:43 > 0:30:46and then, ultimately, fatherhood and how he reacts with that.
0:30:46 > 0:30:50I don't think Only Fools is alone in that. If we look back through sitcoms,
0:30:50 > 0:30:55we'll see fatherhood as a bit of a kind of plot development, a device to give
0:30:55 > 0:30:59a sitcom legs, to give it a new life and take it in a different direction.
0:30:59 > 0:31:01Oh, no!
0:31:01 > 0:31:03There's another one.
0:31:03 > 0:31:05Push hard, there's a good girl.
0:31:05 > 0:31:08- Del, can I hold your hand?- Of course you can, sweetheart, go on.
0:31:08 > 0:31:09SHE SCREAMS
0:31:09 > 0:31:12Steady on, Raquel. Steady on.
0:31:12 > 0:31:15YELLING AND SCREAMING CONTINUES
0:31:22 > 0:31:24DEL SCREAMS
0:31:30 > 0:31:33With the phenomenal success of this mainstream hit,
0:31:33 > 0:31:36it's easy to overlook how the character of Del Boy
0:31:36 > 0:31:42embraced fatherhood in a way that previous sitcom dads may have balked at.
0:31:42 > 0:31:45Giving birth ain't all it's cracked up to be, is it?
0:31:45 > 0:31:49I think the really significant bit in Only Fools and Horses is when Damian is born.
0:31:49 > 0:31:51It's a baby, Racquel.
0:31:51 > 0:31:54You have at the end of the episode Del Boy holding Damian
0:31:54 > 0:31:59and looking out of the hospital window up at the stars, and having a very emotional conversation
0:31:59 > 0:32:02and the programme ends on that - it doesn't have a punchline,
0:32:02 > 0:32:10it doesn't end with a joke, it ends with a very emotional statement about being a parent and being a father.
0:32:10 > 0:32:12And you'll have all the things
0:32:12 > 0:32:13your daddy couldn't afford.
0:32:15 > 0:32:19Because I've been a bit of a dreamer, you know.
0:32:19 > 0:32:20Yeah, I have.
0:32:20 > 0:32:25I wanted to do things and be someone,
0:32:25 > 0:32:28but I never had what it took.
0:32:28 > 0:32:30But you, you're different.
0:32:30 > 0:32:32You're going to live my dreams for me,
0:32:32 > 0:32:34and you're going to do all the things
0:32:34 > 0:32:36that I want you to do
0:32:36 > 0:32:37and you are going to come back
0:32:37 > 0:32:38and tell me about them.
0:32:38 > 0:32:42I think it might say something about the ways in which the representation
0:32:42 > 0:32:49of men had changed on television, that suddenly you had male characters who were allowed to be emotional,
0:32:49 > 0:32:52that it wasn't about being stiff upper-lip,
0:32:52 > 0:32:55it wasn't about just demonstrating your authority,
0:32:55 > 0:32:59it was also about characters who could express the fact that things
0:32:59 > 0:33:05bothered them, that things upset them, and that was not seen as a lack of masculinity at all.
0:33:09 > 0:33:11Further north in Liverpool,
0:33:11 > 0:33:15Bread was the follow-up hit from Carla Lane after Butterflies.
0:33:15 > 0:33:17The show celebrated the ups and downs
0:33:17 > 0:33:19of the extended Boswell family.
0:33:19 > 0:33:25Fighting every system in the absence of their feckless, philandering father.
0:33:25 > 0:33:31- We all work in our different ways, we do what we can for the family. - How does he work?
0:33:31 > 0:33:35You can certainly see Bread as a political statement,
0:33:35 > 0:33:38you can see it as the Liverpudlian family embattled from without.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41There's no law against having style, sweetheart.
0:33:41 > 0:33:47We may be lying in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars.
0:33:47 > 0:33:50It actually plays to the kind of Liverpool mythology
0:33:50 > 0:33:53and probably is partly responsible for creating
0:33:53 > 0:33:59that kind of sense of Liverpool as a city apart, has its own ever so salty and witty culture
0:33:59 > 0:34:03that the rest of us can never possibly aspire to and so on and so forth.
0:34:03 > 0:34:07- You'll have to talk to him, Joey, he's overdoing it. - What do you mean, I'm overdoing it?
0:34:07 > 0:34:10I mean that whatever you're doing over there
0:34:10 > 0:34:13doesn't leave you with enough strength to do anything over here!
0:34:13 > 0:34:17You have a female matriarch
0:34:17 > 0:34:22demonstrating her power, running that family, staying in charge of it,
0:34:22 > 0:34:26so even though she's got that anger towards her absent husband
0:34:26 > 0:34:29she's worked out a way in which to survive.
0:34:29 > 0:34:31So she's a very strong woman in that way.
0:34:31 > 0:34:35Oh, by the way, I inquired about an allowance for Grandad.
0:34:35 > 0:34:38What for? He's getting three allowances already.
0:34:38 > 0:34:41Incontinence.
0:34:41 > 0:34:46- But...- But he's not incontinent. - That's what I was going to say.
0:34:46 > 0:34:49But he might be, one day.
0:34:49 > 0:34:53I mean, there's a way in which Joey, the oldest son, ends up playing that
0:34:53 > 0:34:57father figure, but it's a slightly different representation,
0:34:57 > 0:35:01because there isn't the conflict between the father figure and the mother figure
0:35:01 > 0:35:04that we would expect in other programmes, at least partly
0:35:04 > 0:35:07because they're not husband and wife, they're mother and son.
0:35:12 > 0:35:16The number of jobless goes up to 3,200,000,
0:35:16 > 0:35:19the largest July figure ever.
0:35:21 > 0:35:28Unemployment in the '80s was a lasting legacy and a direct consequence of government policy.
0:35:31 > 0:35:34The social cost was millions dependent on state benefit
0:35:34 > 0:35:39and the creation of a new class in British society, the underclass.
0:35:39 > 0:35:45Step forward the socially excluded clown prince of this underclass,
0:35:45 > 0:35:46Rab C Nesbitt.
0:35:56 > 0:36:01Rab C Nesbitt brought guttural Glaswegian patter to British sitcom for the first time.
0:36:01 > 0:36:07But writer Ian Pattison was inspired by two famous sitcom dads from the past.
0:36:09 > 0:36:11That's me back, Mary, darling!
0:36:11 > 0:36:14I can remember in 1962 seeing...
0:36:14 > 0:36:15Albert Steptoe,
0:36:15 > 0:36:20and that was a big change from any TV dad that I'd ever seen portrayed.
0:36:20 > 0:36:24Most of them, to people like me from a working-class background,
0:36:24 > 0:36:32aliens, all these nice dads who would come home and mix a cocktail and ask the kids how their day had gone.
0:36:32 > 0:36:35No, didn't really work that way where people like me came from.
0:36:35 > 0:36:40So when Albert came along and then Alf Garnett, you thought, OK, these are not pretty people,
0:36:40 > 0:36:48but they're recognisable, and Rab was a continuation of that kind of portrayal.
0:36:48 > 0:36:53I am glad I have found you out, wi' your two-timing.
0:36:53 > 0:36:55Yeah.
0:36:55 > 0:36:58I'm glad I've found you, because I may be scum,
0:36:58 > 0:37:01but us scum, us scum have a code,
0:37:01 > 0:37:05and that code goes something like this -
0:37:05 > 0:37:09get it right...up ye!
0:37:11 > 0:37:16Rab is again a grotesque character that you shouldn't feel any real great sympathy for,
0:37:16 > 0:37:20but you do, you kind of feel a bit of sympathy for the fact that he is kind of struggling on
0:37:20 > 0:37:23and all this kind of mad, homespun philosophy.
0:37:23 > 0:37:29At the core of it, you kind of feel there is a decent man, although he's not particularly good at showing it.
0:37:29 > 0:37:31Dear God,
0:37:31 > 0:37:33it's a family crisis, here.
0:37:33 > 0:37:37A son of mine calmly walks in here and announces he's gifted.
0:37:37 > 0:37:40- What the hell right have you got to be gifted?- Sorry, Da.
0:37:40 > 0:37:44If you wanted to be something different, could you no' have been something less expensive,
0:37:44 > 0:37:46like gay or something?
0:37:46 > 0:37:50Rab's attitude to children was that they never cramped his style in anyway.
0:37:50 > 0:37:57They were just there, and they didn't impinge on his lifestyle - if he wanted to go out, he would go out.
0:37:57 > 0:38:04And I...don't really think he was a formative influence on them.
0:38:07 > 0:38:10- What was that for?- Well, I've got to hit something, haven't I?
0:38:10 > 0:38:13Aye. And you're bloody well smart noo wi' me, you big swine.
0:38:13 > 0:38:16But just wait till you get your heart disease.
0:38:16 > 0:38:18Then I'm going to bloody well kill ye!
0:38:22 > 0:38:25Y'see that?
0:38:25 > 0:38:26That's mah boy! That's mah boy!
0:38:32 > 0:38:37Unemployed, unwashed and unwanted, Rab was a free spirit.
0:38:37 > 0:38:41But this waster of a father was gifted with self-awareness.
0:38:41 > 0:38:45Sometimes he confirmed your impressions, and other times
0:38:45 > 0:38:49he confounded them, and the way that he would confound them was by being self-aware,
0:38:49 > 0:38:54by knowing more about his situation than you thought you knew about it, looking in.
0:38:54 > 0:38:57And so that was a very important element.
0:38:57 > 0:39:02He wouldn't be the character, he wouldn't have lasted, if he had just been a two-dimensional fellow
0:39:02 > 0:39:04who had no inner life.
0:39:08 > 0:39:10Some amount o' wanky old pish.
0:39:12 > 0:39:18See, your average punter, he doesnae have a Scooby-Doo whether it's any good or not.
0:39:18 > 0:39:23They're all too feart to say anything detrimental, for fear of making an arse of themselves.
0:39:23 > 0:39:26Whereas I look like an arse anyway, y'know?
0:39:26 > 0:39:28So I've got a kind of licence to be fearless.
0:39:28 > 0:39:32I think Rab and other sitcoms ask some sort of pretty serious questions
0:39:32 > 0:39:36about the state of the nation, the state of fatherhood, the state of a lot of things.
0:39:36 > 0:39:40There's nothing wrong with that. it's important that sometimes they can do more
0:39:40 > 0:39:44than just kind of wash over you and just be kind of wallpaper.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49On the other side of the world, a domestic comedy was taking America by storm.
0:39:49 > 0:39:56The Simpsons would soon become a global phenomenon and prove that great comedy recognises no borders.
0:39:56 > 0:40:00Featuring the world's most dysfunctional family,
0:40:00 > 0:40:02the son was the initial focus,
0:40:02 > 0:40:07but audiences would make up their own mind about who the real star of the show was.
0:40:07 > 0:40:09When it started out, because it was a cartoon
0:40:09 > 0:40:13people thought it's for kids, and people thought because it's for kids
0:40:13 > 0:40:16the strongest character in it will be the kid, it will be Bart Simpson.
0:40:16 > 0:40:22But I think quite quickly, inevitably the attention was drawn more towards Homer Simpson
0:40:22 > 0:40:28as the kind of everyman figure that certainly every father, every adult man, related to.
0:40:28 > 0:40:33One thing about The Simpsons is, maybe with the exception of Roseanne,
0:40:33 > 0:40:36it was the only show to show what family life really was like,
0:40:36 > 0:40:39you know, to show those mixed feelings that parents have.
0:40:39 > 0:40:41You little...
0:40:41 > 0:40:45- Wait a minute, does this mean you like my present?- Uh-huh.
0:40:45 > 0:40:51- Ohhh! Just promise me you won't pay any more practical jokes.- I promise.
0:40:51 > 0:40:56I think all parents suffer from that having a thought in their head about how they could have done something
0:40:56 > 0:40:58that wouldn't be totally PC,
0:40:58 > 0:41:00and Homer Simpson really sums that up -
0:41:00 > 0:41:04you know, he sort of grabs his children and shakes them,
0:41:04 > 0:41:07and it isn't necessarily how we'd want parents to be.
0:41:07 > 0:41:12But I doubt that most parents haven't thought for a second,
0:41:12 > 0:41:13"I could have done that".
0:41:13 > 0:41:15Dealing?! How could you?
0:41:15 > 0:41:18Haven't you learned anything from that guy who gives those sermons
0:41:18 > 0:41:20at church, Captain Whatshisname?
0:41:20 > 0:41:23We live in a society of laws.
0:41:23 > 0:41:27Why do you think I took in all those Police Academy movies? For fun?
0:41:27 > 0:41:30He's almost completely unconsciously funny.
0:41:30 > 0:41:34I don't think he ever says anything that he means to be funny. You know?
0:41:34 > 0:41:37And that's really attractive to me.
0:41:37 > 0:41:39You know? I love that.
0:41:40 > 0:41:45# How many roads must a man walk down
0:41:45 > 0:41:48# Before you can call him a man...? #
0:41:48 > 0:41:51- Seven. - No, Dad, it's a rhetorical question.
0:41:51 > 0:41:54Rhetorical, eh? Eight.
0:41:54 > 0:41:58- Dad, do you even know what "rhetorical" means? - Do I know what "rhetorical" means?
0:41:58 > 0:42:02But the appeal of Homer Simpson also lay in the writers' desire
0:42:02 > 0:42:06to colour their character with some tenderness.
0:42:06 > 0:42:11It's noticeable again how emotional Homer Simpson can be
0:42:11 > 0:42:14and how the programme wants us to engage with his emotions
0:42:14 > 0:42:15now and again.
0:42:15 > 0:42:18It's so quiet here without the kids.
0:42:18 > 0:42:22What I wouldn't give to hear Lisa play another one of her jazzy tunes.
0:42:22 > 0:42:25Saxomophone...
0:42:25 > 0:42:28Saxomophone... Ohhh...
0:42:28 > 0:42:32For me, that's the really new and interesting thing that The Simpsons does,
0:42:32 > 0:42:36is that emotionality, that we're used to cartoons not being emotional.
0:42:36 > 0:42:40At least this time I'm awake for your goodbye.
0:42:40 > 0:42:43Oh, Homer, remember,
0:42:43 > 0:42:48whatever happens, you have a mother and she's truly proud of you.
0:42:49 > 0:42:52The series where Homer meets his mother, who turns out to
0:42:52 > 0:42:56have been a '60s revolutionary, is heartbreaking.
0:42:56 > 0:42:58Don't forget me.
0:42:58 > 0:43:02Don't worry, Homer, you'll always be a part of me.
0:43:02 > 0:43:03D'oh!
0:43:03 > 0:43:09I can barely talk about it without crying, I have to warn you, but he says... Oh, God!
0:43:09 > 0:43:15..he says goodbye to his mother and he sits on the back of his car, I think, looking at
0:43:15 > 0:43:21the road she's just travelled down, and it cuts back and it's dark and he's still sitting there.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24You know what I mean? That is unbelievable. You know?
0:43:39 > 0:43:45Now in its 20th year, The Simpsons remain ahead of the comedy curve
0:43:45 > 0:43:51and a huge influence that inspired one of the most surreal and offbeat sitcoms of the '90s,
0:43:51 > 0:43:54boasting not one but three fathers.
0:43:58 > 0:44:02I think we even might have said it aloud, that we were trying to do
0:44:02 > 0:44:04with live action, what The Simpsons was able to do.
0:44:08 > 0:44:14Watching The Simpsons, we thought, "Well, this is what a visual thing should be like,"
0:44:14 > 0:44:17more about what happens than what's said.
0:44:18 > 0:44:20I was just playing with them, Ted!
0:44:25 > 0:44:28Playing with them?! You were jumping up and down with them,
0:44:28 > 0:44:32running around with them and getting completely overexcited.
0:44:33 > 0:44:35That's why you got sick on me.
0:44:37 > 0:44:43The reason, I think, that Ted has lasted as long as it has is it's a mirror of a family. You know?
0:44:43 > 0:44:46And when kids look at it, kids can see themselves in Dougal,
0:44:46 > 0:44:53and they can see their dad in Ted, and they can see their grandfather in Jack, you know?
0:44:53 > 0:44:56And that was something we discovered afterwards, and we realised that
0:44:56 > 0:45:01accidentally we'd... created a family unit.
0:45:01 > 0:45:03And be sure to keep warm, won't you?
0:45:03 > 0:45:05Ted! Not in front of Mr Fox!
0:45:05 > 0:45:07Hm? And stay on the left side of the road.
0:45:07 > 0:45:09Duh! I know!
0:45:09 > 0:45:15Like, for instance, when Ted says goodbye to Dougal when Dougal becomes a milkman,
0:45:15 > 0:45:20there's a little kind of paternal tear as he watches Dougal drive away, and stuff like that.
0:45:20 > 0:45:26So I think we began to recognise that he was a dad of some sort.
0:45:32 > 0:45:37Away from the pantomime of Father Ted, our political leaders were delivering sermons
0:45:37 > 0:45:41about how Britain could wave goodbye to our class system.
0:45:41 > 0:45:46The classless society is to give people the opportunity to move from one job to another,
0:45:46 > 0:45:48to have a ladder of opportunity.
0:45:48 > 0:45:52In 1997, as one middle-class man replaced another in Downing Street,
0:45:52 > 0:45:58there was a great sense of optimism - yes, this man used to fill us with optimism -
0:45:58 > 0:46:01about a new direction for Britain.
0:46:01 > 0:46:03We have secured a mandate
0:46:03 > 0:46:07to bring this nation together...
0:46:07 > 0:46:09CROWDS CHEER
0:46:09 > 0:46:15There was that assumption, certainly throughout the 1990s and once the Labour government came in,
0:46:15 > 0:46:20Tony Blair came in, this assumption that we're all middle class now, it's all been levelled.
0:46:20 > 0:46:24The concerns we had had for decades about the underclass or the working class,
0:46:24 > 0:46:27actually that's all gone and we're all middle class.
0:46:29 > 0:46:33But up in Manchester, one sitcom didn't get that Downing Street memo
0:46:33 > 0:46:36and remained working class to the core.
0:46:41 > 0:46:46# I would like to leave this city
0:46:46 > 0:46:49# This old town don't smell too good... #
0:46:49 > 0:46:5198 quid?
0:46:51 > 0:46:53"It's good to talk" my arse.
0:46:55 > 0:46:58Lots of people did reject The Royle Family,
0:46:58 > 0:47:02saw it as just a throwback to the 1960s, an unrealistic,
0:47:02 > 0:47:05stereotypical representation of working-class people,
0:47:05 > 0:47:08and of course, Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash, who wrote it, said,
0:47:08 > 0:47:12"No, we're just writing about our families. We know lots of people who are like this."
0:47:12 > 0:47:16- Antony, which room are you in, lad, this room or that room?- This room.
0:47:16 > 0:47:19Well, what's the light on in that room for?
0:47:19 > 0:47:22Anchored at the very centre of the show and to his chair,
0:47:22 > 0:47:27sat Jim Royle, a father not blessed with a gentle touch.
0:47:27 > 0:47:30Whereas a father in a sort of Mancunian family like that in the past
0:47:30 > 0:47:34might have been very much the sort of strong patriarch,
0:47:34 > 0:47:37the Jim Royle figure just doesn't do much.
0:47:37 > 0:47:41He's quite a passive figure, you know, reacting to things
0:47:41 > 0:47:44rather than actually actively controlling the situation.
0:47:44 > 0:47:46- You all right, Jim?- Aye, lad.
0:47:46 > 0:47:49I can't smile wide enough, me.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53You see a character who seems to have lost his sense of himself
0:47:53 > 0:47:58outside of the family home, you know, so you have no sense of him working,
0:47:58 > 0:48:01earning a wage, making his way in society, you know,
0:48:01 > 0:48:04perhaps going through the stages that most people imagine they will do.
0:48:04 > 0:48:06So where does he get his authority from?
0:48:06 > 0:48:08He gets it from holding the remote!
0:48:08 > 0:48:11And actually, nobody challenges him about that.
0:48:11 > 0:48:14Oh! Look, it's him again. He's everywhere, him.
0:48:14 > 0:48:17He's like shit in a field.
0:48:17 > 0:48:20Leave it on, Dad!
0:48:22 > 0:48:24She's had a facelift. They all have!
0:48:24 > 0:48:27Shut it, Dad, I'm listening!
0:48:27 > 0:48:29Oh, here's the gobshite now.
0:48:29 > 0:48:31Look at him. Full of himself.
0:48:31 > 0:48:34- He's a millionaire, him.- Aye, and he's still got ginger bollocks.
0:48:34 > 0:48:37Oh, that reminds me, I've got some tangerines in the kitchen.
0:48:37 > 0:48:40Anybody want a tangerine?
0:48:40 > 0:48:44I also have a sense of the delicate balance that's being struck between
0:48:44 > 0:48:50the family, between the parents particularly, where you have a wife who really doesn't want to confront
0:48:50 > 0:48:54her husband, doesn't want to confront him and his lack of being a father
0:48:54 > 0:48:59because it might make him crumble, it might expose things that nobody talks about.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02Jim! Get upstairs!
0:49:02 > 0:49:05- Our Denise's waters have broken! - What's broken?
0:49:05 > 0:49:08Jim Royle may have been gruff and insensitive on the outside,
0:49:08 > 0:49:12but when called upon, he was always there for his family.
0:49:12 > 0:49:14..already in there. Come on! Now!
0:49:14 > 0:49:19That scene where Caroline Aherne's waters break, that's a highly emotional scene
0:49:19 > 0:49:22and a point where her dad is allowed to be emotional.
0:49:23 > 0:49:25Let's play your tape, eh?
0:49:30 > 0:49:34That does seem a similarity to Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses.
0:49:34 > 0:49:37We're getting a series of dads who occupy that authoritative role,
0:49:37 > 0:49:42who use humour to mock other people and to maintain their position
0:49:42 > 0:49:48and yet at moments of extreme can be emotional and nobody minds about that.
0:49:49 > 0:49:52- Denise...- Yeah?
0:49:52 > 0:49:57Are you definitely sure it wasn't just a great big piss, love?
0:49:57 > 0:49:59No, I know it wasn't.
0:49:59 > 0:50:02And again, you go back to sitcoms of the 1950s and '60s,
0:50:02 > 0:50:07and it's very hard to find that kind of representation, that emotionality.
0:50:09 > 0:50:12We welcomed in the new millennium with style,
0:50:12 > 0:50:16and the rest of the decade would be full of fireworks, too.
0:50:16 > 0:50:19We had a credit boom and spectacular bust.
0:50:21 > 0:50:27We continued to be deluged by tedious celebrity coverage whilst our country went to war.
0:50:27 > 0:50:33Throughout, our biggest hit sitcoms were a study in the everyday grind of the office
0:50:33 > 0:50:38and a gentle comedy about a long-distance love affair, with family values much to the fore.
0:50:42 > 0:50:46But in 2000, a hidden comedy gem appeared featuring a devoted father
0:50:46 > 0:50:48whose spirit is rarely dampened
0:50:48 > 0:50:51by his estrangement from his wife and children.
0:50:55 > 0:50:56Good morning, good morning!
0:50:56 > 0:50:59Bright and early.
0:50:59 > 0:51:01Another day, another dollar.
0:51:01 > 0:51:04My first pick-up, please.
0:51:04 > 0:51:05STATIC HISSES ON RADIO
0:51:05 > 0:51:10For my money, Marion and Geoff is the single best piece of television
0:51:10 > 0:51:13of its time. I think it's better than The Office.
0:51:13 > 0:51:16I think if they did Marion and Geoff onstage at the National Theatre,
0:51:16 > 0:51:19it'd win all kinds of awards and people would say it was brilliant.
0:51:19 > 0:51:24Because it was on BBC2 and not that many people watched it, it's kind of forgotten.
0:51:24 > 0:51:27I don't feel like I've lost a wife,
0:51:27 > 0:51:29I feel like I've gained a friend.
0:51:29 > 0:51:33I would never have met Geoff if Marion hadn't left me. Not a chance.
0:51:33 > 0:51:38Marion and Geoff was centred exclusively on the luckless Keith Barret,
0:51:38 > 0:51:43who appeared to be blind to the loss of his wife and his children to another man.
0:51:43 > 0:51:45That's the boys' room just there.
0:51:48 > 0:51:50They've changed the curtains.
0:51:52 > 0:51:56Sleep tight, little angels.
0:51:56 > 0:52:02It's the first comedy in which you believe that the character could actually really exist.
0:52:02 > 0:52:05He might as well be real, he's so well observed,
0:52:05 > 0:52:09he's so rounded, and that, I think, makes it a REAL breakthrough.
0:52:09 > 0:52:11He thinks he's defined my his job.
0:52:11 > 0:52:17In the programme, we only ever see him sitting in a car driving places, and he talks about his job.
0:52:17 > 0:52:21But actually, it's quite clear he's defined entirely by his parental role.
0:52:21 > 0:52:29His wife has left him and married somebody else, and so now he only sees his two children rarely.
0:52:29 > 0:52:34To be fair to Marion, when I was up there two weekends ago, she said the kids had missed me.
0:52:34 > 0:52:39I think in her own way, what she was saying was, "It would be nice if you were there with us".
0:52:39 > 0:52:43Now, she can't say that, of course not. I'm not a fool.
0:52:43 > 0:52:45She can't say that in front of Geoff.
0:52:45 > 0:52:47So I suggested it.
0:52:47 > 0:52:50Erm, and fair play to Geoff - again, you've got to say
0:52:50 > 0:52:53fair play to Geoff - because he didn't veto it outright,
0:52:53 > 0:52:55he didn't veto the suggestion.
0:52:55 > 0:52:57In fact he said, you know,
0:52:57 > 0:52:59it'd be a bit cosy.
0:52:59 > 0:53:04In some ways, it's a very different representation. He's kind of quite childish towards his children.
0:53:04 > 0:53:08He doesn't talk about them very often as an authority figure.
0:53:08 > 0:53:13But also it's quite a new representation precisely, because it's a couple who have split up,
0:53:13 > 0:53:17so it's about a father and children without the mother there,
0:53:17 > 0:53:20which doesn't happen in sitcom that often.
0:53:21 > 0:53:24Never had children, though, you see, Geoff. He has now, obviously.
0:53:24 > 0:53:26But, er,
0:53:26 > 0:53:32never had children. I always felt, "Well, there's something, I do have the edge on you there
0:53:32 > 0:53:34"with my two little smashers."
0:53:36 > 0:53:38The status quo is never restored.
0:53:38 > 0:53:42He carries on losing, and things actually get worse for him, and it gets darker and darker.
0:53:42 > 0:53:46And there's a very interesting question about at what point
0:53:46 > 0:53:48does a sitcom or a comedy cease to be a comedy,
0:53:48 > 0:53:52when it's actually more sad than it is funny?
0:53:52 > 0:53:57I mean, don't get be wrong, Marion and Geoff is very funny, but it's actually sadder than it is amusing.
0:53:57 > 0:54:00Come on. Big hug.
0:54:00 > 0:54:02There.
0:54:02 > 0:54:05See? You're all right, aren't you?
0:54:05 > 0:54:07Eh? Who's got a big hug?
0:54:11 > 0:54:13Hey? Who's Daddy's boys?
0:54:13 > 0:54:15Who's Daddy's boys?
0:54:19 > 0:54:23In 2007, a sitcom hit more positive notes.
0:54:23 > 0:54:26Gavin And Stacey began as a love affair
0:54:26 > 0:54:29between an Essex boy and a Welsh girl.
0:54:29 > 0:54:32But the cast quickly grew to include the families.
0:54:32 > 0:54:38Pineapple and melon, croissant, pain au chocolat and brioche.
0:54:38 > 0:54:43In all the commotion, one very traditional sitcom dad filled a key comic function.
0:54:43 > 0:54:46We're talking about Gavin's new girlfriend, not Princess Di.
0:54:46 > 0:54:50You do not mention that hussy's name in this house, and you know that, Michael!
0:54:50 > 0:54:54I think in Gavin And Stacey, you kind of needed the dad to be like that.
0:54:54 > 0:54:58Larry Lamb in Gavin And Stacey is like the holding midfielder.
0:54:58 > 0:55:00He kind of gets it and he gives it.
0:55:00 > 0:55:03That's his job. He's the kind of buffer there.
0:55:03 > 0:55:08He kind of does what he needs to do and then he lets Alison Steadman get on with it.
0:55:08 > 0:55:10Right, well, I'm off. That was terrific.
0:55:10 > 0:55:12Lovely to meet you, Stacey.
0:55:12 > 0:55:19That character of Mick had to represent an element of stability and warmth.
0:55:19 > 0:55:22He's just like a ordinary bloke that's got a job in a factory.
0:55:22 > 0:55:25You know, he's a sort of a manager, medium level or whatever he is
0:55:25 > 0:55:28in a factory somewhere, he's not anything special.
0:55:28 > 0:55:33You know? They're all normal people, and I think that's its strength.
0:55:34 > 0:55:36Oh, Michael,
0:55:36 > 0:55:39- just hold me!- Hey, what's up?
0:55:39 > 0:55:41Can't you see what's going on?
0:55:41 > 0:55:45With Jackie Onassis in there? I know. What's that all about?
0:55:45 > 0:55:49It's evidently, plainly obvious that our son has been beating that poor girl.
0:55:49 > 0:55:51Are you mad?
0:55:51 > 0:55:57The main father figure of the Larry Lamb character is good-humoured, tolerant, patient.
0:55:57 > 0:56:02He even gives Gavin advice on his sperm count, you know, all this kind of thing.
0:56:02 > 0:56:04He's everybody's perfect father, I suppose.
0:56:04 > 0:56:07I just feel like I've let everyone down, y'know?
0:56:07 > 0:56:10- Like who, for Christ's sake? - You and Mum.
0:56:10 > 0:56:13- Oh, don't be silly.- I do!
0:56:13 > 0:56:17I know she's not saying anything, but I saw how upset she was when I told her.
0:56:17 > 0:56:21- You and her, you'd make brilliant grandparents.- Come here!
0:56:21 > 0:56:27- It's essentially all in a positive vein.- There's so many what-ifs, Dad.
0:56:27 > 0:56:31It's not about people trying to amass a fortune,
0:56:31 > 0:56:35it's not about trying to get rich or have one over,
0:56:35 > 0:56:42it kind of cuts into the lives of people who are just existing, you know, just going along.
0:56:42 > 0:56:45Congratulations, son. Now, are you really sure about this?
0:56:45 > 0:56:471,000 per cent.
0:56:47 > 0:56:52The huge success of such a restrained sitcom with a reassuring father at the helm
0:56:52 > 0:56:56says much about our current comedy cravings.
0:56:56 > 0:57:03Gavin And Stacey is an avowedly kind of warm, reassuring, backward-looking comedy.
0:57:03 > 0:57:06It's part of, dare I say, a balanced cultural diet,
0:57:06 > 0:57:12and you need these kinds of... comfort foods, if you like.
0:57:12 > 0:57:16I think if all we had was Gavin And Stacey, we'd probably want to kill ourselves,
0:57:16 > 0:57:21but thankfully, there's always something dark out there, and we need the two.
0:57:23 > 0:57:26- No.- What?- You are not having toast!
0:57:26 > 0:57:30- Why?- I can't be doing with crumbs, not today!- But I want some toast!
0:57:30 > 0:57:32Do not start, Mick, please.
0:57:32 > 0:57:36After three award-winning series, Gavin And Stacey achieved closure.
0:57:36 > 0:57:42At the same time, it also marked the end of a short but successful comedy career.
0:57:42 > 0:57:45I can't quite see going on doing it.
0:57:45 > 0:57:48You know, I like a bit of drama.
0:57:48 > 0:57:49It's much easier to make 'em cry!
0:57:53 > 0:57:57For the last 50 years, Britain has seen remarkable social change.
0:57:57 > 0:58:02The way families live now bears little resemblance to the past.
0:58:02 > 0:58:05Oh, my Gawd! What am I going to do?
0:58:05 > 0:58:06Kiss of life.
0:58:10 > 0:58:14As comedy reacts to the change around it, there is one thing
0:58:14 > 0:58:18that we can say for certain - the sitcom dad is here to stay.
0:58:20 > 0:58:23IN A SINGSONG VOICE: Jealous, jealous! Jealous, jealous!
0:58:29 > 0:58:31You have to have a father in a sitcom.
0:58:31 > 0:58:34They're like the sitcom equivalent of a can opener.
0:58:34 > 0:58:37Every household should have one, otherwise it can't function.
0:58:37 > 0:58:39And they've always been there.
0:58:39 > 0:58:41I think they always will be there.
0:59:59 > 1:00:02Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
1:00:02 > 1:00:05Email subtitling@bbc.co.uk