The British sitcom will never die when we still crave the classics
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Endangered. On the brink. The best of British facing possible extinction.
I heard a snippet on the Today programme and immediately prepared to shed a tear for the red squirrel, decry the fate of the hazel dormouse, lament the loss of the capercaillie.
But it turns out the jeremiad was for Del Boy, Edmund Blackadder, Terry. And of course, June. The cry has gone up to Save Our Sitcoms.
The shows that shaped our culture are in decline. Industry regulator Ofcom has flagged the genre as “at risk” for the sixth year in a row, with output halving, which is bitterly ironic because in these dark times we want to laugh more. We need to laugh more.
There’s no end to BBC Two retreads such as Live at the Apollo – weirdly I quite like watching them at 7am, despite all the muckiness. Am I the only one who wonders how comedians, who spend their lives on tour and sleeping in cheap digs, have so much to say about sex?
Stand-up specials on the big international platforms get phenomenal viewing figures, interminable American sitcoms such as Friends, Frasier and Seinfeld are always being streamed somewhere.
All fine and dandy. But sometimes what we crave is an old-fashioned palate cleanser, rooted in a British terrace rather than a New York duplex, where the cast aren’t particularly beautiful but the comic timing is perfect.
Short can be very sweet and hugely influential; there were famously just 12 episodes of Fawlty Towers. The Office, which changed the mockumentary format forever by leaning into the drudgery and drabness of the working day, garnered numerous awards and spawned no fewer than 10 international iterations, ran for just 14 episodes.
By contrast, the US version ran for nine seasons. It ended in 2013 but was the most streamed show of 2020, racking up 57 billion (yes, billion) minutes’ worth of views.
It’s all down to the central character, who is always a flawed individual striving to do better but failing every time. Some are pompous: David Brent in The Office, Captain Mainwaring in Dad’s Army, Basil Fawlty.
Others have no self knowledge. Alan Partridge, Julia in Motherland, Lee Mack in Not Going Out spring to mind. Then there are the quirky, klutzy characters: Miranda Hart in Miranda, the eponymous Vicar of Dibley, Ria Parkinson in Butterflies. If that’s making you feel nostalgic, then join the boat.
The good news is that both terrestrial and streaming platform producers are now “desperate” for what is known in the biz as “hard comedy” – which is to say full-fat sitcoms with belly laughs and jokes as opposed to hybrid “dramedies” with plotlines and melancholy as well as humour, such as Gavin and Stacey, This Country or Fleabag.
I’ve just had a quick peek online and there are pages and pages on how to write a successful sitcom, so I’m definitely up for having a go. In fact, we all could. But first I think I’d like to revisit some old – and indeed new – favourites, for the purpose of research.
That would be Yes Minister, Outnumbered and Ghosts, which nitpickers might say is more of a comedy drama, but I’ll be laughing too loud to hear them. See you later in the writers’ room. For King & Country – come to think of it, you can’t beat that for a title.
