Mostly because you would have done.
I didn't mind The Detectives but I think that is pretty niche.
-
A bit more recent, but can I add Him & Her and Mum to the great comedy pantheon?
-
Based on your list of likes, I think you’d enjoy Spaced if you gave it another chance. I thought it was great.
Then again I also think The Office is fantastic tv. Ricky Gervais can be a bit irksome but he’s done some great shows. Extras was funny and After Life on Netflix is definitely worth a watch.Agree with you on Bottom - totally wank.
-
It's a very different tone to those but have you tried Always Sunny? It's grubby and off kilter (none of the people and almost none of the situations are in any way realistic) in a way that I think is very British.
-
Went to see the live show earlier this year and reading interviews with the cast/writers it was filmed on the day. The script was done earlier on the week and they dropped in a very topical bit at the end, but it was a frantic sounding week to week production.
-
I tried Always Sunny but never quite got the charm. The UK Office was excellent, I thought, but it's pretty much the limit of Gervais for me. Can't stand him.
The US Office, Parks and Rec, Community, and Angie Tribeca were all hugely enjoyable from over there. Spaced is a joy and shows that Edgar Wright is the only person who doesn't miscast Simon Pegg.
My favourite sitcom from these waters is The Games, like The Office for the Sydney Olympics I suppose. -
Cheers
Agony
Shelley
Dad’s Army
Blackadder
Likely LadsMore contemporary list…
Ted Lasso
Fleabag
Ghosts
DetectoristsLoads more I can’t recall at the moment. All characterised by deep sadness and vulnerability, the hallmarks of all great comedy.
-
I watched all the going sitcoms as a kid. There wasn't a lot of choice back then, even after Channel 4 launched and I couldn't spend all day playing Subbuteo. I even remember stuff like Keep It In The Family and There's No Place Like Home. I would've watched Hot, Mum without realising that one of the Wallahs was Michael Bates 'browned up'. I did see a repeat in my 20s and thought 'fuck me, did I used to watch this? It's awful'. I suspect if I watched Are You Being Served and one or two others again I'd think the same. Though Windsor Davies was in the 1st West End show I worked on and he was a lovely bloke. He used to knock on the crew room door Saturday afternoon and ask if he could come in and watch the rugby. Working most evenings really reduced my TV watching for years so there's tons of stuff late 90s / early noughties I've never seen. I noticed that they started repeating Rev the other night, which I loved - although that's about 14 years old now.
-
I was a big fan of Shelley. Enough to go and see Hywel Bennett in the theatre. Ingo's list is broadly sound, I would add Spaced and the Young Ones to my good list. Both perhaps not long players, but much like punk whose music has largely not stood the test of time, they were transformational in the moment. Cheers is amongst the comedy pantheon, obviously...but not very british.
There's definitely something about the collective humour experience, when there wasn't much telly, and everyone was responding to much the same things. It was almost possible to watch all the comedy that was broadcast. Now television is more fragmented it does make it more niche and less a widespread sensibility.
I may not be the best judge. I actually rather liked the original Blackadder series. Particularly remember Miriam Margoyles as the spanish infanta (which I was speaking with someone about a couple of days ago). Extra's over office for me.
Little Britain was obviously terrible, thin, catchphrase based (rather than inventive comedy based). For me the fast show impinged on that territory, I could have distilled it down to four or five sketches and been quite happy with it. Taking nuggets and milking them over eons doesn't really do it for me.
-
Spaced is a good shout, that was excellent. The episode with Wheels at the rave had me in tears of laughter.
-
More Oxo!
-
I spent a good few hungover Sunday mornings in the company of Stephen Merchant in his student digs watching The Ozone and other such bollocks in the early 90s as he shared a house in Earlsdon in Coventry with my then girlfriend (and 2 others girls, the bounder) in the early 90s.
I didn't know him that well, and he always struck me as being a bit odd if harmless enough. It was ages after he became famous that the penny dropped when my by then very ex mentioned it as we remained vaguely in touch via mutual friends.
True story.
-
I seem to remember I quite like Gervais' Afterlife first series, but didn't see the other two.
It was /is very much that. Darkly black.
-
Haha, literally all I could remember about that show is that it had totty in it. I don't even remember who the totty was.
-
I believe it was Samantha Janus (she was a biggish deal, I never really got into the show), notable to me for appearing in Loaded and the first instance I am aware of the “I’d crawl a mile through broken glass to wank over her shadow” er ‘joke’.
Possibly from here.
Possibly from RC.
A memory is a terrible thing.
-
Ah yes, I was still in my unfortunate Anthea Turner phase
