The Great British sit-com - R.I.P?

[Jamie McCrimmon]

Has the British sit-com genre died? Classic comedy is rarely recent, and most popular comedy now seems to be sketch shows rather than sit-coms, with the latter being scarce. Do you think that sit-coms are a dying genre? If so, why? Are sketch shows more popular for a particular reason, maybe?

[Perry Vale]

The I.T. Crowd was excellent!

[Captain Tancredi]

It's an interesting theory- I suppose that in and of itself, sitcom is quite a limiting genre because it's supposedly based on real-life situations, or extensions of them, as opposed to having the comedy based around the performers (like, say, Little Britain). And a lot of the recognisable situations have been done- hotels, bus depots, offices, priests, market traders. Not to mention the fact that sitcom is often seen as something you move on from to bigger things (cf. Simon Pegg).

Having said that, I think sitcom as a genre goes back and forth from the ones which stretch the envelope to ones which are just well written and acted within the rules. There are always good ones being made, but I think that the decline in light entertainment generally means that they tend to be shoved out into the schedules on their own rather than with proper backup like a chat or music show either side. Channel 4 in the first half of the 1990s was excellent for mixing British and American comedies and the end result (for me at least) was unmissable.

[Alex]

I do feel that British tv comedy in general is going through a rather stale and worrying stage at the moment, the Beeb keep on chucking out rather tedious sitcoms on BBC2/3 but none of them have been particularly anything special, whilst C4 has only offered us Peep Show of late (and the patchy second series of The IT Crowd).

I think it's down to a mix of things - no one wants to take risks so they stick with tried and tested performers, and all too often they try to desperately attract one specific demographic (the 18-34-ers' mostly) instead of just trying to write good comedy. I know there's some great comedians out there because I go and see a lot of live stand up - but bar being shoved away on Radio 4 at obscure times, no one in the media seems prepared to give them a chance until they've proved themselves over a far too long period.

There's also the attitude that sitcoms cost a lot more money and take a lot more time to produce than sketch shows, and panel shows especially, hence why there's so many of the latter around at the moment.

But I don't feel that the format is dying at all - in the US there's some wonderful comedy that's been made over the last five years, including the absolutely amazingly funny Arrested Development (which we tried to replicate with the dour and unfunny Roman's Empire), Curb Your Enthusiasm (which again we copied with Jack Dee's rather long winded Lead Soup), whilst the US version of The Office is going from strength to strength, 30 Rock is endless fun, as are animated shows like King of the Hill, American Dad, South Park and The Venture Brothers.

I feel what we need is a shake up in the comedy departments of all the channels, for them to take risks and credit the audiences with more intelligence than they currently do, and for new talent to be given a chance imo. Whether that will happen is quite doubful at the moment though alas...

[Dirk Gently]

The only new sit com recently (meaning in the last 3 months) that I can think of is 'Two Pints...' & that was put out on BBC3.

[Alex]

Well the new series of Peep Show only ended a few weeks back, I think there's been a new lot of My Family lately, and on BBC3 Trezxx and Flipside just began this week (but from what I've heard is all rather average).

But yeah, it's still a poor state of play though, I'm sure in t'olden days there'd always be one sitcom running on one of the channels throughout the year, however ropey it may or may not have been.

[Wayne]

I don't know if you'd class 'The League of Gentlemen' as a sit-com or sketch show, but that was about the last thing i can think of tv comedywise that i really liked that's "modern".
Before that, it's all the way back to 'The Royle Family', 'Game On', & 'One Foot in the Grave' for me!
(+ The Fast Show, which is obviously a sketch show, but even that varied from brilliant to pants.)

[Jon Masters]

It would be nice if they stopped repeating ad nauseum the sitcoms from the past / not so long ago, and had the guts to try something new. I didn't personally like Hyperdrive but it is shows like that the Beeb and C4 should be pushing more (ITV of course should continue to be banned from ever attempting sitcom again).

Two things spring to mind as perhaps the reason why sitcom is at a low point - the idea that stand-up comedians work well in sitcoms (they don't really - you need comedy actors, or at least actors who can do comedy). Dibley caused this really - none of the other attempts (e.g. Lee Mack, Jack Dee) etc have really worked.

The other is The Royle Family, which accidently spawned the bastard child 'Comedy Drama' - I'm looking at you, Jam & Jerusalem. It's become (wrongly) perceived that somehow it's no good a programme being funny, it has to be sad too. Unfortunately 90% of the time you end up with something which is neither sad or funny.

The US still leads the way (and how sad is that statement- what happened to British satire ? ) - no wonder the channels are happy to just buy it up rather than make their own.

[Jamie McCrimmon]

There isn't much incentive for any of the channels to invest in new sitcoms, when the public as a whole continues to accept the endless stream of drivel that is reality tv. If people keep tuning into tv-licence funded auditions for the next Lloyd-Webber musical, or Last Choir Standing, that's all we'll ever be offered as light entertainment.

I wondered if sitcoms has just become unfashionable? Maybe sketch shows are seen as slicker, or maybe people like copying catchphrases?

[Alex]

Yeah, I'd agree with you about the effect reality tv has had on comedy, and, well, all other forms of Brit tv really, the lack of good drama that's on these days is shocking as well.

Personally I disagree with you Jon about stand up's not making good actors, I love Bill Bailey in Black Books, Eddie Izzard is currently acting his little socks of in The Riches in the US, Dylan Moran's superb in How Do You Want Me?, David Cross was outstanding as Tobias in Arrested Development, and well, I could go on and on. Of course there are some stand up's who don't make the transition to acting that well, but then I'd be more than happy for them just to write the material and have someone else perform it.

I don't think sitcoms have become unfashionable though, a good one is still embraced and loved by the public (or even a semi-dodgy one like My Family), I really do feel it's down to the elements I mentioned above as to why we currently don't have anything showing of any real quality.

Also thinking about it, for me a lot of it has to do with the collapse in quality at Channel Four. Yes, over the years I've liked a lot of BBC comedy, but it was the early to mid-nineties comedy that they produced like Father Ted and Brasseye that I really love, but now of course they'd rather chuck out crowd pleasing crap like The Friday Night Project and Balls of Steel then do anything that original (bar on the very odd occasion).

As someone who is really passionate about comedy (as you might've been able to tell!), I know it's something that should bother me more, but as the amount of superb US material mostly sates my needs, and that the live stand up scene in the UK right now is really quite brilliant (if you avoid the more standard places like Jongleurs and The Comedy Store that is), that it doesn't, though I hope that this is just a poor patch we're going through and that someone will make something decent over here again soon, obviously.

Edit: Funnily enough I just found this website whilst idly browsing another site - its a list of every sitcom currently in production: http://www.sitcom.co.uk/news/in_production.shtml - now a lot of them have only reached writing / pilot stage and may not make it to our screens, but there's a few that sound interesting, Harry Hill's Soapington Way, Pyschoville and Vic N Bob's Superhero sitcom especially, and The Brontes might turn out okay as Stewart Lees the script editor and director...That said, there's a fair amount of rubbish sounding stuff in the list too...

[Paul Monk]

Maybe the UK is ready for my sitcom idea about a man who accidentally starts a cult.

[WhiteCrow]

I've just finished watching Porridge's "A Night In".

The episode is over 35 years old now - but it's still as funny, and hasn't really dated at all.

I'm hard pressed to find anything recently which feels quite as fresh. The IT Crowd has had some great moment, but I'm hard pressed to think of anything else which is delivering the goods at the moment.

[Rob McCow]

Certainly not Lab Rats.

There are no new middle-class comedies either, with sofas and cheese + wine parties. It's as if the middle classes have been banned, or at prevented from having a home life. It's either working class comedies, surreal comedies or celebrity panel shows. All of which can be brilliant, but so can cosy comdies!

[Alex]

Well I suppose that new(ish) Nicholas Lyndhurst comedy is quite middle class, though I haven't ever sat through an entire episode so can't say if it's any good or not. And My Family couldn't be more middle class if it tried, though that's been running for a fair old while now.

I saw an episode of The Inbetweeners on E4 last night, and guess that's a pretty new sitcom, it was okay in places too, but the big problem was how bad some of the performances were - I think on paper it probably worked a lot better, but it's let down by some really poor acting in it.