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British Sitcom: 60 Years of Laughing at Ourselves
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ComedyDocumentary
5.7/10(2 ratings)
Documentary celebrating the British sitcom and taking a look at the social and political context from which our favourite sitcoms grew. We enjoy a trip through the comedy archive in the company of the people who made some of the very best British sitcoms. From The Likely Lads to I'm Alan Partridge, we find out the inspiration behind some of the most-loved characters and how they reflect the times they were living in.
09-12-2016
1h 0m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Director:
Breid McLoone
Locations and Languages
Country:
US; GB
Filming:
GB
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Rebecca Front
Rebecca Front (born 16 May 1964) is a British stage, film and television actress, comedian and writer, best known for playing characters on the comedy show "The Thick of It" as well as the Chief Superintendent Jean Innocent in the television drama series "Lewis".
Stephen John "Steve" Coogan (born October 14, 1965) is an English comedian, actor, writer and producer.
His best known character in the United Kingdom is Alan Partridge, a socially awkward and politically incorrect regional media personality, who featured in several television series, such as The Day Today, Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge and I'm Alan Partridge. Outside the UK, Coogan is better known for his film roles.
English comedian, writer, actor, producer and TV personality. He is co-creator and star of BBC comedy shows Gavin & Stacey and Horne & Corden, and hosted The Late Late Show with James Corden.
Peter Hugh Dennis (born 13 February 1962) is an English comedian, actor, writer, impressionist and voice-over artist, best known for being one half of Punt and Dennis with comedy partner Steve Punt, and playing Pete Brockman, the father in the BBC One sitcom Outnumbered. Since 2005, Dennis has been a regular panellist on the BBC Two satirical comedy show Mock the Week.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Dick Clement, OBE (born 5 September 1937) is an English writer. Born in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, England, Clement was educated at Bishop's Stortford College and is best known for his writing partnership with Ian La Frenais. Generally, Clement and La Frenais write comedies, or dramas with a comic tone. They are known for television series including, The Likely Lads, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, Porridge, Lovejoy and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. They have also written various other works for TV and a number of films, including The Commitments (with Roddy Doyle), Goal!, Flushed Away, Across The Universe and The Bank Job. They also wrote film versions of some of their television successes, which Clement himself usually directed. Both have been resident in the U.S. since the 1980s and have worked on such series as The Tracey Ullman Show, as well as uncredited script doctoring on films like Never Say Never Again, The Rock (1996) and Bad Boys 2. They also continue to write for British TV. Clement was awarded an OBE in the Queen's 2007 Birthday Honours list.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Dick Clement, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis, CBE (born 8 November 1956) is New Zealand-born British screenwriter, music producer, actor and film director, known primarily for romantic comedy films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, Notting Hill, and Love Actually, as well as the hit sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Vicar of Dibley. He is also the founder of the British charity Comic Relief.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Richard Curtis, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Michael Ian Grade, Baron Grade of Yarmouth, CBE is an English television executive and businessman. He was chairman of the BBC from 2004 to 2006 and executive chairman of ITV plc from 2007 to 2009. Since 2011, he has been a Conservative Party life peer in the House of Lords.
Nerys Hughes is a Welsh actress, best known for her television roles, including her part in the BBC TV series "The Liver Birds" and "The District Nurse".
Graham Linehan (born 1968) is an Irish comedy writer and anti-transgender activist. He created or co-created the sitcoms Father Ted (1995–1998), Black Books (2000–2004), and The IT Crowd (2006–2013). He has written for shows including Count Arthur Strong, Brass Eye and The Fast Show.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Graham Linehan, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Plowman was educated in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire and at University College, Oxford,[1] where was a member of the University College Players[2] and made friends with others who went on to establish successful careers in comedy. One, Mel Smith, directed Plowman in a production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. After Oxford, Plowman followed Smith to the Royal Court Theatre, where he met the director Lindsay Anderson. Plowman worked in theatre for a while, then joined Granada TV.
He was responsible for producing and commissioning programmes produced in-house at the BBC, of which the greatest successes include The Office and French & Saunders. Plowman became Head of Comedy in October 2005, and oversaw the BBC's in-house comedy production, but no longer commissioned programmes. In June 2007, Plowman announced he was quitting his post at the BBC after 27 years. He decided to become a freelance producer for other shows and hoped to carry on his relationship with the BBC, continuing to create programmes "for them and elsewhere."[3]
In December 2003, The Observer named him in its list of the '50 Funniest or Most Influential People in British Comedy'. On 14 March 2006, he was honoured with the 'Judges' Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Television' at the Royal Television Society awards.
Later he moved into the world of theatre. He co-produced Lucky You, the Carl Hiaasen best-seller that premiered as a theatre production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2008.
Caroline Aherne was a BAFTA winning comic writer and actress best known for her comic character Mrs Merton and for her sitcom The Royle Family. In the mid '90s she went by the name Caroline Hook, having taken her husband's name (New Order bassist Peter Hook) but reverted back to Aherne following their divorce. She died from cancer in 2016 at the age of 52.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He resigned from all of these positions in June 2007.
Tony Blair was elected Leader of the Labour Party in the leadership election of July 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under his leadership, the party adopted the term "New Labour" and moved away from its traditional left wing position towards the centre ground. Blair subsequently led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election. At 43 years old, he became the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. In the first years of the New Labour government, Blair's government implemented a number of 1997 manifesto pledges, introducing the minimum wage, Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information Act, and carrying out devolution, establishing the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Blair's role as Prime Minister was particularly visible in foreign and security policy, including in Northern Ireland, where he was involved in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. From the start of the War on Terror in 2001, Blair strongly supported the foreign policy of US President George W. Bush, notably by participating in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and 2003 invasion of Iraq. Blair is the Labour Party's longest-serving Prime Minister, the only person to have led the Labour Party to three consecutive general election victories, and the only Labour Prime Minister to serve consecutive terms more than one of which was at least four years long.
He was succeeded as Leader of the Labour Party on 24 June 2007 and as Prime Minister on 27 June 2007 by Gordon Brown. On the day he resigned as Prime Minister, he was appointed the official Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East. In May 2008, Blair launched his Tony Blair Faith Foundation. This was followed in July 2009 by the launching of the Faith and Globalisation Initiative with Yale University in the USA, Durham University in the UK and the National University of Singapore in Asia to deliver a postgraduate programme in partnership with the Foundation.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Tony Blair, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
John Bluthal (born Isaac Bluthal; 12 August 1928 – 15 November 2018) was a comic actor best known for the role of Frank Pickle in the BBC sitcom The Vicar of Dibley and for his work with Spike Milligan in the Q series. He also appeared in several films including the Carry On movies, The Pink Panther movies, A Hard Day's Night, Help!, The Fifth Element and Hail, Caesar! He was born in Poland in 1929 and emigrated with his family to Australia when he was a child. In the early 60s, Bluthal moved to the UK to follow his acting career and returned to Australia in later years. He passed away on 15th November, 2018 at the age of 89.
English actor best known for his role as next-door neighbor Nick Swainey in the multi-award-winning BBC sitcom One Foot in the Grave, which ran for ten years (1990–2000) and was written by David Renwick. He subsequently played Heston Carter in the BBC drama series Doctors from 2008 to 2018.
Richard David Briers, CBE was an English actor. His fifty-year career encompassed television, stage, film and radio.
Briers first came to prominence as George Starling in Marriage Lines (1961–66), but it was a decade later, when he narrated Roobarb and Noah and Nelly in... SkylArk (1974–76) and when he played Tom Good in the BBC sitcom The Good Life (1975–78), that he became a household name. Later, he starred as Martin in Ever Decreasing Circles (1984–89), and he had a leading role as Hector in Monarch of the Glen (2000–05). From the late 1980s, with Kenneth Branagh as director, he performed Shakespearean roles in Henry V (1989), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Hamlet (1996), and As You Like It (2006).
Katherine Lucy Bridget Burke (born 13 June 1964; London, England) is an English actress, comedienne, playwright and theatre director. She best known for her portrayals of Perry in the Harry Enfield film Kevin and Perry Go Large, and of Linda La Hughes in the british sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme (the latter of which she co-wrote and developed with Jonathan Harvey). She is also known for her regular appearances on French and Saunders, Absolutely Fabulous and Harry Enfield and Chums.
Craig Cash is a comic actor writer, producer and director best known for the sitcoms The Royle Family and Early Doors. He is the narrator of the Channel 4 series Gogglebox.
John Marwood Cleese (born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, writer and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report. In the late 1960s he became a member of Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible for the sketch show Monty Python's Flying Circus and the four Monty Python films: And Now for Something Completely Different, Holy Grail, Life of Brian and The Meaning of Life. In the mid 1970s, Cleese and his first wife Connie Booth, co-wrote and starred in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. Later, he co-starred with Kevin Kline, Jamie Lee Curtis and former Python colleague Michael Palin in A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures. He also starred in Clockwise, and has appeared in many other films, including two James Bond films, two Harry Potter films, and three Shrek films. With Yes Minister writer Antony Jay he co-founded the production company Video Arts, responsible for making entertaining training films.
Description above from the Wikipedia article John Cleese, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
James Louis de Zogheb Dreyfus (born 9 October 1968) is an English actor most notable for roles on television sitcoms The Thin Blue Line as Constable Kevin Goody, and Gimme Gimme Gimme as Tom Farrell. Dreyfus is most recently known for a role as Reverend Roger in Mount Pleasant.
James Edward Fleet (born 11 March 1952) is an English actor. He is most famous for his roles as the bumbling and well-meaning Tom in the 1994 British romantic comedy film Four Weddings and a Funeral, and the dim-witted Hugo Horton in the BBC situation comedy television series The Vicar of Dibley.
Dawn Roma French (born 11 October 1957) is a British actress, comedian, presenter and writer. French is known for writing and starring on the BBC comedy sketch show French and Saunders with her best friend and comedy partner, Jennifer Saunders, and played the lead role as Geraldine Granger in the BBC sitcom The Vicar of Dibley. She has been nominated for seven BAFTA TV Awards and won a BAFTA Fellowship with Saunders in 2009.
Melanie Giedroyc is an English presenter, actress and comedian, best known for her comedy work with Sue Perkins, co-hosting series including Light Lunch for Channel 4, The Great British Bake Off for the BBC and chat show Mel and Sue for ITV.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michael Gwynn (30 November 1916 in Bath – 29 January 1976 in London) was an English actor. He attended Mayfield College near Mayfield, East Sussex. During the Second World War he served in East Africa as a Major and was Adjutant to the 2nd. Nyasaland Battalion, Kings African Rifles.
He is perhaps best remembered in contemporary culture as the shyster Lord Melbury who attempts to con £200 and a set of British Empire coins from the unsuspecting Basil Fawlty in the BBC comedy Fawlty Towers. Gwynn appears as Lord Melbury in the first ever episode of the series, "A Touch of Class".
Gwynn also appeared on several adaptations of plays on the Caedmon Records label. Among them were Cyrano de Bergerac, in which he played Le Bret, and Julius Caesar, in which he played Casca. Both productions starred Ralph Richardson in the title role.
He died on 29 January 1976 in London from a heart attack.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Gwynn, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Mathew Horne was born on September 6, 1978 in Nottingham, England as Mathew Frazer Horne. He is an actor and writer, known for Gavin & Stacey (2007), Planet 51 (2009) and Agatha Raisin (2014).
John Inman (28 June 1935 - 8 March 2007) was an English actor and singer, best known for his role as Mr. Humphries in Are You Being Served? (1972-1985).
English actor and comedian. He played Derek "Del Boy" Trotter in the long-running BBC comedy series Only Fools and Horses, and Detective Inspector Jack Frost on the ITV crime drama A Touch of Frost.
Other high-profile television roles were as Granville in the sitcom Open All Hours, and Pop Larkin in the comedy drama The Darling Buds of May as well as the voices of Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Willows, Danger Mouse and Count Duckula. His last original appearance as Del Boy was in 2014, while Jason retired his role as Frost in 2010.
One of the best loved actors in British popular culture, in September 2006 Jason topped the poll to find TV's 50 Greatest Stars, as part of ITV's 50th anniversary celebrations. He was knighted in 2005 for services to drama. Jason has won four British Academy Television Awards (BAFTAs), (1988, 1991, 1997, 2003), four British Comedy Awards (1990, 1992, 1997, 2001) and six National Television Awards (1997, 2001, 2002 twice).
Susan Johnston, OBE (née Wright; born 7 December 1943) is an English actress known for playing Sheila Grant in the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside (1982–1990), Barbara Royle in the BBC comedy The Royle Family (1998–2000, 2006, 2008–2010, 2012), Grace Foley in the BBC drama Waking the Dead (2000–2011), Gloria Price in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street (2012–2014) and Miss Denker in the ITV drama Downton Abbey (2014–2015). She won the 2000 British Comedy Award for Best TV Comedy Actress and was nominated for the 2000 BAFTA TV Award for Best Comedy Performance for The Royle Family.
Felicity Ann Kendal CBE is an English actress, working in television and theatre. She has appeared in numerous stage and screen roles over a more than 50-year career, but the role that brought attention to her career was that of Barbara Good in the 1975 television series The Good Life.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Maureen Diane Lipman CBE (born 10 May 1946) is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist, and comedienne.
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Roger Lloyd-Pack was an English stage screen and television actor . He attended Bedales School in Hampshire and went on to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.
He is best known for his role as Colin "Trigger" Ball in the BBC Television sitcom "Only Fools and Horses" and later as Owen Newitt in "The Vicar of Dibley". He later gained international fame through his role as Bartemius "Barty" Crouch Sr. in "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" in 2005. Lloyd-Pack died in his London home of pancreatic cancer in 2014 and is buried at Highgate Cemetery.
Dame Joanna Lamond Lumley DBE FRGS (born 1 May 1946) is a British actress, presenter, former model, author, television producer, and activist. She has won two BAFTA TV Awards for her role as Patsy Stone in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous (1992–2012), and was nominated for the 2011 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for the Broadway revival of La Bête. In 2013, she received the Special Recognition Award at the National Television Awards, and in 2017 she was honoured with the BAFTA Fellowship award.
Lumley's other television credits include The New Avengers (1976–1977), Sapphire & Steel (1979–1982), Sensitive Skin (2005–2007), Jam & Jerusalem (2006–2008) and Finding Alice (2021–present) as well as playing Elaine Perkins in Coronation Street in 1973. Her film appearances include On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), Shirley Valentine (1989), James and the Giant Peach (1996), Ella Enchanted (2004), Corpse Bride (2005), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), and Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (2016). She had roles in two episodes of Are You Being Served? (1973–1975) written by Jeremy Lloyd, whom she had married and divorced three years prior to her first appearance on the show.
Lumley is an advocate and human rights activist for Survival International and the Gurkha Justice Campaign. She supports charities and animal welfare groups, such as Compassion in World Farming and Vegetarians' International Voice for Animals. Lumley was made a Dame (DBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to drama, entertainment and charity.
Warren Mitchell (born Warren Misell; 14 January 1926 – 14 November 2015) was an English actor. He was a BAFTA TV Award winner and a two-time winner of the Laurence Olivier Award. His most fondly remembered role is that of the Johnny Speight comic creation of Alf Garnett which he played on and off from 1965 to 1992 with the sitcoms Til Death Us Do Part and In Sickness and in Health.
Nicholas Simon Lyndhurst is an English actor. He is known for playing Rodney Trotter in Only Fools and Horses, Gary Sparrow in Goodnight Sweetheart, Dan Griffin in the BBC drama New Tricks and Adam Parkinson in Carla Lane's series Butterflies. Lyndhurst also prominently starred as Ashley Philips in The Two of Us, as Fletch's son Raymond in Going Straight, the sequel to the classic British sitcom Porridge, Jimmy Venables in After You've Gone, and Freddie 'The Frog' Robdal in the Only Fools and Horses prequel Rock & Chips.
Ardal O'Hanlon was born on October 8, 1965 in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan, Ireland. He is an actor and writer, known for Father Ted (1995), My Hero (2000) and Val Falvey TD (2009). He is married to Melanie. They have three children.
Trevor Edward Peacock was an English actor, screenwriter, and songwriter, best known for playing Jim Trott in the BBC comedy series The Vicar of Dibley.
Jennifer Jane Saunders is an English comedienne, screenwriter, singer and actress. She has won two BAFTAs, an International Emmy Award, a British Comedy Award, a Rose d'Or Light Entertainment Festival Award, two Writers' Guild of Great Britain Awards, and a Peoples Choice Award.
She first came into widespread attention in the 1980s and early 1990s when she became a member of The Comic Strip after graduating from the Central School of Speech and Drama. Along with her comedy partner Dawn French, she writes and stars in their eponymous sketch show, French & Saunders, and has received international acclaim for writing and playing the lead role of Edina Monsoon in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.
In her other work, she has guest starred in the American sitcoms Roseanne and Friends, and won the American People's Choice Award for voicing the wicked Fairy Godmother in DreamWorks' animated Shrek 2. More recently, she wrote and starred in Jam & Jerusalem and The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle.
Julia Sawalha (born September 9, 1968) is an English actress, who is best known for her role as Saffron "Saffy" Monsoon in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. She is also known for portraying Lynda Day, editor of the Junior Gazette, in Press Gang, Lydia Bennet in the 1995 television miniseries of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and voicing Ginger in Chicken Run. Additionally, she played Dorcas Lane in the BBC's costume drama Lark Rise to Candleford, Carla Borrego in Jonathan Creek, and Jan Ward in the 2014 BBC One mystery Remember Me.
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