A British sitcom or a Britcom is a situational comedy programme produced for British television.[1]
British sitcoms have predominantly been recorded on studio sets, while some include an element of location filming. Live audiences and multi-cameras were first used in the US by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball for their American show I Love Lucy in 1951 and the system was adopted in the UK.[2] Several are made almost entirely on location (for example, Last of the Summer Wine) and shown to a studio audience prior to final post-production to record genuine laughter. In contrast to the American team writing system, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's huge successes were of such quality that they became the paradigm for British sitcom writing.[3]
By the time the television set had become a common part of home furnishing, sitcoms were significant expressions of everyday life and were often a window on the times of enormous social changes in the British class system and its conflicts and prejudices.[3] The period from 1970 to 1979 in particular is often considered the 'Golden Age' of British sitcom.[3] Since the turn of the century however, many are filmed on a single-camera set-up or entirely on location, with no studio screening or laugh track, such as The Royle Family (1998–2000, 2006–2012), and PhoneShop (2009–2013).[3]
A subset of British comedy consciously avoids traditional situation comedy themes, storylines, and home settings to focus on more unusual topics or narrative methods. Blackadder (1983–1989) and Yes Minister (1980–1988, 2013) moved what is often a domestic or workplace genre into the corridors of power.[4] A later development was the mockumentary genre exemplified by series such as The Office (2001–2003), which also heralded the modern trend of the single-camera sitcom dispensing with live audiences.
A 2004 poll by the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, "Britain's Best Sitcom", produced a list topped by traditional sitcoms with Only Fools and Horses holding the first place, and included favourites such as David Croft's Dad's Army, Are You Being Served?, and Hi-de-Hi!.[2] It was not until The Royle Family (1998–2000) in place 19 that a show without a live studio audience was featured.[2]
On a suggestion to Miranda Hart by sitcom writer Abigail Wilson, who collaborated with comedy actors Dawn French (The Vicar of Dibley 1994–2000) and Jennifer Saunders (Absolutely Fabulous 1992–1995),[5] the 2009 Miranda series staged a highly successful comeback for the 'old school' 20th century concept of sitcoms with live audiences and multiple cameras.[6]
As a race, the British have one peculiarity that sets them apart from the rest of mankind: that extraordinary sense of humour; their ability to laugh at others, to laugh at the sublime and the ridiculous, to laugh at disaster and triumph, to be indifferent to the subject of the joke but to seek and find humour in everything..
— Took, Barry, (1976), [7]
Writing for the British Film Institute, Phil Wickham, film and TV critic and author of several books about British TV, concludes:
Sitcoms have had an important influence on British life in the last 40 years. They have made us think about ourselves by making us laugh at our own absurdity. Good sitcoms are a kind of virtual reality - they reflect the rhythms of everyday life, the pain of the human condition and, of course, the joy of laughter.[3]
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