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Till Death Us Do Part | |
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Created by | Johnny Speight |
Starring | |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 7 |
No. of episodes | 54 (13 missing) + 3 shorts (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Running time |
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Production company | BBC |
Original release | |
Network | BBC1 |
Release | 22 July 1965 |
Release | 6 June 1966 16 February 1968 | –
Release | 18 June 1970 |
Release | 13 September 1972 17 December 1975 | –
Related | |
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Till Death Us Do Part is a British television sitcom that aired on BBC1 from 1965 to 1975. The show was first broadcast in 1965 as a Comedy Playhouse pilot, then as seven series between 1966 and 1975. In 1981, ITV continued the sitcom for six episodes, calling it Till Death.... The BBC produced a sequel from 1985 until 1992, In Sickness and in Health.
Created by Johnny Speight, Till Death Us Do Part centred on the East End Garnett family, led by patriarch Alf Garnett (Warren Mitchell), a reactionary white working-class man who holds racist and anti-socialist views. His long-suffering wife Else was played by Dandy Nichols, and his daughter Rita by Una Stubbs. Rita's husband Mike Rawlins (Anthony Booth) is a socialist "layabout" from Liverpool who frequently locks horns with Garnett. Alf Garnett became a well-known character in British culture, and Mitchell played him on stage and television until Speight's death in 1998.
In addition to the spin-off In Sickness and in Health, Till Death Us Do Part was remade in several countries including Germany (Ein Herz und eine Seele), and the Netherlands (as Tot de dood ons scheidt)[1] in 1969 and as Met goed fatsoen in 1975, the latter was never broadcast; In Sickness and in Health was adapted as In voor- en tegenspoed in 1991–1997). It is also the show that inspired All in the Family in the United States,[2] which, in turn, inspired the Brazilian A Grande Família. Many episodes from the first three series are thought to no longer exist, having been destroyed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as was the policy at the time.
In 2000, the show was ranked number 88 on the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes list compiled by the British Film Institute. The title is a reference to the Marriage Liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer.