Funny What Happened to Sitcoms ; Is Classic Sitcom Syndrome Making Us Sick of All the Old Comedy Hits, and What Is the Future of Tv Comedy When Reality Tv Puts More Bums On Seats for Far Less Money? Can Birmingham's Home-Grown Talent Help? Graham Keal Gives a Personal Assessment of the Current State of Tv Comedy.

Birmingham Post › February 16, 2004

Linked as:

Summary

I 've always been a glutton for vintage comedy repeats - FawltyTowers, Dad's Army, you name it -and for all those compilation shows splicing up the best bits, but suddenly I've developed an allergy. BBC2's Saturday night series Britain's Best Sitcom triggered it. And it's not that any of the contenders are unworthy. True, the series should more properly be called The BBC's Best Sitcom, because obvious contenders from other channels -Father Ted (C4) and Rising Damp (ITV) head the pack -have all been omitted. But last Saturday's con-tender, One Foot In The Grave, is certainly one of the funniest comic creations of the 1990s, no question.

It's just that I've reached the point of chronic classic sitcom fatigue. A few years ago, when the BBC repeated every episode of FawltyTowers, our whole family watched with great delight. The kids hadn't seen them before; we enjoyed seeing them again.

See the full content of this document

Extract

Funny What Happened to Sitcoms ; Is Classic Sitcom Syndrome Making Us Sick of All the Old Comedy Hits, and What Is the Future of Tv Comedy When Reality Tv Puts More Bums On Seats for Far Less Money? Can Birmingham's Home-Grown Talent Help? Graham Keal Gives a Personal Assessment of the Current State of Tv Comedy.

But last month the thought of sitting through yet another reprise of Basil's 'Don't mention the war!' encounter with German tourists filled me with dismay. This over-exposure is killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

Nowwe hear that TheTwo Ronnies are returning to the nati...

See the full content of this document