Top 10 British Sitcoms

You can have all the gritty TV dramas and blockbuster action shows you want, but when it comes to a super sitcom, nobody beats Britain!

Our country has produced an incredible number of situation comedies over the years, and the variety of them beats even America into a distant runners-up spot. From soldiers to rag-and-bone men, market-trading wide boys to people-hating hoteliers, our TV companies have given all of us a laugh along the way.

Some of them make us wince, because they remind us of the embarrassments in our own lives. Others remind us of the good old days, or show how it is to live in another part of the UK.

So let’s hear it for the Great British Sitcom, and below we remind you of 10 that really got us grinning.

1. ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES

Have there ever been more loveable rogues on our small screens than Del Boy, Rodney and pals?

David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst were simply brilliant as the Peckham pair who did a bit of this an’ a bit of that to sidestep their way through life. You would have taken one look at Del and decided I ain’t buyin’ nuffink off this geezer, but if you gave him the benefit of the doubt and shared a pint at the pub, he’d probably have won you over.

The show won over Britain, that’s for sure. Their one-liners were brilliant, all of their embarrassing moments made us cringe, and maybe we saw a little bit of ourselves in their predicaments at times.

It ran for seven series for a decade from 1981, and you can still catch repeats on various channels and it’s just as funny as ever!

2. SOME MOTHERS DO ’AVE ’EM

Besides Glam Rock, flared jeans and some woeful fashion, much of the 1970s wouldn’t have been the same without this fantastic, groundbreaking sitcom.

Britain has produced far more than her fair share of wonderful comedians, but we’d never seen anything like Michael Crawford, and there’s never been anyone like him since.

As the hapless Frank Spencer, not only did he get himself into some unforgettable scrapes, but he did the scenes himself, shunning stuntmen. Who can forget him hanging onto a moving bus, or falling through ceilings and down stairs, or those incredible scenes with him rollerskating out of control through a town centre?

Michele Dotrice was perfect as his endlessly patient, endlessly suffering missus, Betty. “Oooh, Betty, the cat’s done a whoopsie on the floor!” was the phrase we used to shout at each other in class yes, Frank Spencer even managed to disrupt our education! A true classic that we’ll never forget.

3. FAWLTY TOWERS

Was Basil Fawlty the most sarcastic, constantly frustrated man ever seen on British telly? Probably!

Ill-suited to run a hotel, he was equally ill-suited for marriage to the screeching, vain, irritating Sybil, who made his life a misery.

Basil simply didn’t like people, so having to look after them on a daily basis really wasn’t the right career for him. The arguments with his German guests became legendary, ending with, “Ve didn’t start it”. “Yes, you did, you invaded Poland!”.

Cleese had stayed at the Gleneagles Hotel in Torquay while filming Monty Python, and met the owner, who was “the rudest man I have ever come across”. He based the show there and made Basil ruder.

4. ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE

We were so fortunate, as Only Fools And Horses ran out of steam, to have this wonderful show replace it and continue the fun for another 10 years.

If Basil Fawlty had a short fuse and inbuilt dislike of people, well, Victor Meldrew was one of the few grumps he might have got along with.

Taking early retirement always sounds like a nice idea, unless you’re the wife and married to a fellow like Meldrew in fact, Victor himself was left crying “I don’t BELIEVE it” as he found life after work less pleasant than he expected.

The fact that so many of his disasters were caused by himself just made Victor even angrier, but for the rest of us, he was a constant source of laughter.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=IpEBLQno-hU

5. STEPTOE AND SON

In the 60s, with The Beatles on top of their game, British fashion ruling the waves and our football doing pretty well, too, it was left to TV to come up with something to match.

How inventive, that they created two rag-and-bone men from Shepherd’s Bush to do it! Father and son Albert and Harold were often at each other’s throats, and Steptoe can be quite a dark series to watch on repeat now. But it was full of brilliant one-liners, it was impossible to take your eyes off the main characters and even their unusual home was a sight for sore eyes.

The pretentious son still living with his “dirty old man” father, it could have been awful but Steptoe was a real British classic at a time when everything British was pretty darn good.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=91NmC7Jppzg

6. THE OFFICE

The first of our hit sitcoms from more modern times, it took older Brits a while to get the joke with this one, and Ricky Gervais is one of those stars who you either love or loathe.

But, for office workers up and down the UK, the characters here were worryingly realistic. David Brent, the boss, was a pathetic man himself, while his staff weren’t much better, most of them living in some kind of fantasy world.

Incredibly, given its eventual success, BBC2 nearly took this off the telly, because it got such small viewing figures and bad reviews.

These days, Gervais is a megastar both here and in America, where they have their own version of the show.

7. DAD’S ARMY

How on Earth did we win the war? If all the Home Guard were like this shambolic lot, it’s just as well that the Germans didn’t invade.

Captain Mainwaring, Sergeant Wilson and Lance Corporal Jones were a scary mixture of pompous, dithering, incompetent and snobbish, but together they created great chemistry. Even if they wouldn’t have scared the Nazis!

Among countless dark, brutal films and TV shows about the Second World War, Dad’s Army was a lighthearted, fond look back at how it was for some in those grim times.

8. THE VICAR OF DIBLEY

It may not seem like everyone’s cup of tea, but Dawn French enjoyed 13 years of this show, on and off, winning awards all over the place and building a massive fan club.

Set in a fictional Oxfordshire village, everyone from Kylie Minogue to Johnny Depp showed up for a guest appearance. The Reverend Boadicea Geraldine Kennedy, nee Granger, came out with some great jokes, and one opening scene with a lady knitting straight from a sheep tickled us pink.

And we know much of the goings-on were suggested by one of Britain’s first female priests, Joy Carroll, so there was possibly a basis of truth in there!

9. LAST OF THE SUMMER WINE

Now, this is what we call gentle-paced telly humour. The adventures of a gang of Yorkshire pensioners became Britain’s longest-running sitcom.

If you visit Holmfirth in West Yorks, you’ll find a life-sized model of Compo, with tourists happily taking his photo. Time saw many of its stars replaced over the four decades during which it was made but, for some, the repeats are still the best thing on the box.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=YRsd_Iu-42E

10. BLACKADDER

A romp through history should have been a bit dull for a sitcom, but not with Rowan Atkinson and Tony Robinson involved.

Atkinson’s dry delivery and Robinson’s peasant idiot did the trick, and the only surprise is that it just ran to 24 episodes and a few one-off specials. Atkinson these days, is an international star, but joked that he was miffed to see “Baldrick” get a knighthood, while he only has a CBE!