British Sitcom History Podcast

This week we take on eighties Ronnie Corbett vehicle Sorry! We do a big old biography section on Corbett himself and try to work out if Phyllis Lumsden is the most horrific villain in sitcom history.

It's part 2 of our look at classic sixties sitcom The Rag Trade and this week we delve into the career of Reg Varney and evaluate the LWT remake from the seventies.

We're going all the way back to the early sixties this week to look at the original incarnation of The Rag Trade starring Miriam Karlin and Sheila Hancock with Reg Varney.

It's Part 2 of our look at the first three series of Only Fools and Horses and this time we'll be looking at the early years of Nicholas Lyndhurst and continuing our dissection of The Long Legs of the Law.

Here it is, the big one. Too big actually so we've had to break it up for parts. Here we tackle Only Fools and Horses - The Grandad Years, encompassing the first three series of John Sullivan's British institution.

In part 2 of our look at The Thin Blue Line, we continue our analysis of the show itself but also put Ben Elton on trial. Has he sold out or is working with Andrew Lloyd Webber not so bad?

This week we take a look at the Rowan Atkinson sitcom The Thin Blue Line. Made in the mid-nineties, the show is certainly fixed in its time and place but is writer Ben Elton also harking back to a different era?

It's part 2 of our look at classic seventies sitcom Fawlty Towers. Here we look at the careers of Andrew Sachs and Prunella Scales as well as finding out what became of Basil the Rat.

It's series 2 and we're opening with a true classic. Can farce work on TV? Is it as good as you remember it? Come with us as we check in for a couple of weeks at Fawlty Towers.

As a little aperitif to series 2 of the British Sitcom History Podcast, here are some selected cuts from series 1.

We've got a two for one special today as we look at the office politics of mid seventies Eric Chappell show The Squirrels. And as a cheeky bonus we also look at the remake from the early nineties, Fiddlers Three.

From the creator of Reginald Perrin, Dogfood Dan and Carmarthen Cowboy was a failed sitcom that got one series back in 1988. It follows two lorry drivers who are unknowingly having an affair with the other's wife. Hilarity ensues. Or does it?

The Wackers didn't even complete it's first series back in 1975 before it got cancelled due to poor audience reaction. But why didn't it land with the viewers and how similar is it to Bread?

A little bonus for you between series; here is our tie-in episode with film review podcast Diminishing Returns. We talked about the film spin-off of Steptoe and Son and a bit about sitcom films in general. Find more from Diminishing Returns at dimreturns.com

Sitcoms come and go but not many of them stand the test of time. We try and celebrate (or denigrate) those that have been forgotten over the years. Get Well Soon managed one lacklustre series in 1997 but it has an interesting backstory as it is based on the real life experiences of sitcom legends Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

In this round up of all the shows we looked at in Series One, Allen challenges Gareth with a music quiz and tests his memory on everything we've learned over the last twelve episodes.

It's part 2 of our look at Time Gentlemen Please in which we discuss the life and career of Richard Herring and find out what happened to the Pub Landlord after the show.

In this episode we're looking at the somewhat ill-fated attempt to convert Al Murray's Pub Landlord character into the medium of sitcom. We're big fans of Murray and fellow writer Richard Herring so this one is a bit of a nostalgia fest for the heyday of the nineties. But how does the show hold up twenty years later?

It's part 2 of our look at eighties sitcom Dear John, starring Ralph Bates as the hapless divorcee surrounded by wacky characters. In this episode we take a look at what the actors did before and after their time with Dear John and attend a party at Mrs. Boyd-Peter's house (don't mention her embarrassing problem).

Not all sitcoms are classics and this week we're going to prove it by looking at the somewhat forgotten Dear John. Running for two series in 1986-87, it was written by John Sullivan (of Only Fools and Horses fame) and starred former Hammer Horror icon Ralph Bates. Over the top characters and pointless plots are all in store.

Part 2 of our look at Rising Damp sees us delve into the careers of Don Warrington and Richard Beckinsale as well as a pseudo-scientific analysis of who exactly is getting the laughs in this show.

Centred around one of the greatest performances in sitcom, Leonard Rossiter leads an excellent cast in seventies classic Rising Damp. In this episode we look at Eric Chappell's play The Banana Box, which came to be Rising Damp and we look at the careers of Rossiter and Frances de la Tour.

In Part 2 of our look at One Foot in the Grave we continue to analyse our specific episode and break down the show as a whole. Eric Idle gets a bit of a bashing and we look at some of the comedy guest stars that turned up on the show.

Is One Foot in the Grave a timeless classic? We get stuck into the nineties sitcom and discuss who is the bigger git, Richard Wilson or David Renwick?

In Part 2 of our discussion of Bread, we try not to go on too much about how much we love Victor McGuire so we can find time to talk about the rest of the cast. We also look at the final episode and decide if the seven years hard work paid off.