All British Comedy Explained

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun, by Tom Salinsky 2.2: The Good Life. Released 5 March 2026. In many ways the quintessential domestic BBC sitcom from the 1970s, but there’s a richness to the characters and a snap to the performances which elevates this one. There’s a reason it keeps being repeated. We watched “Say Little Hen” from the first series and the classic “The Wind-Break...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun, by Tom Salinsky 2.1: Fawlty Towers. Released 19 February 2026. Still casting an enormously long shadow over the British sitcom landscape, John Cleese and Connie Booth’s even dozen of frenetic farces have been delighting audiences since their first transmission in the late 1970s. We watched “The Hotel Inspectors” from the first series and “The Ki...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun, by Tom Salinsky Episode 9: Season One Explained For our next set of shows, we’ll be looking at some classic SITCOMS all of which became firm favourites with the public. 1.      Fawlty Towers . Still the yardstick by which other sitcoms are measured. 2.      The Good Life . By far the best of the...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun and Tom Salinsky Pippa Evans explains I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. Released 29 January 2026. Pippa Evans is also known as country singer Loretta Maine, she’s a mainstay of Showstopper The Improvised Musical and a frequent guest of The Comedy Store Players. She’s also made 26 appearances on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue , and is now one of the series...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun, by Tom Salinsky 1.8: I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. Released 22 January 2026. After writing and rehearsing actual sketches started to look like too much work for too little pay (this is radio after all), Graeme Garden wondered if there was some way of keeping the I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again team together but just having them be silly for half an...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun and Tom Salinsky Andrew Gillman explains The Day Today. Released 15 January 2026. Andrew Gillman’s comedy CV is hugely extensive, from early work with Ruby Wax to That Peter Kay Thing and countless others, but possibly the highlight is The Day Today which asked an awful lot of him, all of which he was able to deliver. Andrew’s recommendation for...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun, by Tom Salinsky 1.7: The Day Today. Released 8 January 2026. A big tradition in British comedy used to be that of shows getting an early experimental (and inexpensive) radio outing before being let loose on a bigger (more expensive) television stage. After twelve episodes of bizarre news spoof On The Hour had been transmitted on BBC Radio 4, a t...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun and Tom Salinsky 1.6.5: Emma Manton explains The Office. Released 1 January 2026. One of a number of people who filled out the world of Wernham Hogg, Emma Manton has used her earlier experience making an iconic television show as a springboard to an incredible career which has encompassed music, theatre, puppetry, circus and we can only assume fi...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun, by Tom Salinsky Christmas Specials. Released 25 December 2025. What is Christmas without Eric and Ernie? Of course we’re watching the 1971 Morecambe and Wise Christmas special which includes Shirley Bassey singing Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Ernie’s Robin Hood play starring Glenda Jackson and most famously of all, Andre Previn conducting Grieg’s Pi...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun, by Tom Salinsky 1.6: The Office. Released 18 December 2025. Despite having hardly any experience in television, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant created an indelible series which not only set the stage for a couple of decades of mockumentary and/or cringe comedy but which inspired versions in countries all over the world. We’re watching the fi...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun and Tom Salinsky Geoff Posner Explains Victoria Wood As Seen On TV . Released 11 December 2025. Geoff Posner has worked with some of the all-time greats of British comedy, from working alongside Paul Jackson on The Young Ones , to helping Steve Coogan give birth to Paul and Pauline Calf, he was there at the birth of Blackadder and he directed eve...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun, by Tom Salinsky 1.5: Victoria Wood As Seen on TV. Released 4 December 2025. With no female role models at all, Victoria Wood just focused on what she found funny. Her second attempt at bringing her style of humour to television is still among her most successful and enduring, and she wrote every word of these 13 episodes herself – highly unusual...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun and Tom Salinsky Ben Elton explains The Young Ones . Released 27 November 2025. Ben Elton is one of the most significant voices in the British comedy landscape and has been for over forty years. We spoke to him largely because of The Young Ones but his list of TV writing credits is incredible and that’s before you get into his stand-up, novels, p...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun, by Tom Salinsky 1.4: The Goon Show. Released 20 November 2025. The one British comedy show to which all roads ultimately lead. Spike Milligan’s lunatic flights of fancy changed the game and he found ideal comrades in Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers. The show ran for ten years and hundreds of episodes. We listened to The Lost Gold Mine from the f...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun, by Tom Salinsky 1.3: Not Only But Also. Released 6 November 2025. Following the success of Beyond the Fringe, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore came to television with three series in a more whimsical tone than the biting stage show which shot them to fame, but still infused with Cook’s astonishing wordplay and Moore’s immense charm. We watched a sele...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun, by Tom Salinsky 1.2: The Young Ones. Released 23 October 2025. The first full expression of the anarchic style of alternative comedy was BBC2’s The Young Ones. 12 episodes were broadcast between 1982 and 1984 and they’re all currently available on iPlayer. The show made stars of Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson and kickstarted Ben Elton’s career...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun, by Tom Salinsky 1.1: Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Released 9 October 2025 The seminal comedy show which ran for 45 episodes between 1969 and 1974 on BBC1 (first three series) and BBC2 (final series). It made stars of writer-performers Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and animator Terry Gilliam. We watched serie...

All British Comedy Explained… to Abigoliah Schamaun, by Tom Salinsky Episode 0: In the Beginning. To kick off our journey through British comedy, we surveyed our first set of eight shows, all LANDMARKS of the genre. 1. Monty Python’s Flying Circus (which influenced all the comedy after it) 2. The Young Ones (which brought anarchic alternative comedy to the BBC) 3. Not Only But Also (early TV incar...

Abigoliah Schamaun is a professional stand-up comedian, originally from America and now living in London. Despite that, her knowledge of British television comedy is nothing short of shameful. Luckily, she has British writer Tom Salinsky to help her out, one show at a time. Mailing list: http://eepurl.com/jnPC56 allbritishcomedy@gmail.com https://allbritishcomedy.com https://www.youtube.com/@AllBr...

New podcast coming soon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.