![]() “We don't say, ‘hey, we want comedy-drama’ and then we wait for pitches. ![]() “We don't direct it,” says Channel 4’s head of comedy Fiona McDermott. And this revolution in how we laugh started at the bottom. What used to be called ‘sadcoms’ and ‘dramedies’ were actually a pointer as to how the sitcom was going to broaden out and deepen. ![]() The British sitcom is now more thoughtful, more empathetic, more cinematic. The density of really funny stuff we’ve had is ridiculous, but so is the shift in where those laughs come from. These weird, lost fragments are all the more exotic because the last five years have been a golden age for British sitcoms. “Ultimately,” Vaughan later remembered, “it was shit.” ‘Orrible, which starred Big Breakfast presenter Johnny Vaughan as a cheeky chappy taxi driver. Comrade Dad, set in a dystopian 1989 where London has been annexed by the Soviet Union. So Haunt Me, about a family who move to Willesden and find that their new house is occupied by the ghost of a Jewish grandma. In the 75 years since the first British sitcom was broadcast live from the Alexandra Palace transmitter in November 1946, there have been some incredibly strange shows. If you’re at a loose end, Wikipedia’s list of extinct British sitcoms is a good wormhole to lose yourself in.
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