The funniest British TV sitcoms are actually tragedies and the latest one is neither British nor a sitcom

(This blog later appeared on Chortle, the UK comedy industry website)

Last night, I caught bits-and-pieces of a documentary on the making of the classic and still funny BBC TV series ‘Allo ‘Allo – one of the wonderful ensemble sitcoms produced by David Croft – Are You Being Served?, Dad’s Army, Hi-de-Hi!, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum et al.

One night last year, I sat through an entire evening of BBC3 comedy – four programmes – without a single smile. I think the main problem – especially with sitcoms – is that the writers think the object is to write funny lines for funny characters in inherently comic situations.

But, with the exception of David Croft’s various series, I think the classic British sitcoms are almost all, at heart, tragedies. They are centred on unfunny characters in tragic situations.

From Hancock’s Half Hour through to One Foot in the Grave, the central sitcom characters are not funny people. And the situations are not funny.

The Tony Hancock character is a pompous, insecure, humourless and self-obsessed prat – you wouldn’t want to be stuck in a lift with him. But the series are very funny.

The situation in Steptoe and Son is that both flawed characters are trapped by their suffocating relationship. The (again slightly pompous) son wants to escape to a wider, more exciting world but is trapped by a sad old father terrified of losing his son and being alone.

Till Death Us Do Part featured another suffocating relationship where a racial bigot, bitter at life in a modern world he hates and his long-suffering wife are trapped by poverty with their daughter and loud-mouthed, know-it-all son-in-law in a claustrophobic circle of constant arguments and ego-battles. It’s a near definitive situation of personal hell.

In One Foot in the Grave, a bitter, grumpy old man and his wife are trapped in a childless and almost entirely loveless relationship but have been together so long they have no alternatives left. In one masterful episode, they are in bed in the dark throughout; the camera never leaves the room; it transpires at the end that they once had a child who died – hardly the stuff of cliché, knockabout comedy.

Only Fools and Horses is slightly funnier in its situation and in the way it plays, but still features a rather sad and insecure loser at its heart in what, in reality, would be an unfunny situation.

Even The Office (much over-rated) has an unsympathetic and again very insecure central character you would hate to work for or with.

The American, partly Jewish vaudeville-based tradition of TV sitcoms is to have a high laugh-per-speech count written by large teams of gag writers.

The classic British sitcoms which have lasted the test of time are written by single writers or a pair of writers and, ignoring David Croft’s shows (almost a genre in their own right), they tend to have what would in reality be unsympathetic central characters in tragic situations.

Ironically, the most consistently funny situation comedy currently screening on British television is neither a sitcom nor British. At the time of writing, episodes from three different series of the American show are being screened on three different British channels every week – by ITV1 before lunchtime on Saturdays, by ITV3 on Thursday evenings and it is stripped at breakfast time on Quest.

Monk is, in theory, a US detective/police procedural series about a sad and lonely former detective with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, without friends, unable to function in the everyday world and unable to get over the murder of his wife several years ago. Almost every episode has tear-jerking pathos and almost every episode is more genuinely funny than any number of current British sitcoms where the writers are wrongly attempting to put funny lines in the mouths of inherently funny characters dropped into funny situations.

Although it is clearly NOT a comedy series – it is clearly a detective/mystery/police procedural series – over the years it ran (2002-2009) it won three Emmys and had thirteen other nominations in the Comedy Series category.

If you want to know how to write a sitcom, watch Monk.

Britain’s got talent in pubs

It’s amazing what you can find in an ordinary British pub. Top class levels of musicianship, for example.

I once read an interview in which the brilliant Randy Newman unwisely said, with more than a trace of entirely justified bitterness, that if his name had been Bob Dylan his last album would have sold millions more than it did. Because Dylan had widespread fame and he didn’t. It’s ironic that Randy Newman, one of the most brilliant writers of songs for sophisticated grown-ups, should have only stumbled on serious mainstream success when he started writing songs for Pixar’s animated children’s feature films (although he did also write the wonderful theme tune for the equally wonderful US TV series Monk, currently screening in the UK on ITV3 and on the Quest channel).

On Thursday night I went to the Wickham Arms pub in Brockley, South East London, for a second consecutive monthly visit to see Paul Astles and Bobby Valentino perform together – they appear there fairly regularly – their next appearance is in a fortnight.

I figured last month might have been a freakish success. But this time it was definitely not; it was pure talent and experience. The punters in the Wickham Arms are so fascinating and individually unique they would tend to detract from and outshine most performers – I’ve seldom seen such a collection of odd headgear, facial hair and faces straight from Renaissance paintings or a Hogarth print – but not last night. It’s equally seldom I’ve seen a member of the audience in the saloon bar of pub actually get up out of her seat and bop. It was like Glastonbury gone local.

Before my visit last month, I hadn’t seen the amazing Bobby Valentino for maybe 20 years. I saw him perform back in, I guess, the mid 1980s with The Hank Wangford Band and then, around 1990, solo with his own backing band.

He was always talented – a great fiddler and singer who was a distracting lookalike of actor Clark Gable from Gone With The Wind. Now, after 25 years, his fiddle playing has a subtle, seeming effortless flow to it, the sound moving from violin to mandolin to ukelele and to an almost mini-orchestral sound on some songs.

And, on Thursday night, he played ornate backing to the wonderful voice of Paul Astles. Like Randy Newman with the inferior and vastly overrated Bob Dylan, if Paul Astle’s name were Paul Weller, he would be selling albums by the lorryload and playing arenas around the country. His voice is that good. And, with Bobby Valentino complementing him, it was an astonishing night. He switched from Johnny Cash to Neil Young to Merle Haggard to his own songs as effortlessly as Bobby Valentino’s violin swooped around him – and he made each song his own: none a copy.

The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent throw the spotlight on wannabe semi-talents or non-talents with the right hairstyles. Meanwhile, real talent goes un-noticed. ‘Twas ever thus.

As with comedians, so with musicians – it’s often British pubs which are showcasing world class acts. The bullshitters get on TV.

The good news is that Paul Astles and Bobby Valentino may have a CD out next year. Though not, of course, on a major label.