With the closure of BBC Three as a broadcast channel now imminent, it seemed the right moment  to look back at some of the corporation’s more obscure sitcom offerings from years – and indeed decades – past. After all, what other genre elicits so much passion or such dedicated fans?

Every channel (indeed broadcaster) has had its share of short-lived comedies in the search for the next big hit. You can’t have escaped the fact that a brand new adaptation of one of the BBC’s best-loved sitcoms, Dad’s Army, is now in cinemas.  But who remembers co-creator David Croft’s one-series 1980 sitcom Oh Happy Band!? 

Written with his ‘Allo ‘Allo! and Are You Being Served? partner Jeremy Lloyd and starring Harry Worth, the six-episode series seems to have returned to relevance, focusing as it does on a small town’s campaign to stop an airport being built nearby. (Heathrow expansion, anyone?)

As far as "failures" go, Croft and Lloyd are far better known for the ill-fated Come Back Mrs. Noah, a futuristic sitcom starring Mollie Sugden.

Somehow surviving a pilot in December 1977 before returning for a five-episode series seven months later, it saw Sugden portray an ordinary housewife in 2050 who is accidentally blasted into space aboard an experimental rocket due to a terrible technical fault. Whether Mrs. Noah ever made it back to Earth or not is unknown, as the show did not return for a second series.

Indeed, sci-fi has proved to be a difficult subject matter for British sitcom on more than one occasion. The most recent entry to this not-so illustrious group would almost certainly be BBC Three’s Clone, starring Jonathan Pryce and Mark Gatiss. The premise was as simple as the eponymous clone - designed as a "super soldier", the resulting humanoid was nothing of the sort.

A little more fantasy than sci-fi was Ed Stone Is Dead which ran for 13 episodes in Autumn/Winter 2002/3, just before BBC Three rose from the ashes of BBC Choice. With writers including Peep Show’s Bain and Armstrong, it starred Richard Blackwood as a man killed before his time, and thus restored to the land of the living – with some limitations – by Death himself, a role fulfilled to perfection by Bill Paterson.

A real death brought about the end of 1979’s Bloomers.  Just five episodes had been recorded before its star, Porridge legend Richard Beckinsale, died suddenly of a heart attack at the unspeakably early age of 31. He starred as out-of-work actor Stan, who finds a bright new future in the floristry trade.

After the death - at the age of 93 - of original Carry On films scriptwriter Norman Hudis this past week, it would be mean-spirited not to mention his early 1960s ITV sitcom Our House. Starring the likes of Hattie Jacques, Charles Hawtrey and Joan Sims, it follows a group of strangers who pool their money and buy a house together. Running for an incredible 39 episodes over just two series, just three of programmes are known to survive.

A different type of house share was explored in His Lordship Entertains, broadcast in 1972. To have even heard of it you’d likely have to be a die-hard fan of its creator Jonathan Cobbald - a man better known by his real name, Ronnie Barker.

Barker reprised a role he played at numerous points during his career, that of saucy, ageing aristocrat Lord Rustless. The six-part series saw Rustless opening his ancestral pile, Chrome Hall, as a hotel. Ancient bell-boy Dithers was played by David Jason in one of his first sitcom roles, with Rustless’s right-hand-woman, Mildred Bates, inhabited by overlooked sitcom legend Josephine Tewson, with whom Barker would star again in his last ever series, 1988’s Clarence. Sadly only one episode of His Lordship Entertains is known to survive.

Everyone other favourite Ronnie, Corbett, reprised his role from No – That’s Me Over Here! for BBC One’s Now Look Here… from 1971, and sequel The Prince of Denmark in 1974. Between them the two BBC shows clocked up 20 episodes, penned by Barry Cryer and Graham Chapman.

Many more treats exist deep in the archives for those with an interest in finding them. I started off with a mention of Dad’s Army, but who recalls the spin-off from its radio series, It Sticks Out Half A Mile? Broadcast on Radio 2, a TV pilot was made in 1985 – Walking The Planks – and a full series appeared on ITV two years later, called High and Dry.

That sitcom may have lasted for only seven episodes, but many entertain millions through multiple series before being completely forgotten. Starring David Roper and Peter Sallis, Leave It To Charlie racked up 26 episodes over four series in just three years. But when was the last time you heard its name mentioned?

Holding The Fort, a marital role-reversal sitcom by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran in the early 1980s suffered a similar fate. Hugely popular at the time, it ran for three series and launched the career of Matthew Kelly, with Peter Davison and Patricia Hodge as house-bound husband and his military wife.

Of course, some series are forgotten because they are largely or wholly missing, believed wiped. Who wouldn’t love to see Son Of The Bride, starring Mollie Sugden and Terry Scott in the familial titular roles, given half the chance? Others simply disappear into the ether, forgotten simply because audiences, writers and stars move on, regardless of how successful they may have been at the time.

But all play important roles in the history of British sitcom, one of the widest, most diverse and potentially most successful of all the broadcast art forms.

Aaron Brown is editor of the British Comedy Guide.

Do you remember any of these ‘lost’ sitcoms? Would you like to see them again? If you’d like to mention any other forgotten comedy classics, please leave your comment in the space below.

Actor Ivan Owen's main claim to renown was as the original voice of children's favourite Basil Brush. 

Born in 1927, he studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art briefly and then worked in repertory theatre. Owen is first credited in Children’s Television in June 1954, where he and Peter Hawkins provided the voices for puppet series Billy Bean and his Funny Machine.  During the 1955 series, Owen made an appearance in person playing “other parts” in children’s drama The Gordon Honour and some other small roles. 

In 1957 Owen joined the voice cast of Toytown, making his first appearance in Playbox that year, hosted by Eamonn Andrews when he was also presenter of This is Your Life and What's My Line.  

Playbox included an item called The Playbox Detective Agency, in which viewers were presented with a dramatised puzzle, from the 1958 series Owen was receiving star billing in follow-up The Six Clue Challenge as Inspector Bruce. 

When he appeared in adult programmes he was still a minor player.  Owen was also working extensively for ITV at this time, collaborating again with Peter Hawkins on The Adventures of Booty Mole, and voicing a dog called Fred Barker on Dog-Watch, Tuesday Rendezvous and the Five O’Clock Club during the early to mid-60s. 

Birth of Basil

The final series of Playbox in 1963 did not feature Owen’s live-action character, and he returned to the world of the jobbing actor, making appearances in Compact  and Mr Pastry’s Pet Shop for the BBC, and police drama Crime Sheet on ITV. But his future was to be in voice-work. 

In 1962 Owen was cast in ITV series The Three Scampis, providing the voice for a character designed by Peter Firmin, an artist and art lecturer.  The puppets in The Scampis were Basil Brush, a fox, and Spike McPike, a hedgehog, assisted by a human, Howard Williams.

The convention of Basil interacting with a person was to continue for the rest of his career.  He made an immediate impact, his plummy accent reminiscent of comedian Terry-Thomas, with whom he shared similar dentition – a gap in his front teeth.  The Three Scampis ran until 1965, after which Owen and Howard Williams made a single series of All at Sea, also for ITV.  Owen had meantime also contributed voices to the obscure ITV puppet series Muskit and Dido.

Owen’s next partner was to be popular magician and TV personality David Nixon, when an offer came to co-star in a new BBC series. In 1967, children’s show Now for Nixon was aired, and for the first time he co-starred with Basil Brush. By this time Basil was receiving his own billing, and Ivan Owen elected to receive no credit, preserving the ‘illusion’ that Basil was his own man (or fox). 

A few weeks after the end of that series came The Nixon Line, an early evening show that allowed slightly more sophisticated material. With Basil Brush now established as Nixon’s sidekick, the series ran until March 1968.  Both Nixon and Basil starred in a Show of the Week on BBC2 in July, but that was to be their last appearance together for some time. 

Basil Brush started his own show in the traditional Crackerjack slot at five to five on a Friday afternoon. The first series of The Basil Brush Show debuted on 14th June 1968.  Again scripted by George Martin, it was produced by Johnny Downes, and Basil was partnered by actor Rodney Bewes, late of The Likely Lads. In Basil’s inimitable fashion he was addressed as ‘Mr Rodney’.  The first series also benefited from impressive musical acts, including Manfred Mann, The Alan Price Set and The Kinks. 

The series performed well enough, and a second series followed in March 1969, although Rodney Bewes had bowed out to concentrate on his ITV sitcom Dear Mother… Love Albert and was replaced by another young actor, Derek Fowlds, later famous for roles in Yes Minister and Heartbeat – but for now known by Basil as ‘Mr Derek’. 

Fowlds became perhaps the best remembered of Basil’s partners, interacting well with his furry friend through several series until he called it a day in 1973.  They made guest appearances on It’s Lulu, and landed a 'best of' show and a Christmas morning programme in 1970. 

Basil also appeared in his own right with Val Doonican, the guest on Ask Aspel, and in a Cilla special filmed in Scandinavia.  Special Christmas episodes also began to be featured from 1971 onwards, such as that year’s Basil in Pantoland.

'Boom Boom!' 

The format of The Basil Brush Show was a variety show, with musical and comedy guests, sketches and musical items involving Basil and his co-host.  One of the best loved features of the show was the serial story at the end of every episode, with Basil’s interruptions and jokes, clashing with his partner’s attempts to get on with telling the story.  There were catchphrases like the trademark “Boom Boom!” when Basil made a joke, and recurring references including Basil’s dislike of puppets, though he got on well with clockwork puppy Ticker.

When Derek Fowlds left the series, he was replaced by Roy North.  Like Fowlds, North had a great rapport with the fox, though his style was a little less droll.  He also stayed with the programme for a number of years, making guest appearances alongside Basil on Seaside Special and an early edition of Multi-Coloured Swap Shop. 

The show returned year after year, and indeed so did many of the jokes. George Martin was still faithfully providing scripts for Basil, but as time went on the material was getting familiar (but then the humour was rarely ground-breaking).  While the music acts never quite lived up to the promise of the first series, there were some odd appearances by the likes of Charlie Drake plugging a single release, acts like Dennis Waterman, the New Seekers, the Electric Light Orchestra and even Abba showed up.

Though chiefly a television performer, in May 1975 Basil co-starred with Lord Charles and Lenny the Lion in a Radio 2 quiz Ask a Silly Question!, hosted by Wally Whyton.  In 1977-78 Basil presented a Radio 3 series Holiday Special intended to get young people interested in serious music.  In September 1977 Ivan Owen made a rare appearance on Radio 3 as himself, with his own choice of records in Man of Action. 

Roy North called it a day as Basil’s stooge after four series, and Howard Williams, who had been his first straight man back in the early 60s, came back.  The resumed partnership lasted from 1977 to 1979, and as ever there was the usual Christmas special episode each year.  These tended to be a departure from the usual format, with more music integrated into the show and a running theme. 

Basil Brush’s Magical Christmas in 1978 was especially poignant as it featured a visibly ill David Nixon, renewing his own acquaintance with the fox.  Nixon had died from lung cancer by the time the episode was transmitted on 23rd December.  The programme came close to not being shown, not for that reason, but because BBC television had been blacked out by a strike for several days in the run-up to Christmas, and programmes only resumed that day.

In 1979 Williams was replaced by the youthful Billy Boyle, an Irish actor in his mid-30s but with a very boyish personality on screen.  His nationality led to a few dubious jokes, while there was never a buoyant rapport between Basil and Boyle.  There had been a shake-up on the script front too, with George Martin leaving in 1977, and a team of writers under script editor Peter Robinson replaced him – not to any startling effect.  The series soldiered on until December 1980, when the last Christmas special, Basil’s Christmas Cruise went out with guests Michael Hordern, Dilys Watling, the Pasadena Roof Orchestra and Legs & Co.

There were rumours at the time that Ivan Owen wanted Basil to be given a peak-time show using slightly more adult material, and that the BBC was not interested.  Basil’s next appearance was on ITV schools programme Let’s Read with Basil Brush, before he returned to the BBC in 1983 as part of the team on Crackerjack. On the air almost continuously since 1955, it had started to look really tired by the start of the 80s, and Basil was just one ploy to try to bolster viewing figures.

After that Basil’s appearances are more sporadic, and spread between BBC and ITV, including shows like Fast Forward, former Crackerjack host Stu Francis’s ITV series Crush a Grape and cookery show Hudson and Halls.  There was one more starring role in Basil’s Joke Machine for Border TV, where he was partnered by Doug Ridley. 

But by the end of the 80s Basil was not making many appearances, and he became a fixture of the rising tide of nostalgia compilation shows.  One late appearance was in Granada TV sketch series The Full Monty in 1993.  Ivan Owen died in 2000, never having become a star in his own right, though he was instantly recognisable as one particular character voice…

In 2002, the character of Basil Brush was reborn in a Children’s BBC sitcom, still called The Basil Brush Show.  The voice was similar to Owen’s characterisation, but it was now a very different era, and Basil no longer appealed to as wide a range of viewers as he had originally.  The last original episode was transmitted at Christmas 2007, but repeats were a staple of the CBBC channel until 2011.  In a hark-back to one of his 1970s guest appearances too, 2008 saw Basil presenting Basil’s Swap Shop, with Barney Harwood as the latest in the long line of co-hosts.

Additional research by Simon Coward

What are your memories of this enduring character? Who do you think was Basil's best human sidekick? Tell us your thoughts in the space below.

With the news that BBC1 Saturday evening stalwart The Voice is to transfer to ITV after its next series, I was reminded of the fact that this is far from the first time that a BBC show has migrated to another channel – and the process has also happened in the other direction.

One of the reasons this can happen of course is that the BBC (or any other broadcaster) does not necessarily hold all the rights to given shows.  The Voice was only the latest in a long line of formats which were American in origin, dating back to the early days of game and panel shows like What’s My Line? which was devised by the prolific partnership of Mark Goodson and Bill Todman and featured the irascible Gilbert Harding.

Following the original version's end in 1963, the BBC revived the series on BBC2 from 1973-4 with David Jacobs in the chair, and 10 years after that ITV bought the format and ran the show until 1990, with a regional revival from 1994 to 1996. 

The ITV version of What's My Line? was chaired by the host of the original BBC series, Eamonn Andrews, who had also been the presenter of This is Your Life. This was another US format, devised by Ralph Edwards, which debuted on BBC television on 29th July 1955. In this episode, to Andrews’ surprise, he turned out to be the subject of the programme.

This is Your Life became a highly successful programme for the BBC, running for nine years, with only one major upset when footballer Danny Blanchflower refused to be on the programme. The start of the programme was pre-recorded by this time, so the BBC was able to show a stand-by edition in its place.

The BBC run ended in 1964 when Andrews was offered his own chat show on ITV franchise ABC, but after that company was merged with Rediffusion London in 1967 to form Thames Television, Andrews returned as host of a revived version of the show.

He remained presenter from 1969 until his death in 1987, when Michael Aspel replaced him. ITV dropped the show in 1994, but it was moved to the BBC, still made by Thames as an independent producer.

Not every programme is based around a format of course, and many shows are just a vehicle for the talents of a particular star or act.  Over the course of a television career many artists will work for both BBC and other broadcasters.  In some cases, the format of the show will change very little, in others, for example where someone has become famous in their own right through a formatted show, it may not be possible to translate the format as it still belongs to the original company. 

Occasionally the whole ‘package’ may be available.  In a sense this happened with Morecambe and Wise, when they moved over to the BBC in 1968, bringing with them their writers Dick Hills and Sid Green. The resulting BBC shows in their first colour series were not too dissimilar to the ITV version that had run since 1961.  However, this was not their first, nor their last switch.  

Their first TV series was Running Wild for the BBC (then the only channel) in 1954, and after its poor reception their next regular outing was as part of the ensemble cast of Double Six in 1957 (not counting their many radio series).  Otherwise they made only occasional appearances until a change in management at the start of the 60s enabled them to secure a deal for their own ATV show Two of a Kind. 

Following their great success at the BBC, in 1978 Morecambe and Wise decided it was time to ring the changes again, and signed with Thames Television.  They were not at first able to secure the services of Eddie Braben, the inspired and legendary Liverpudlian comedy writer who had taken their comedy to another level from the 1969 series onwards, as he was still contracted to the BBC. Together with Eric Morecambe’s failing health these final ITV shows marked a decline in quality.

As well as individual artists, occasionally comedy programmes have transferred channels.  The Rag Trade is one example – originally written for the BBC at the start of the 60s by Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney , it was brought back by ITV in the late 70s, with the original main stars Peter Jones and Miriam Karlin.  

Men Behaving Badly, first shown on ITV in 1992, was dropped by the channel after two series, but independent producers Hartswood Films managed to sell it to the BBC.  As well as allowing it the customary extra minutes per episode (BBC sitcoms are generally 30 minutes long, while ITV have to allow several minutes of a half-hour slot for advertisements), the BBC scheduled it later in the evening, allowing for more robust language and situations.  Over a further four series and specials the show acquired wide following, although it is perhaps slightly lost in the mists of time now, nearly 20 years after it ended in 1998. 

As well as commissioning its own new episodes, the BBC also repeated the 2nd series, originally shown on ITV, which was the first to feature Neil Morrissey as Tony alongside Martin Clunes, Caroline Quentin and Leslie Ash – the first series featured Harry Enfield as Dermot, who left after deciding he felt out of place in a sitcom.  

Till Death Us Do Part, after two runs on the BBC in the 60s and 70s, was revived by ITV in 1981 with a slight title change to Till Death…  It was unsuccessful, but Alf Garnett and his family returned a second time in the BBC’s In Sickness and in Health, which ran from 1985 to 1992.  Alf made several appearances in other shows on his own, one of these being ITV’s 1980 one-off The Thoughts of Chairman Alf at Christmas, another being one of LWT’s An Audience with… series.

Several chat shows have also made the transition from one channel to another. Simon Dee, having fallen out with BBC management in 1970, took his eponymous programme (successor to Dee Time) to London Weekend Television, but his series there was short lived. 

Michael Parkinson, having started his television career as a producer and presenter with Granada, move to the BBC as a reporter on 24 Hours before landing his own chat show in 1971.  He left again to join TV-am in 1982, and also presented Parkinson One to One for Yorkshire TV before Parkinson was resurrected in 1998 on BBC1.  After a dispute over scheduling in 2004, the show went over to ITV, where it ran for another three years. 

Russell Harty had an almost complimentary career path.  He worked a BBC radio producer before presenting ITV’s arts series Aquarius, which led to his chat show Russell Harty Plus, later just Russell Harty.  In 1980 he moved back to the BBC for his show Russell Harty (just Harty from 1983), perhaps best remembered for the incident where he was assaulted by Grace Jones (still not as embarrassing as Michael Parkinson being attacked by Rod Hull and Emu on his own show some years before). 

In more recent years, Jonathan Ross, having started on Channel 4 in The Last Resort in 1987, had been an occasional holiday relief on Terry Wogan’s chat show and presenter of the one-to-one interview series Jonathan Ross Presents, as well as presenting his Radio 2 show since 1999 and co-hosting Comic Relief, before he made Friday Night with Jonathan Ross for the BBC in 200 .  Ross then fronted a number of other programmes including the Film series (1999-2010), and programmes about his interest in cult movies and comic books.  In 2010 after various controversies, culminating in his suspension over the Russell Brand ‘prank’ call scandal, Ross decided not to renew his contract when it expired, and the following year began his current ITV chat show.

Another area that has seen a large number of programmes swapping channels is in the field of bought-in series.  Many of these may be US series which had no original connection with a particular British broadcaster, and the same has happened with other countries’ output, notably Neighbours, originally shown in the UK on BBC1 from 1986 before it moved to Channel Five in 2008.  

However some ITV programmes from the 1960s, cult favourites such as Gerry Anderson’s puppet series Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, live-action series The Prisoner, Man in a Suitcase and The Champions to name a few, were also purchased by the BBC in the 1990s and 2000s, and were shown either in early evening BBC2 slots or on BBC4.

As The Voice shows, in a world where TV formats are internationally exchangeable properties, and rights are not always exclusively tied to one broadcasting company, we have not have seen the last of shows that jump from one channel to another…

On this day 60 years ago, ITV took to the air for the very first time. But its thunder was stolen by the shock death of Grace Archer in BBC radio soap The Archers, which left the nation open-mouthed.

Of course there was no indication of what was going to happen in the listings - the billing for 22 September 1955 is minimal at best and carries only the show's tagline, "a story of country folk".

However, actress Ysanne Churchman, now aged 90, says the demise of her character was caused by her own efforts to secure a better pay deal for her work on the soap, although it was presumed the ploy was to scupper ITV's launch.

A new radio play about the night Grace Archer perished and the story behind this memorable event was recently broadcast on Radio 4.