BBC Genome Blog Feed

Carla's decades of comedy

2016-05-04T09:00:00+00:00

Family was at the very heart of popular sitcom Bread

It’s a little more than 30 years since Liverpool’s most well-known comedy jewel first came to our screens.

It followed the working class Boswell family struggling through the city’s high unemployment and poor prospects in the late 1980s, painting a bleak yet concurrently warm and hopeful picture of life in one of Britain’s major cities.

With curmudgeonly grandad living next door, single mother and devout Catholic Nellie was the centre of every event and the giver of every command in the house, which she shared with her five adult children: Joey, Jack, Adrian, Aveline and Billy. Each contributed a little each week to the housekeeping fund (collected in a ceramic chicken) through almost entirely illegal means, predominantly benefit fraud and the proceeds from stolen goods.

On the surface they appeared to be a thoroughly disreputable bunch, but the bond between the Boswells, their love for each other and sense of family values helped the show to become a hit with audiences. Debuting on Thursday 1st May 1986 at 9.30pm on BBC1, the sitcom returned for a further six series, totalling 74 episodes by the time we waved goodbye to the clan in November 1991.

However, neither families nor Liverpudlians were virgin territory for the show’s writer-creator, Carla Lane. On 14 April, her first and perhaps most celebrated comedy marked its own anniversary of 47 years.

The Liver Birds was co-created and written by Lane, initially alongside friend and fellow Scouser Myra Taylor. Not just written by women, but also reputedly British television’s first series to focus on two female characters.

The Liver Birds was the first of many Lane comedies to focus on women

After the success of the pilot, a short first series followed quickly, in July of the same year. A second series began in 1971 and even after Myra Taylor chose to quit writing and return to life as a mother, the sitcom returned again and again, bowing out in 1978 with nine series and 80 episodes under its belt. Indeed, the enduring popularity and public fondness for the show was such that a revived 10th series of seven brand new episodes broadcast from 6 May 1996.

Last week also saw the 40th anniversary of Sid James’s death, after collapsing on stage at the Sunderland Empire on 26 April 1976. The star was beloved for his roles in the Carry On films, Hancock’s Half Hour, and a range of his own TV sitcoms – most famously Bless This House.

Running concurrently with The Liver Birds from 1971-6, the ITV sitcom was a huge hit for its star. Created by another writing duo, Vince Powell and Harry Driver, it featured Sid as the father of young adults Mike and Sally, and loving husband to Jean – naturally, none of whom he understood one bit, along with the changing world around him.

Brought to a premature end by James’s death, the series saw a number of other writers brought on board after Powell and Driver moved on to other projects, including Carla Lane, initially with Taylor and later alone. In fact, the pair would be the most prolific contributors to the show: of its 65 episodes, Carla and Myra wrote 15 together, with Lane penning a further 10 by herself.

1974 sitcom No Strings perhaps bridged the gap between these early, more domestic and traditional comedies, and the relationship-focused series for which Carla Lane would become most well-known. It starred Rita Tushingham and Keith Barron as Leonora and Derek. When she takes the spare room in his flat, he’s unaware of the impact she’ll have on his life. The 1975 pilot Going, Going, Gone… Free?, about a woman approaching her decree absolute and looking ahead to a single life was Lane’s next step, although it did not progress to a series.

After her comedy successes, Carla Lane devoted her time to animal rights campaigning

1978, however, brought the hit Butterflies, which ran for four series. The sitcom offered an early role for Nicholas Lyndhurst and starred Wendy Craig as frustrated housewife Ria, ever toying with having an affair with sophisticated, attentive businessman Leonard. Lane brilliantly captured Ria’s turmoil, torn between her loyalty to family and her nice but stultifyingly dull husband Ben (Geoffrey Palmer), and the bright future that may have been just around the corner.

The early 80s would bring Carla Lane in contact with an actress with whom she’d work on a number of sitcoms: The Good Life alumna Felicity Kendal. From 1981, Kendal starred in two series of Lane’s Solo as Gemma Palmer, a woman still desperately in love with the boyfriend she’s just thrown out for sleeping with one of her friends. It’s a fascinating study of a woman’s hatred of her own feelings, and efforts to deny them and stand up for herself as she thinks she should.

Writer and star reunited again from 1985, this time on BBC2, with two series of The Mistress. In this outing, Kendal took on the role of the other woman, florist Maxine. Audiences were initially shocked to see the Good Life sweetheart playing the mistress to Luke. She was seen regularly torn between her feelings for and enjoyment of her relationship with Luke, and the guilt and insecurity in having an affair with a married man.

Turning the tables on the genders, 1981 comedy The Last Song focused on newly single Leo Bannister (Geoffrey Palmer again). Awaiting a divorce from wife Alice, the last thing on his mind is women, but Liz – half his age – appears on the scene and quickly finds her way into his affections.

Here, Lane played not just with age-gap love, but examined very similar relationship turmoil to that in her other shows, albeit here from the other side of the partnership. Eventually Alice would cause Leo further angst by putting the brakes on divorce proceedings.

A second series saw Leo single once more, attempting to maintain amicable contact with his wife whilst improving his relationship with their daughters – one of whom was older than Liz!

Divorce was also explored in Leaving between 1984-5. In this particular series Carla Lane consciously broke further from traditional sitcom format into what would now be called a comedy drama: a more serious tone and subject matter, albeit still with laughs. It told the story of a married couple struggling against life in their joint quest for an amicable divorce.

Later series Screaming failed to scale the heights of Lane's big hits

Also running for two series was I Woke Up One Morning, a mid-80s comedy about four recovering alcoholics who meet whilst receiving psychotherapy treatment in hospital; and Liverpool-set Luv (1993-4), which chartered similar territory to Butterflies: Sue Johnston was unsatisfied housewife Terese to successful businessman Harold, and mother to their three adopted children. Launching with a full 10-episode first series, the programme has been described as a much harsher exploration of the frustrated wife theme, and at times difficult to watch.

Finally, lasting just a single series each, we have 1992’s Screaming and Searching (1995).

Screaming was again far more of a comedy drama than sitcom. It showed three old female school friends, now middle-aged, single, and sharing a house together - but none realises that they have all had liaisons in the past with the same man. Lane put the women’s interrelationships under the spotlight, as well as how their dalliances with men affected each other.

Searching, meanwhile, was Lane’s one and only original sitcom for ITV rather than the BBC, and remains her most recent new series to date. Further muddying the waters of sitcom and drama, star Prunella Scales dubbed it a “drama-doc-sit-trag”. The single series was set at the Sunfield Voluntary Therapy Centre, an experimental institution aiming to assist young women with special psychological needs. Again, many of the womens’ problems revolved around the men in their lives.

At some points one could be forgiven for reading misandry into Lane’s work, particularly in the latter, more serial-drama titles. They can certainly be uncomfortable viewing in places, but the underlying current in these female-centric comedies is far more a study of the female psyche, of the complexities of relationships as experienced by women, and the pressures put upon them – both by themselves, and by society. The characterisation of individual male characters seems to lend less to notions of misandry.

With such a heavy record of female relationship-centric work, it’s unsurprising that Lane is sometimes derided or dismissed as writing exclusively for and about women. It’s clearly a topic that fascinated her, and a criticism that isn’t entirely without basis in fact.

But from the early joys of The Liver Birds to the domestic disharmonies of Bless This House and Bread, she was always a writer capable of much more than she is at times given credit for, and perhaps long overdue a reappraisal. As we mark 30 years since Bread first graced our screens, and with a number of her other titles now available on DVD, it might be time to do just that.

Aaron Brown is editor of the British Comedy Guide

What are your thoughts on the comedy output of Carla Lane? Did you enjoy big hits like Bread or appreciate her later comedy dramas? Please let us know in the space below.

The Sunday Post: Lost laughs

2016-02-14T10:00:00+00:00

Molly Sugden failed to reach the stars with intergalactic sitcom Come Back Mrs Noah

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.

Sci-fi comedy Clone failed to dazzle the imagination

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.

If a comedy like His Lordship Entertains fails to survive, can it become a classic?

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.

The Sunday Post: Switching Sides

2015-11-15T10:00:00+00:00

Sitcom Men Behaving Badly straddled the TV networks

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.

Eamonn Andrews fronted This is Your Life on both the BBC and ITV

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.

Morecambe and Wise were famous side-switchers

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…

Your 'forgotten' 1990s sitcoms

2015-08-24T10:00:00+00:00

Maureen Beattie played a Romanian exile in bakery sitcom All Night Long

A delve into the listings to unearth some long lost sitcoms from the 1990s jogged a lot of memories on Genome's Facebook and Twitter channels. Here's a round-up of comedies from those days which failed to make it beyond one series...

The Sitcom Club nominated All Night Long (pictured above), a 1994 comedy set in a round-the-clock bakery which starred Keith Barron as a reformed burglar and other characters including a Romanian migrant called Vanda. It was on air for just six episodes.

Aaron Brown, meanwhile, says he was a big fan of All Along The Watchtower (pictured below), and is "still gutted" a second series never materialised. The comedy was set at a remote RAF early warning base in a remote part of Scotland, where the news that the Cold War is over hasn't quite hit home.

Another offering from Scotland was The High Life, a caper about the cabin crew of an airline which starred Alan Cumming and mentioned by Chris Gilmour. While it may not have been forgotten, the show only lasted one series plus a pilot episode.

Kevin Ryan contacted us on Facebook suggesting Starting Out, a comedy from the tail end of the 1990s dealing with the romanic entanglings of four people in their twenties. It came from Maurice Gran and Laurence Marks, who write the mighty Birds of a Feather - but this one failed to take flight.

The creators of Father Ted came back with sitcom Hippies, but it was canned after just six episodes and a critical basting. Starring Simon Pegg, the take on 1960s culture was remembered fondly by Simon Love, while Dave Rhodes said: "The hype machine suggested Hippies would be Fawlty-meets-Blackadder - what we got (though good) could never match the marketing."

Thank you for all your suggestions - please keep them coming for this and all other topics.

Scottish offering All Along The Watchtower failed to develop past series one

'Lost' sitcoms of the 90s

2015-08-21T09:00:00+00:00

Honey For Tea failed to match the success of The Good Life for Felicity Kendal

Absolutely Fabulous, The Vicar of Dibley and Keeping Up Appearances are comedies from the 1990s that everyone remembers. They were huge successes and took flight in the imaginations of viewers.

But as well as the triumphs there were sitcoms that failed to to make an impact. It was only working with a collection of programmes from the 90s and Genome that gently reminded me of those short-lived comedies that now languish in the listings.

In 1993, Honey For Tea hit our screens, starring Felicity Kendal as a Californian transplanted to genteel Cambridge. Its first listing stated it "should be guaranteed success" with its writing and acting pedigree. But it was mauled by the critics and didn't survive beyond a first six-part series.

Another star vehicle which was unable to set the world alight was Bonjour La Classe, a sitcom about an idealistic yet hapless languages teacher played by star of The Young Ones, Nigel Planer. It too was cancelled after one series.

Other forgotten 1990s 'gems' and one-series comic wonders that I've encountered on my travels include Every Silver Lining, a "gentle comedy" about an East End cafe. It featured Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs and Frances de la Tour, who has recently appeared in ITV's Vicious.

Caroline Quentin, a cornerstone of the massively successful Men Behaving Badly, also fared less well in Don't Tell Father, a family-based sitcom which didn't have legs in the end.

Discovering long-lost sitcoms is just one journey you can take by delving into the Genome listings, which are filled with the obvious and more hidden. As for comedy series from back in the 1990s, do you still remember the ones that sank almost without trace? Were you sad when they didn't come back? Please let us know!

Niger Planer's hapless Laurence Didcott graced our screens for just six episodes