British Sitcom History Podcast

We promise this is our last venture into the world of Grace Brothers but this 2016 reboot was too good to miss. Loads of top comedy actors and a seemingly genuine attempt to recreate the magic that actually works pretty well. But at the end of the day, what's the point?

As we recently looked at series 2 of Blackadder, we thought we'd go over it in a bit more detail and see just how historically accurate it all is.

To get even further into the Are You Being Served universe, we take a look at the frankly unnecessary retooling that was Grace & Favour, getting the band back together for one last tour. But before that, we take a quick look at the failed pilot for an American remake, entitled Beane's of Boston, and a slightly more successful Australian remake.

If you had a successful sitcom in the seventies then the only logical thing to do was to send your characters on holiday for the silver screen version. Are You Being Served was no exception and in the 1977 film spinoff we get all our favourites enjoying the baking hot sun of Elstree Studios.

Okay, it's not a great film overall but is it true to the spirit of the show?

This week we pop into Valco in Warrington for a big shop that includes Carl Rice and Beverly Rudd. We also take a look at what happens in the later series as the show goes from sketch-like o soap-like. But we still like it for some reason.

This week we're taking a look at the Sky sitcom Trollied. Set in a supermarket in Warrington, the show ran for several years in the 2010s but because it wasn't on proper telly we didn't really notice. But it's actually quite good so let's get up to speed.

In part two of our look at The Marriage Lines, we get up close and personal with the career of Prunella Scales and get nostalgic about the 1960s (even though neither of us were born then).

This week, we take a look at early domestic sitcom The Marriage Lines. The first big hit for sitcom royalty Richard Briers and Prunella Scales, the show ran for five series but only two remain on record today.

It's time for part 2 of our look at Hippies, in which we take a closer look at Julian Rhind-Tutt and Darren Boyd and make unnecessarily personal comments about their looks. We also get into Simon Pegg's childhood because Allen has read Pegg's autobiography!

Hippies was a coming together of a lot of up and coming talent right at the end of the 20th century, but something about it doesn't quite click. We dig deep to see what's going on.