Thursday, March 04, 2010

Simon Callow on the great British sitcom

In The Times, Simon Callow recalls his role in Chance In A Million (written by Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen) and considers what makes British sitcoms unique.
It seems to me that many of the creators of British sitcom were... unaware of what they were doing: they just nosed out talent and gave it its head. They were not unduly obsessed with ratings. They trusted their writers and reckoned that on the whole they would come up with something wonderful, given a chance. And they did, again and again. Whether they’re still doing it is another question.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:18 pm

    Shows what he knows.

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  2. I think I've discovered a new inverse ratio: the more layers of bureacracy between a writer and their script, the worse their comedy will be.

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  3. Anonymous5:39 pm

    Commissioners seem to work from a position where they take something promising and reverse engineer it into something mediocre. I'm always loathe to criticize the writers of bad television because often it isn't the writer's fault.

    ReplyDelete

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