Before streaming became a viable means of viewing television programming, Americans had a sketchy look at British sitcoms, Britcoms. For reasons of extreme popularity, I surmise, WMHT repeatedly programs As Time Goes By and Keeping Up Appearances every Saturday evening. Through the years, PBS and other outlets have presented such wonderful, now classic, comedies as To the Manor Born, The Vicar of Dibley, French and Saunders, and Absolutely Fabulous.
At first with VHS tapes and DVDs and now with streaming, license holders ushered in a flow of Britcoms. The Good Life, Rosemary & Thyme, Executive Stress, No Job for a Lady, Home to Roost, The Rag Trade.
With AcornTV and Britbox and other streaming sources, interested viewers now see that those shows are the tip of the Britcom iceberg. Exploring the past seven decades has kept me busy. Here are a few discoveries:
Please Sir! ran for 55 episodes between 1968 and 1972. John Alderton plays a naïve new teacher at the Fenn Street Secondary Modern School. In addition to unruly smart-ass students, he has to deal with oddball school personnel. Many have commented on the casting of the students who seem to be in their mid-twenties, not teens.
Dad’s Army is a comic take on Britain’s Home Guard of World War II. The humor stems from the eccentricities of the characters, most of whom are too old for conscription, and a series of catchphrases that the characters repeat. The series ran for nine seasons, 80 episodes, from 1968-1977.
Hi-de-HI!, which aired nine seasons from 1980-88, focuses on the doings of comics, clowns, jugglers, and magicians who entertain guests at a holiday camp.
The most exciting Britcom that I have come across in my explorations is titled Miranda. It was created and written and stars Miranda Hart as a six-foot+, clumsy Baby Huey type woman in her mid/late thirties. She owns a novelty shop, a joke shop, run by her best friend, a tiny woman, whom she constantly knocks over. Miranda’s mother, played by Patricia Hodge, is stylish, graceful, kind of posh, fun-loving in an odd sort of way, and controlling. She often goofs on her daughter’s awkwardness, makes disparaging remarks about the fact that Miranda isn’t married. The other significant character is handsome Gary, Tom Ellis, who is Miranda’s friend and sometime boyfriend. Many American know Miranda Hart as Chummy on Call the Midwife.
Miranda is one of the funniest sitcoms I ever have seen! It only ran three seasons. Apparently a fourth season was written by Hart, but she felt that she had grown past the character. The show only ran from 2009-2013 plus a few specials. Another take on the ending of the series is that the BBC had not renewed. I have read both versions. In 2021, Miranda was remade as the American sitcom Kat starring Mayim Bialik.
Miranda is my new late-night, go-to show. I laugh out loud even though I am watching an episode I have seen five times. I have four Miranda t-shirts-- and a Miranda key chain and mug which are imprinted with Miranda’s mother’s catchphrase “Such fun.”
The Kristen Wiig character of Aunt Linda, the movie critic on SNL Weekend Update, once said: “Here’s my alley, and this film went straight through it.” That’s how I feel about Miranda. It’s right up my alley, and I will enjoy it till I tire of laughing.
Audrey Kupferberg is a film and video archivist and retired appraiser. She is lecturer emeritus and the former director of Film Studies at the University at Albany and co-authored several entertainment biographies with her late husband and creative partner, Rob Edelman.
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