Back in 2004 the Beeb ran a poll to find the best British sitcom. As it was completed by less discerning people than ourselves (rumour has it some of them had never even driven an Italian car so what would they know) it's time the poll was run again and answered by people with a modicum of taste

Get voting folks

Woop, first vote

Dad's Army is one of my favourites, along with Last of the Summer Wine.

Surely there can only be one winner?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI41wUYejtI

FECK!

If Mrs Browns boys wins this poll, i will track down whoever voted for it one by one and give them a very severe lecture.

Voted Fawlty Towers, short run but the quality of it was high all the way through and it still stands up well today. Father Ted is a very close second for me, there are some absolutely brilliant moments, only misses out because some of the gags in it started to get a little repetitive.

Would say of those on the list, Only Fools and Horses, although good hasn't aged well at all.

Must admit Mark, I was similar with Ted/Fawlty. Fawlty, clearly being the second choice.

And yeh, great as OFAH is it's aged terribly. But then it's a product of it's time.

oh dear, i better run and hide lol

richard33dees said:

oh dear, i better run and hide lol

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Noted

I can't get my head around why anyone would thing it's the funniest British sitcom of all time, It's just an unfunny man dressed as a woman, if it was a woman playing the lead, it probably wouldn't even register as a comedy. It's just flavour of the month at the moment, much like other shows like the Inbetweeners were.

It's not even on the same planet as the likes of Father Ted, Fawlty Towers, Still Game, Red Dwarf, OFAH, Dads Army etc etc.

It'd be boring if we all liked the same though, opinions and all

I can't stand Mrs Browns Boys, if I wanted to see a man dressing as a woman on TV I'd go watch Mrs Doubtfire.
Faulty Towers was always funny, OFAH as Mark & Martyn have said, while it's good, it's aged realy badly.

Mrcento said:

I can't get my head around why anyone would thing it's the funniest British sitcom of all time

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now that is pushing it, luckily that wasn't the question lol.

I don't often watch comedies anyway so from the choice it's probably the one I'd chose to watch. In hindsight, I should have went other and said inbetweeners, could watch that all day long, unfortunately I don't think the actors/comedians have done anything good since.

You are all too young to remember Yes Minister followed by Yes Prime Minister. I got the boxed set and its still stands up today, very very cleverly written and the three main stars played it spot on.

Cheers

D

Isn't that back on again? I'm sure I heard of a reboot of that?

richard33dees said:

now that is pushing it, luckily that wasn't the question lol.

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But it is the question when you see the potential answers are from various eras

Mrcento said:

Noted

I can't get my head around why anyone would thing it's the funniest British sitcom of all time, It's just an unfunny man dressed as a woman, if it was a woman playing the lead, it probably wouldn't even register as a comedy. It's just flavour of the month at the moment, much like other shows like the Inbetweeners were.

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richard33dees said:

now that is pushing it, luckily that wasn't the question lol.

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Mrcento said:

But it is the question when you see the potential answers are from various eras

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Just to clarify, I deliberately kept the wording of the poll as vague as the Beeb did precisely because it's such a subjective question. For instance, some people would regard the best sitcom as the one with the greatest writing but for others it might be the programme that makes them laugh the most. Perhaps it's the sitcom you regard as cleverer than any other or just the one you could watch time and time again and not get fed up with it. How you interpret the question is entirely up to you

Carry on folks I'll post my answer later tonight

Coming up with the shortlist for this poll was no easy task and there are many favourites I had to leave out because I just couldn't justify including them no matter how much I love them. For instance I never thought I'd have a poll of British sitcoms that didn't include Spaced but because it relied so heavily on pop references I'm not sure teenagers/early 20s would get it nowadays. Perhaps I'm wrong...

Anyway, at the risk of writing an essay comedy is quite personal and what one person finds funny another doesn't. I never found OFAH as funny as everyone else - yes there were a few stand-out moments such as the chandelier and Del-Boy not quite propping up the bar but it wasn't something I kicked myself for missing. Green Wing on the other hand appealed to me immediately for it's anarchy, quirky humour and improvisation and I made sure it was recorded so I didn't miss a bit. And yet it's not my favourite although it's pretty high up.

Much as I love the satire of Yes Minister/Prime Minister, the dodgy sets and humour of Red Dwarf, the characters in Black Books none of them are my out and out favourite. That spot belongs to Blackadder (series 2-4 only though) and is one of the few absolutes in my life. It tickles my puerile sense of humour (a turnip shaped like a thingy) whilst pandering to my anal-ness of getting history right (Raleigh and the potato, sets etc). The acting is over-the-top yet excellent (Fry as the Duke of Wellington is series 3, any episode with Rik Mayall) and then there's Rowan Atkinson who will never be Mr Bean as far as I am concerned. Or is that Mr Bean is nothing to do with Rowan Atkinson... Whatever it is he's Blackadder first and foremost.

What did I say about not writing an essay... Yeah, yeah I know none of you believed me :laugh:

oh mrs browns boys IS a comedy ha, Rallycinq thanks for the compliment but i do remember yes minister also watched porridge (still good) and whats the green wing?

As much as I love red dwarf it crowd and black books my vote I think has to go to ideal. I also have to say how can Mrs browns boys be classed as one of the best situation comedy's is beyond me.

I think mrs browns boys is hilarious, but for me I dont understand how it can be outvoting the classics, just dont mention the war/ducks off hahaha

Blackbooks, the piano one was my personal favourite.

Blackadder goes forth was my favourite season.

The episode for only fools when del falls through the bar before saying drink up trig we're leaving. big lol's