Category: Sitcoms
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Insert Rentaghost Pun Here
Anyone who ever watched it will have a favourite, or familiar, era of Rentaghost, the long running BBC children’s sitcom of the 1970s and 80s. It was one of those shows that stated its premise in the haunting (geddit?) theme tune. The series ran for 58 episodes over nine series, from 1976 to 1984. It…
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The Much Delayed Second Series Of Nightingales
Nightingales is an excellent sitcom, which aired on Channel 4, and is well worth a watch if you can find it on DVD. It aired in the early months of 1990 for the first series, and was then off screen for nearly three years, with its return marked by a Christmas special, followed by a…
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A (Less Than) Perfect State
A sitcom produced by Verity Lambert and Geoffrey Perkins, directed by Dewi Humphreys, and starring Gwen Taylor, which aired at 8.30pm on BBC One in 1997, should have found an audience. The fact that it was also written by Michael Aitkens, fresh off the back of Waiting For God‘s success, should have added to the…
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Pauline’s Quirkes
The late 1970s seemed to provoke a lot of outrage at the output of children’s television. Grange Hill is the obvious example, but ITV didn’t escape the ire either, not least with Thames Television’s afternoon sketch show Pauline’s Quirkes. The show was devised as a vehicle for Pauline Quirke, who together with Linda Ronson and…
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Rik’s Xmas Helpline
Here’s a rare little treat. Rik promoting YTV’s Christmas Line, as broadcast on 26th December 1987. I think that’s the only time I’ve seen the ear not pop back. It’s clearly been filmed during the making of the first series of The New Statesman, and that’s obviously the office set he’s in.
