A common touch

DEL BOY, Norman Stanley Fletcher, Harold Steptoe – there’s a good chance none of these salt-of-theearth comedy heroes ever uttered a gag that ended with the punchline “balsamic vinaigrette”.

Take one look at the great TV comedies of former decades and the schedules were packed with stories of chancers and grafters, all far more at home picking out racehorses at the kitchen table with a cup of tea than flicking through their iPhones over a latte.

But the comedy landscape of today seems to have become a middle-class preserve. Witness Miranda Hart bumbling around all jolly hockey sticks, or mum and dad deciding to economise in Outnumbered by pitting their own olives. So where does the “common man”

find his sitcom life equivalent?

New BBC1 boss Danny Cohen is reportedly concerned by this turn of events. Sources say the 36-year-old feels the channel is too focused on formats about comfortable, well-off, middleclass families. Cohen apparently believes we need more blue-collar comedies.

On the surface, that seems hard to argue with. Since Porridge, Bread, Birds Of A Feather, Brush Strokes, Rising Damp, Steptoe And Son, Only Fools And Horses and Till Death Do Us Part left our screens, only The Royle Family has really picked up the working-class sitcom baton.

While Cohen has refused to be drawn on rumours that he is considering changes to the corporation’s output, reports of his possible intentions have engaged comedy fans in ferocious debate.

Mark Boosey, editor of comedy website The British Comedy Guide, says: “Look at My Family with their huge house. Compare that to the old days of Bread with all these people crammed in together. If you looked at just the TV representations of British life, you would think we were all middle-class now.”

Boosey thinks the rot set in when middleclass graduates began surging towards a career in television. “People write about what they know and the people who are writing the sitcoms that get commissioned are from middle-class backgrounds,” he says.

“For most working-class people, pursuing a dream of being a comedy writer is impossible.”

But AOL’s TV editor, Andy Welch, disagrees, adding that questions of class simply don’t apply to comedy.

He says: “I don’t really know what they mean by ‘working-class comedy’. If something’s funny, it’s funny. Are BBC bosses suggesting working-class people are less likely to relate to a sitcom if it doesn’t involve pies?

“Things like Outnumbered and My Family might be smug. And in the case of My Family, not very funny. But that’s not the same thing.”

PERHAPS portrayals of working-class life have simply grown up. Where we once mercilessly mocked Del Boy, now more complex characters such as Frank Gallagher, in Shameless, challenge our minds as well as tickling our ribs.

Stand-up comic Dave Spikey, from Bolton, who co-created Phoenix Nights, believes things have definitely gone too far.

“Sure, comedy evolves and there’s a degree of natural progression, but there should be something for everybody. The programme makers run the risk of alienating a huge part of their audience,” he says.

Pete Thornton, who recently left the BBC to become commissioning editor at cable channel Comedy Central, says he was expected to serve a class-led agenda. After a decade there, he now thinks the whole class thing is a red herring.

“I was at the Beeb for a long time and the question was often asked, ‘Where’s the next Porridge or Only Fools?’. It’s hard enough to make great comedy. People should just concentrate on making the best they can.”

When he was on the inside, Thornton says questions of class were taken very seriously and admits being taken to task for failing to produce working-class sitcoms.

“Perhaps sitcoms are more about escapism these days,” he says.

And if that’s the case, expect sitcoms set in bankers’ penthouses to be coming very soon.

SITCOM TIMELINE

FIFTIES

The British sitcom first appeared, epitomised by Hancock’s Half Hour, featuring Tony Hancock, a social climber from a working-class background.

SIXTIES

Steptoe And Son was an iconic workingclass comedy featuring a warring father and son in the rag-and-bone trade. It was one of the most popular sitcoms of the decade, alongside Till Death Us Do Part and The Likely Lads.

SEVENTIES

The middle classes began to enjoy a better representation with Fawlty Towers, The Good Life, Are You Being Served? and To The Manor Born.

EIGHTIES

Eighties Britain spawned anarchic comedies such as The Young Ones and Red Dwarf, as well Blackadder, and Yes, Minister. It was in this decade that John Sullivan began writing Only Fools And Horses, which, by the Nineties, had become the country’s top-rated sitcom.

NINETIES

Niche comedies such as Father Ted and Men Behaving Badly replaced more domestic sitcoms.

NOUGHTIES

A rich time for the sitcom, from Black Books through to Gavin And Stacey. It was a decade which also reignited the domestic sitcom formula with Outnumbered, My Family and Miranda.