A British sitcom or a Britcom is a situational comedy programme produced for British television.
Leslie Samuel Phillips was an English actor. He achieved prominence in the 1950s, playing smooth, upper-class comic roles utilising his "Ding dong" and "Hello" catchphrases. He appeared in the Carry On and Doctor in the House film series as well as the long-running BBC radio comedy series The Navy Lark. In his later career, Phillips took on dramatic parts including a BAFTA-nominated role alongside Peter O'Toole in Venus (2006). He provided the voice of the Sorting Hat in three of the Harry Potter films.
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about a father-and-son rag-and-bone business in 26a Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC in black and white from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974 in colour. The lead roles were played by Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett. The theme tune, "Old Ned", was composed by Ron Grainer. The series was voted 15th in a 2004 poll by the BBC to find Britain's Best Sitcom. It was remade in the United States as Sanford and Son, in Sweden as Albert & Herbert, in the Netherlands as Stiefbeen en zoon, in Portugal as Camilo & Filho, and in South Africa as Snetherswaite and Son. Two film adaptations of the series were released in cinemas, Steptoe and Son (1972) and Steptoe and Son Ride Again (1973).
Galton and Simpson were a British comedy scriptwriting duo, who wrote for radio, television and film, consisting of Ray Galton OBE and Alan Simpson OBE. They are best known for their work with comedian Tony Hancock on radio and television between 1954 and 1961 and their long-running television situation comedy, Steptoe and Son, eight series of which were aired between 1962 and 1974, they had an association lasting 60 years.
Jonathan Leslie Powell is an English former television producer and executive. His senior positions in television included serving as the Head of BBC Drama Series and Serials and Controller of BBC1. He later became a professor and head of department of Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Comedy Playhouse is a long-running British anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms that aired for 128 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including Steptoe and Son, Meet the Wife, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas and Gaiters, Up Pompeii!, Not in Front of the Children, Me Mammy, That's Your Funeral, The Liver Birds, Are You Being Served? and particularly Last of the Summer Wine, which is the world's longest running sitcom, having run from January 1973 to August 2010. In all, 27 sitcoms started from a pilot in the Comedy Playhouse strand.
Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted. The individual episodes were between fifty and a hundred minutes in duration. A handful of these plays, including Rumpole of the Bailey, subsequently became television series in their own right.
Derek Stanley Royle was a British actor. His face was probably better known than his name to British viewers, but he acted in films and TV from the early 1960s until his death. He had a supporting role in the Beatles' film Magical Mystery Tour in 1967, as well as a minor one with Cilla Black in the film Work Is a Four-Letter Word a year later.
Play of the Month is a BBC television anthology series, which ran from 1965 to 1983 featuring productions of classic and contemporary stage plays which were usually broadcast on BBC1. Each production featured a different work, often using prominent British stage actors in the leading roles. The series was transmitted regularly from October 1965 to May 1979, before returning for the summer seasons of 1982 and 1983. The producer most associated with the Play of the Month series was Cedric Messina. Thirteen productions were also shown previously or subsequently on BBC2 in the period 1971-73 under Stage 2. Productions were broadcast in colour from November 1969.
DEF II was a programming strand on BBC2, which aired at 6 pm on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 May 1988 to 23 May 1994, to serve the teenage market. It was produced by Janet Street-Porter, and followed on from her influential youth TV show Network 7 on Channel 4.
Sheila Susan White was an English film, television and stage actress.
Wilfred Duncan Wood was a British comedy producer, director and writer, who has been described as "the founding father of the British TV sitcom".
The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins is a 1971 British sketch comedy film directed and produced by Graham Stark. Its title is a conflation of The Magnificent Seven and the seven deadly sins. It comprises a sequence of seven sketches, each representing a sin and written by an array of British comedy-writing talent, including Graham Chapman, Spike Milligan, Barry Cryer and Galton and Simpson. The sketches are linked by animation sequences overseen by Bob Godfrey's animation studio. The music score is by British jazz musician Roy Budd, cinematography by Harvey Harrison and editing by Rod Nelson-Keys and Roy Piper. It was produced by Tigon Pictures and distributed in the U.K. by Tigon Film Distributors Ltd.
Francis George Middlemass was an English actor, who even in his early career played older roles. He is best remembered for his television roles as Rocky Hardcastle in As Time Goes By, Algy Herries in To Serve Them All My Days, and Dr. Alex Ferrenby in 20 episodes of Heartbeat. Middlemass was also active in the Royal Shakespeare Company, and was the fourth and final actor to play Dan Archer in The Archers.
Reginald Albert Saltmarsh, known by the stage name Reginald Marsh, was an English actor who is best remembered for supporting roles in many British sitcoms from the 1970s onwards.
Crooks Anonymous is a 1962 British comedy film directed by Ken Annakin, and starring Leslie Phillips and Stanley Baxter and Julie Christie, in her film debut. It was written by Henry Blyth and Jack Davies.
Not Now, Darling is a 1973 British comedy film directed by Ray Cooney and David Croft and starring Trudi Van Doorn, Leslie Phillips and Julie Ege. It was adapted from the 1967 play of the same title by John Chapman and Ray Cooney. The film is a farce centred on a shop in London that sells fur coats. A loosely related sequel Not Now, Comrade was released in 1976.
The Doctor novels are a series of 18 comic novels by British physician Richard Gordon, covering the antics of a group of young doctors. They were published between 1952 and 1986.
Just My Luck is a 1957 British sports comedy film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring Norman Wisdom, Margaret Rutherford, Jill Dixon and Leslie Phillips. It was written by Peter Cusick, Alfred Shaughnessy and Peter Blackmore.
The Culture Vultures is a British sitcom that aired on BBC1 in 1970. The series starred Leslie Phillips as a university lecturer and three episodes were co-written by Tim Brooke-Taylor. The entire series was wiped and is no longer thought to exist.
