the five best british tv programmes ever

There are loads of other comedies I could have chosen. I note that the two things we might call dramas on there are comedies as well. I was tempted by some Bleasedale and Potter dramas too, but Britain has no long continuing dramas in the Homicide/Buffy/Sopranos/Oz/Twin Peaks class, for me.

And what about Are You Being Served? It's not that grate, but everyone seems to think so.

british humour = unfunny whimsy (largely)

never heard of this so yes, it is anti canon (as long as it was an actualt TV prog).

i liked wheel of fortune too.

that's right! dude!

Certainly not! It is the epitome of crap British humour. I fucking hate Porridge, Steptoe and Son, Reginald Perrin, the Young Ones, Bottom and Dad's Army also. And don't get me started on Harry Fucking Enfield's sketch shows. I prefer American humour: snappy one-liners coming in all the time. Sharper and funnier.

I'll stop ranting now. I also enjoy Inspector Morse and Match of the Day.

Bottom, for instance, is about sadness and waste in a small way, but more about farting and people acting overtly mad. That's why it's not so good. Alan Partridge turned bad when it just became people acting overtly mad.

A lot of the best British comedies aren't supposed to be as constantly funny as US ones. Which sounds daft, but comedy isn't only about laughs.

The very worst British sitcoms seem to be the ones that do try to be constantly funny. They are series of dramatised jokes, whose characters are as empty as "an englishman, irishman and a scotsman".

Keeping up appearances I've actually watched quite a bit but I wouldn't include it in a top 5 if even it meant making it a top 4.

why the hell hasn't anyone said ab fab?

A couple of crime shows, to widen the discussion: the first two or three Prime Suspects were first class, from back in the 70s there was the excellent Z Cars, and any show (there were a couple) where Stratford Jones played a cop called Barlow was worth staying in for (on a weeknight at least). I remember one time Barlow and his off-sider tried to 'investigate' the Jack The Ripper murders.

Under-rated if not absolutely forgotten 70s crime show: The Expert, with Marius Goring. Moody, atmospheric, brooding air of menace (if I was being a pretentious turd I'd probably throw Hitchcock in somewhere around here) and all brilliantly underproduced.

Bad comedies: Men Behaving Badly is crappola ultra maxima. What is even remotely amusing about that useless obnoxious bog-thick emotionally-backward waste of space Tony? AYBS aged badly after not being funny in 1974. Another shocker, that Foxtel have recently resurrected for no obvious reason, was 'And Mother Makes Three'.

1. Cracker - brilliant, creepy, intelligent. And Fitz is oddly sexy.
2. Keeping-up Appearances - I fear I see bits of myself in Hyacinth, Rose, and Daisy. I think the show is good for me to watch, as it shows me some of my flaws.
3. Chef - I rarely caught it, but when I did I'd be rolling with laughter.
4. Hitchhiker's Guide - my first introduction to the marvelous stories were via the BBC shortwave, which was a direct audio feed from the TV.
5. And I am torn between the early Python skits and Jonathan Creek (the latter mainly for the Danse Macabre musical theme) for my last entry.

Maybe I need to move across the pond to broaden my experience? Or would moving to Canada suffice?

1. Gangsters (late '70s) - completely mentalist Birmingham-set series with Saeed Jaffrey and others which ended up looking in its own mirror. does anyone else remember this masterpiece?

2. Perrin - the reversal of the final line of Brief Encounter which ends the first series; the arguably greater ruination of the second series - does he commit suicide for real?

3. The Prisoner, BUT only the seven episodes which McGoohan originally intended should constitute the series, i.e. Arrival, Chimes of Big Ben, Free For All, Dance Of The Dead, Checkmate, Once Upon A Time and Fall Out. I will be doing my own take on these on CoM as soon as Robin's watched 'em.

4. The Singing Detective - owes an AWFUL lot to The Prisoner (lip-synching to Dem Bones, amongst other things) but Potter's hand on the tiller was steadier and less easily appropriable by cultists.

5. Paul Morley's one-off chat show on C4 about ten years ago - Steve Beresford directed the house band, Massive Attack collide with Brian Conley; complete genius, why was there never another?

Gene Hunt, a dud? WTF?

had to listen to that fucker doing his gruff voiceovers for whatever... car insurance ads, terrible documentaries for years after LOM had disappeared from memory

Well, I suppose I can count myself fortunate for having missed that, but that character was classic.

There was a short-lived American version with Harvey Keitel in the Gleinster role. Terribly miscast.

youtube.com/@playforforever/videos

worth a look when you have the odd hour to kill

saw Just A Boys' Game for the first time recently and enjoyed it

just watched this, The Black Tower from 1987, a short (23 minute) art film of the sort you used to encounter on Channel 4 when they needed something to fill the schedule. Highly recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw6exAfUWMI

currently watching The Out of Town Boys. It's a gritty Irish building contractor in the Midlands drama with corruption, family intrigue and shit plus a young Stephen Rea in it. Probably one of the more average ones so far but still very good.

If I had to pick 5 based on pure enjoyment...

A Very Peculiar Practice
Callan
Public Eye
Doctor Who (which doesn't really deserve it on quality but definitely for cultural impact/nostalgia reasons)
Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into The Future

With honourable mentions to Penda's Fen, The Power Game, Spindoe (amazing), various Out Of The Unknowns...

side-order of sheepish olive branch to a certain PFT acolyte I may have waged unseemly beef on earlier :/

accepted, sorry if my reaction felt disproportionate

Thead just reminded me that I have that chunky Alan Clarke box and I never really cracked it open (although I did see a bunch of his work at a film festival decades ago).

*osamathumbup.jpg @ NV and no, deserved*

These are all great ty! Shall delve into these as far as low-res free streaming permits

The Black Tower is one of my favourite things ever, no joke. Cheers CAAL for posting it. So great

As for Alan Clarke, in addition to Penda's Fen, Made In Britain and Scum are ofc superb, but the latter in particular is also monstrously upsetting

I can't rewatch some of the Clarke ones like Scum, The Firm and Made In Britain. I knew a wannabe hooli who wore out his VHS tapings of these and would put them on all the time and he ruined them all for me.

Public Eye

yes^ sad that so few of the earlier episodes are still extant, but really comes into its own during the post-prison brighton set series.

The Black Tower is one of my favourite things ever, no joke. Cheers CAAL for posting it. So great

same. recommendations for anything in a similar vein very appreciated.

Mubi has 7 of John Smith's short films up, I've only watched a few of them (including The Black Tower), but I liked them - https://mubi.com/en/cast/john-smith/films/available

Even Son of Man? I’d love a Potter box set, but I’m not holding my breath due to music clearance issues

I have Son of Man from a shitty youtube rip - and I think at this point I have almost every Potter drama that currently exists, including Emergency Ward 9, if you need anything.

(Apparently a new HD master of Double Dare was struck for that Play For Today documentary a couple of years ago, but annoyingly it hasn't surfaced since)

God, The Black Tower is so good.

I didn't know any of these were currently on Mubi. But I was a web search and wasn't signed into the app.. durr. That's great because a lot of the YT rips are piss poor.

from the BBC's Wednesday Play series, Drums Along The Avon (1967), experimental race relations satire featuring Leonard Rossiter. The script is by Charles Wood who wrote the screenplay for the Beatles Help!, and also adapted The Knack ...and How to Get It, The Bed Sitting Room, Red Monarch and An Awfully Big Adventure for the screen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehxczKg1Sk0.

I thought 'the Year of the Sex Olympics' was a PfT but apparently it was for something slightly different. Would still recommend it for fans of PfT format. Also 'Whistle and I'll Come to You' was for Omnibus, but is amazing.

― emil.y

apparently they _could_ do chromadot colour recovery on it, it just seems insane to me that they haven't yet

from callan i've only seen "a magnum for schneider" thus far but god, joseph furst. i'd only previously seen him in "the underwater menace"...

Thead just reminded me that I have that chunky Alan Clarke box and I never really cracked it open (although I did see a bunch of his work at a film festival decades ago).

― meat and two vdgg (emsworth), Tuesday, 8 August 2023 03:07 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I rented the two Clarke box sets in the dying days of Love Film. The standout for me was Christine, one of the late Steadicam jams, about teenage heroin addicts. Combination of long walking sequences with dead, airless shooting up sections, is very powerful - alive and enervated. Annoyingly, the BFI have not issued it on a separate disc as they did with Penda's Fen and Contact.

UK Mubi also has John Smith's hilarious The Girl Chewing Gum, which still seems like an idea waiting to be exploited/explored.

Imago, you should check this out. Great play about a tense post-war class stand off. Better and more powerful than most Brit films from that era

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0233488/

I thought 'the Year of the Sex Olympics' was a PfT but apparently it was for something slightly different. Would still recommend it for fans of PfT format. Also 'Whistle and I'll Come to You' was for Omnibus, but is amazing.
― emil.y

apparently they _could_ do chromadot colour recovery on it, it just seems insane to me that they haven't yet

― Kate (rushomancy), Wednesday, 9 August 2023 06:22 (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I know it was originally made in colour and that only a black and white version survived, but I really like how it looks in black and white, the lighting and the shiny make-up everyone in the hi-drive city is wearing make everything look glamourous and shiny and shimmering, and really shows the contrast with the footage on the island, also Tony Vogel really looks like a silent-movie leading man in this with all the dramatic horrified looks he keeps giving, and I think the b&w helps sell that.

there are some (colour) drawings of the original costume designs here: https://www.facebook.com/1174000892772676/posts/the-year-of-the-sex-olympics-no2more-of-joyce-hammonds-costume-designs-for-the-y/1187459238093508/

xp will definitely see that, after watching 'the country party' ofc because god knows we all need to know what befalls our favourite dysfunctional family

tinker tailor
monthy python
university challenge
yes minister
civilization

if i had to pick today

youtube.com/@playforforever/videos

worth a look when you have the odd hour to kill

saw Just A Boys' Game for the first time recently and enjoyed it

― Windsor Davies, Monday, 7 August 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Impressive how much there is on that channel. Just from a skim (not sure about quality, nevertheless..)

Here's my top five:

Brideshead Revisited
The Jewel in the Crown
Our Friends in the North
Edge of Darkness
Can't Get You Out Of My Head

edge of darkness was sneaking around my list too def

I never heard of Edge of Darkness before. I must seek it out.

I don’t have much confidence that my own list of programmes would stand up to scrutiny if I re-watched them, but at the time these were what most interested me:

The Tomorrow People (mid-70s children’s tv)
The London Weekend Show (mid-late 70s documentary series with Janet Street Porter)
A Very Peculiar Practice (1980s)
Spaced (late 90s)
This Life (late 90s)

Ok, let's have a go then

The Prisoner
The Singing Detective
The Beiderbecke Affair (& sequels)
Abroad In Britain (& sequels)
Peep Show

Excluding one-offs and long series that ebbed and flowed in terms of quality, for the sake of sanity.

i don't know, just some random picks

ways of seeing
late night line-up
spyder's web
king of the castle
and, i don't know, snuff box. because why not.

yeah i mean i have kind of a thing for the 1970s.

no wait "look around you" instead of "snuff box".

Brookside (1982-1994)
Peep Show
I'm Alan Partridge
The Nazis: A Warning from History
The Power of Nightmares

Omega Factor
Out of the Unknown
Trumpton/Camberwick Green/Chigley
The Prisoner
Dr Who

I can’t think of anything that hasn’t been mentioned already so here’s what I would’ve picked in 1991:

Boon
Taggart
Red Dwarf
Press Gang
El CID
Nightingales

…although I’d probably still pick “Press Gang”

MaresNest - i want to love Omega Factor but i find it flat sadly - maybe i need to watch it with a different mindset? as often with old UK TV I love the pacing & incidental details (sets, clothes, occasional mystifying directorial choices) - but i can't really get into the plotting and don't really warm to the characters - all of which would be fine if it was genuinely unnerving but it doesn't quite hit that note for me? i'm stuck about halfway through the series, I will knock it over one of these days!

no lime tangier - yeah that Brighton series is exceptional - slight reduction in quality after that but the whole series (or what remains) is consistently great - I remember being so taken with Alfred Burke's performance, and the idea of Marker as a loner who was happy enough to be that way - he was a compelling character without needing to be saddled with a tragic backstory or personal problems that required solving for cheap catharsis

re Alan Clarke - I remember particularly enjoying Beloved Enemy (1981) - a Play For Today about backroom relationships between government and multinational companies - very deliberately talky and undramatic, but super compelling - it is still a personal yardstick for "I can't believe they got to make this for prime time TV" - and it is nice to see Graeme Crowden in serious mode

No I Clavdivs?

(i clavdivs starts on bbc4 next week)

One I'm going to watch again is the Sartre wartime trilogy adaptation The Roads to Freedom. Last time it was on i-player I didn't finish it before it disappeared again. Found a big 12 GiB and still active demonoid torrent of it. The gay character in it would have caused Mary Whitehouse to have a brain stroke, incredible that this was broadcast in 1970 without causing huge controversy.

That was on recently, BBC4 I assume.

yeah it comes and goes on bbc4

Footballers Wives
Night & Day
As If
Bad Girls
The Chart Show

I don’t think anyone had mentioned Howard Brenton’s extraordinary Dead Head (1986), which came out within months of The Singing Detective and Edge of Darkness. The peak of Thatcherism was an incredible time in British broadcasting.

Also shouting out Mr. Wroe’s Virgins (1993) starring Jonathan Pryce and directed by Danny Boyle

Ahhhh Blue Remembered Hills is on the iPlayer ahhhh. Finally get to see it tonight!

Is it odd that my family used to sit down every Thursday night to watch the latest episode of The Singing Detective? Best show ever obv

I've never seen Blue Remembered Hills

No, it’s not odd at all. British television, particularly in the mid-80’s, was just extraordinary. Edge of Darkness, Tutti Frutti, The Boys from Blackstuff-virtually nothing from America can touch them

I really love Karaoke and Cold Lazarus. Potter’s scripts, like Tom Stoppard’s plays, are just as exciting and dazzling on page as they are to watch, and I have most of his works on paper, including some I produced scripts (The White Hotel, which David Lynch would’ve made if Twin Peaks had not been greenlit, and Cradle Song)

We watched Traitor last week cos that's on the iPlayer too. Excellent stuff

going to have re-watch Cold Lazarus, not seen it since it was originally aired.

Karaoke is on BBC4/iPlayer next weekend. (I think it might be on All4 with Cold Lazarus already, though?)