What comedies do you laugh most about?

@Picklebobble2 I've seen Jack Dee. He did a show my University.

@Jacko1971 What was he like on stage?

@ArishMell He was alright. Much as he is on the TV. Deadpan and self effacing. He said he had a new suit fitted. He asked the tailor if it made him look fat wearing it. The tailor replied " why wouldn't it".

It was 25 years ago so I don't remember too much of it.

@Crazychick One strength [i]I think[/i] often overlooked of [i]Only Fools and Horses[/i] was the continuing stories of the characters, beyond the obvious comedy of their hapless attempts to make money or get the better of Trigger.

I gather some years later the BBC started repeating episodes from it, but all selected randomly with no regard for the personal narratives of the characters - if so, an appalling thing to do to it.

It came from an era of very insightful writing - and knowing when to stop - rather than mere playing for laughs. Drama as exemplified in the ultimate episodes of [i]Blackadder[/i] and of [i]Butterflies[/i].

[i]Blackadder[/i] famously ended in that deeply poignant Western Front scene, as the shell smoke slowly cleared to reveal the poppies in bloom.

Very different in tone, did you see the special one-off [i]Butterflies [/i]episode made for one Christmas years later; with the characters having been allowed to age and developed naturally with their actors in that time? It finally answered the question that had permeated almost all of the series and was left never quite answered by the dramatic pathos of their final episode.

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I had seen these mainly while still living with my parents. Since fledging I have never had a TV, so do not know present-day TV comedy. Does it writers still have any such sensibilities, or is their work all just safe playing for belly-laughs?

@ArishMell I haven't seen much of "Butterflies". We haven't got that on DVD, whereas we've got the ones I mentioned.

@Crazychick Each episode was a self-contained story about a family who would naturally not have much story between them; but the continuing thread was that harmless will-they-won't-they flirtation between Wendy Craig's character and the rich but lonely businessman she met in the public park he used for a daily run.

A lot of the 1960s radio comedies are aired now on BBC Radio Four Extra, but while I enjoyed them when I were a lad I think I'd find some of them rather samey now. Their problem was that of being closed situation comedies, so after a time it becomes hard to find fresh adventures for the characters.

[i]Round The Horne [/i]was different and very daring for its time. Especially the Jules and Sandy sketches, though they were only a short part of each show. In them, the link comedian Kenneth Horne was the literal and figurative straight man to the double act of Kenneth Williams and I think Hugh Paddick playing two homosexual shop-owners, Julian and Sandy. Their speech was full of strange slang I learnt only quite recently was genuinely used by those now preferring the slang American epithet of "gay" - which still had its proper meaning in Britain in the 1960s.

Saddest in outcome of the "sit-coms" was [i]The Clitheroe Kid[/i]. The actor Jimmy Clitheroe was short enough to play the schoolboy of the title, using his own name, in stories set around his and his best pal's families. Think of Dennis The Menace, of [i]The Beano[/i], and you've some idea of the setting. After the radio plays finally ended, Clitheroe toured the act in theatres but as he grew older he became less credible and more absurd; and by now was too affixed to the role to make a worthwhile career in grown-up parts. I don't know what became of him eventually.

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Though it was not a comedy as such, my parents and I always enjoyed the erudite but very witty [i]My Word[/i], introduced if I remember aright as, "A panel game played by people whose business is words". The same two men and two women in every show were all professional writers in various ways.

@Jacko1971 Considered quite risky at the time. The BBC liked to play safe with the sitcom idea hence the 65 episodes of Terry and June 😖

@Picklebobble2 I don't mind a bit of gentle comedy.

Not The Nine O Clock News was on BBC 2 at 9 O'clock (Hence the name). All the alternative comedies were started on BBC2.

@Picklebobble2 Another two for your list of films:

[i]The Big Bus[/i] - American set and made, satire on "road movies" and science-fiction; about the maiden- transcontinental journey of the articulated behemoth that was the "world's first nuclear-powered bus".

[i]Traffic [/i](I think that was its title.) No, not the bleak one about junkies in Glasgow. This early -1970s, gentle satire on the motor-trade, was set in France and depicted the efforts of a family garage business to take their prototype caravanette conversion of a small Citrӧen van, across the country to the Paris Motor Show.

@bijouxbroussard This looks like it's a remake of a UK comedy called ghosts, or maybe it's the other way round. I'll have to google.

@SW-User It is a remake ! I’ve been trying to find where the bbc version is streaming so I can watch that, too.