Comedy.co.uk Awards 2006 results

The results of our first awards, looking at shows from 2006...

Best New TV Sitcom: The IT Crowd

The IT Crowd. Image shows from L to R: Roy (Chris O'Dowd), Jen (Katherine Parkinson), Moss (Richard Ayoade), Douglas Reynholm (Matt Berry). Copyright: TalkbackThames

The IT Crowd, written by Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan, burst onto Channel 4 in a blaze of publicity in February 2006. Some said it was a poor attempt at recreating the success of Craggy Island's insane inhabitants, but others loved the return to a studio-based setup, lapping up the show's gentle look into the nerdy world of computers. You voted with your modems to make this geeky comedy the Best New Sitcom of 2006.

Best Returning TV Sitcom: Green Wing

Green Wing. Image shows from L to R: Guy Secretan (Stephen Mangan), Sue White (Michelle Gomez), Martin Dear (Karl Theobald), Caroline Todd (Tamsin Greig), Mac Macartney (Julian Rhind-Tutt), Boyce (Oliver Chris), Joanna Clore (Pippa Haywood), Alan Statham (Mark Heap). Copyright: Talkback Productions

One of the most successful and popular comedies of the past decade earnt the title of Best Returning Sitcom in 2006, despite not really being a true sitcom (although that's a debate for another day). We bloody loved it, so are very happy with this result. It's not too surprising a winner though we have to say; whilst many fans thought Series 2 wasn't quite as good as the 2004 original, they all agreed it was still one of the funniest shows for years.

Best TV Sketch Show: That Mitchell And Webb Look

That Mitchell And Webb Look. Image shows from L to R: Robert Webb, David Mitchell. Copyright: BBC

This sketch show is a reasonably successful TV adaption of the duo's very funny Radio 4 sketch series That Mitchell And Webb Sound. We wish more sketch shows would take a leaf out of Mitchell & Webb's book and focus on creating classic one-off sketches rather than repeating the same un-funny situations again and again (see below).

Best TV Panel Show: QI

QI. Image shows from L to R: Alan Davies, Stephen Fry. Copyright: TalkbackThames

It was a very close call between the eventual winner, BBC Two's QI, and the contender in the shape of BBC One's monolith Have I Got News For You. So well done to the guys at QI for grabbing the hypothetical crown and running away with Best TV Panel Show 2006. It's great to see intelligent comedy on TV that doesn't rely on overly scripted gags or cheap put downs. Much of the credit must go to Stephen Fry and Alan Davis for making QI so much fun.

Comedy Of The Year: Green Wing

A second win for the irrepressible Green Wing in this year's poll. It takes the ultimate accolade and crowning crown of the Comedy.co.uk Awards 2006 - the award which says "this was the best comedy of 2006". Yes, here at BCG, we enjoyed GW throughout its entire run, and so were more than happy to name it as the first ever winner of our Comedy Of The Year award!

Editors' Award: The Complete Guide To Parenting

This is the award the Editors of British Comedy Guide handed to the show, person, channel, or indeed anything else comedy related they thought deserved some extra recognition.

We chose to give the inaugural Editors' award to ITV's The Complete Guide To Parenting. Although this sitcom wasn't a huge success, or even that well remembered, we here at BCG enjoyed it, and think that it was unfairly disadvantaged by poor advertising and iffy scheduling. It also marked ITV's first real move into the sitcom genre for a number of years, and taking that alone into consideration, it was a bloody good attempt. We really felt that this was a nicely staged return to good-old British humour and farce, with a little modern twist to polish it off, and some subtle but truly laugh-out-loud lines sprinkled in for good measure. Understated but very funny, and a style we'd like to see more of.

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