Medical sitcoms
Never mind the weather, medicine and healthcare seems like Britain's national past-time these days, with the National Health Service often treated more like a religion than a public service: sacrosanct and beyond reproach, not prone to failings and improvable. Yet it has not always been held in quite such fragile esteem, and TV sitcoms have in the past regularly centred around hospitals, doctors, and similar medical themes, tipping a knowing wink and prodding a teasing finger at the kind of setting we all know far too well.
Green Wing
One of the most recent medical sitcoms on television - yet already near 20 years-old - Channel 4's cult hit Green Wing followed the staff of the fictional East Hampton Hospital, with a particular focus on the comical relationships and antics of the doctors and nurses. The show is known for its unique and surreal style, with many scenes shot in one take, and for its use of a large ensemble cast of characters.
The main cast of Green Wing included Tamsin Greig as Caroline Todd, Mark Heap as Alan Statham, Julian Rhind-Tutt as Mac Macartney, Stephen Mangan as Guy Secretan, and Michelle Gomez as Sue White. The show was widely praised for its clever writing, strong performances, and unique visual style.
Running for two series and a total of 18 episodes, it was critically acclaimed and won several awards, including the BAFTA Television Award for Situation Comedy in 2006. The show's popularity has led to a cult following, and even the development of an original sport, 'Guyball'. The characters' eccentric, madcap antics show that using the NHS is gambling with your life almost as much as playing online casinos is!
Doctor In The House
Adapted from a hit novel of the same name by Richard Gordon, Doctor In The House was a sitcom made by London Weekend Television (LWT) for the ITV network, running for two series from 1969.
Gordon's novel was an immediate hit upon its publication in 1952, and had already spawned various sequels, a series of feature film adaptations, and a BBC radio sitcom by the time it transferred to television. Based on Gordon's real experiences as a doctor, it followed the comedic misadventures of a group of medical students as they navigate their way through their studies and internships.
The show starred Barry Evans as Mike Upton, a student constantly in trouble with his professors and friends: Duncan Waring, Paul Collier, Dick Stuart-Clark and the fearsom Professor Geoffrey Loftus.
A huge success in its own right, the series spawned five sequel sitcoms, concluding only in 1991 with a BBC revival, Doctor At The Top. Notably, writers contributing to some of those sequels include Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden. A cultural behemoth for almost fifty years, the various incarnations of Gordon's tales remain popular well into the twenty-first century, with its TV outings considered classics of British sitcom.
Almost all episodes are available in the mammoth Doctor On The Box DVD box set.
Only When I Laugh
Airing on the ITV network from 1979 to 1982, Only When I Laugh was written by Eric Chappell and starred James Bolam, Peter Bowles, Christopher Strauli and Richard Wilson.
The show followed the lives of three patients in a ward together, and the staff attending to them, at an ordinary NHS hospital. The patients are hypochondriacs Roy Figgis (Bolam), Archie Glover (Bowles) and Norman Binns (Strauli), with Wilson playing the perpetually unamused Dr Gordon Thorpe.
A popular hit that ran for 29 episodes over the course of four series, it is not one of the most well-remembered of sitcoms but does air regularly on ITV's digital channels and has also been released on DVD.