Galton and Simpson are often credited as the writers who created the modern television sitcom; but if they were its scripted progenitors, then the mighty and prolific producer/director Duncan Wood was the parent of its technical language and stylistic form.
Comedy Chronicles turns its spotlight on producer and director Dennis Main Wilson, who brought a range of pioneering, all-time-great comedy programmes to the airwaves across both television and radio during his career.
In the first of a new series looking at the producers who made Britain's most celebrated television comedies happen, Graham McCann turns to the remarkable career of the great Michael Mills.
Anglo-Irish comedian Dave Allen is best remembered for his various ratings-winning sketch and stand-up series, but a number of fascinating, exploratory documentaries such as In Search Of The Great English Eccentric, are also worthy of modern reverence.
Graham McCann looks at Hogmanay television broadcasts over the years, including Live Into 85 - a show "so stupendously awful" that it killed that deeply dubious broadcasting tradition stone dead.
With decades patronising the esteemed fundraising efforts of the Royal Variety Performance, just what do the Royal family themselves genuinely find funny?
Heard the one about the comedy writers who became some of the most powerful comedy executives in the country? The remarkable tale of Frank Muir and Denis Norden's time at the top of the TV tree is one that all broadcasters could learn from today.
