Comment: The Forgotten Sitcoms?

An archive article in which Ian Middleton discusses a couple of his favourite sitcoms which have disappeared from our screens...

Sitcoms have been with us since the dawn of television, but why in this multi-channel world are some repeated ad infinitum while other absolute gems lay gathering dust?

Even the most famous of writers don't escape this peculiar exclusion of some of the most beautifully crafted examples of the sitcom art - so let's start at the very top with Carla Lane and John Sullivan.

Carla first hit our screens with The Liver Birds which started life as a one-off in the BBC's Comedy Playhouse strand (amazingly Playhouse gave birth to almost thirty sitcoms and I for one would love to start a campaign to persuade the Beeb to bring it back).

She also had huge hits with both Bread and Butterflies - although am I the only one who found the casting of Wendy Craig as Ria in the latter a bit hard to take? All three of these Carla Lane shows get regular re-runs on stations such as UKTV Gold.

But in the 1980's Carla also wrote Solo (1981-82), The Last Song (1981-83) and The Mistress (1985-87) - none of which now ever see the light of day.

Fresh from the huge success of The Good Life, Felicity Kendal took centre stage in Solo as a downtrodden thirty-something who wanted a better life for herself and more respect from others. Kendal was also the key character in The Mistress in which she played a florist manager having an affair.

But for me The Last Song was the Jewel in the crown. Leo Bannister (played by the brilliant Geoffrey Palmer) was in the middle of divorce proceedings with his wife Alice (Caroline Blakiston). When a girl half his age takes an interest in Leo, Alice suddenly has second thoughts about agreeing to a divorce.

It's true that these three shows did not have the huge laughs or big audiences as the likes of Bread, but I would always present them as classic examples of how to write comedy. Sitcom is not always about belly laughs - if you can make your audience feel part of the difficult, embarrassing or stressful situations your characters are in, you've done the job - and Carla always did.

Then we come to John Sullivan, who together with Carla I think rank as the numbers one and two all-time great British comedy writers - although I wouldn't like to say which is which! And it's not just about the number of hit shows they've had, but the diversity of subject matter.

(Incidentally, when I first wrote a full-length script and was disappointed by the reaction I got to it, I sent a copy to John for his advice. He wrote back saying he didn't usually read other people's material, but as I worked for Reuters (the news agency) where he once worked, he would. Basically he said my script was no good! - but then went on to explain where he thought I was going wrong. It was the best advice I'd ever received and it helped me a lot - but sorry, I'm wandering off the point!)

Sullivan is always going to be best known for Only Fools and Horses - although I suspect even he is getting sick of the number of times it gets repeated - and his first show Citizen Smith. But for me his all-time gem was hidden away during the Only Fools era...

Dear John... (1986-87, pictured) was centred around the '1-2-1' club for divorced and separated people who hold their meetings at the local community centre. If I ever have to give a lecture - and anyone who's seen or heard me will be very glad that it will never happen - on how to build a set of characters, Dear John... is the example I would use.

John (Ralph Bates, sadly died in 1991) has been turned into a timid man after his wife left him; Kate (Belinda Lang) desperate to prove she's not frigid; Ralph (Peter Denyer) dullness personified who rides his "motorcycle combination"; Kirk (Peter Blake) pretends he has a secret life of mystery and intrigue; Mrs Arnott (Jean Challis) who rarely says or does anything and Louise (Rachel Bell) who runs the group. She calls Ralph "Rayf" and has an unhealthy interest in the physical side of people's relationships (she always asks furtively "were there any... sexual problems"?)

This madcap bunch were knitted together by Sullivan's brilliant writing. In one episode the group are invited to a party at the home of a Mrs Boyd-Peters. Louise tells them the woman has an unfortunate personal problem - but they don't know what. If my aforementioned lecture - don't worry it still won't happen - includes how to write the perfect scene, the one in which they find out what her problem is would be it.

So why are these shows not repeated? Can I be mischievous and suggest that by showing such brilliantly constructed works of art, broadcasters would be ashamed at how bad it makes their current comedy output look? I'll leave you to make your own mind up on that one!