Quote: Aaron @ 14th April 2015, 8:06 PM BSTThey don't need to look expensive in terms of obvious things like prosthetics, to be incredibly costly to produce.
No one complained about the wobbly sets in Fawlty Towers because the focus was on the scripts and the comic quality, not the modern desire for "high production values" and the lust for film-like realism.
Yes, in TV everything costs oodles of cash by default.
And true, Fawlty Towers is prime example of wobbly sets, where script clearly trumped production.
But I raised the point of prosthetics in sketch shows as previously an old man was simply impersonated with a wig, a pipe and a walking stick.
Now it takes 6 hours in make up.
So, the respective cost of an old man in, say, The Catherine Tate Show when compared to Not The 9 O'Clock News is spectacularly inflated by production costs, before one even switches on the cameras.
I think in that respect the advances in makeup have added a vastly expensive layer. In sketch shows this will impact far more heavily, given their nature.
I can't really think of an example of excessive prosthetics etc in sitcom.
'League of Gentlemen', maybe?
That said, coming to think of it, in satire I guess there too has been an arms race upwards.
No longer good enough to impersonate the celebrity or politician vocally. Now you need to look like Ed Miliband or Barack Obama. Even if you're actually Rory Bremner or Alistair McGowan.
