Kim Shillinglaw

In his new memoir, How to Produce Comedy Bronze, former BBC head of comedy Jon Plowman allows himself what he calls a "moany bit" about how the influence of his former department has declined at the corporation. "It's not the force in fun that it once was and this is partly because of competition but also because of the hours of comedy that have been lost on the main channels because, apparently, on the main channels people don't want to laugh any more," he says.

The Beeb's current head of comedy, Shane Allen, tends to put things more succinctly. At a BBC press presentation in April 2015, his distinctive Northern Irish tones could clearly be heard heckling then BBC2 controller Kim Shillinglaw as she was introducting her slate of dramas for the new season: "Drama's fucking shite. It's all dead kids."