Rik Mayall

How The Young Ones Changed Comedy, Gold, review

A stroppy punk-rock sitcom has aged well.

TV: How The Young Ones Changed Comedy, Gold

Is it really nearly 40 years since The Young Ones exploded onto BBC2 and gave British comedy a great big kick up the arse? I thought I knew a fair bit about the series, but this in-depth documentary sheds new light alongside retreading familiar ground.

The Young Ones never gets old

The show starring four students sharing a grotty house only lasted 12 episodes yet it "turned sitcoms on their head".

Rik Mayall was pioneer for equal pay, says Dawn French

Dawn French has credited the late Rik Mayall with being an early pioneer for equal pay.

Blackadder on Netflix: why you should re-watch it

In among the huge swaths of original content on Netflix, there are also plenty of beloved old favourites primed to be revisited. One such timeless classic is the incomparable Blackadder.

Man Down (C4), the sitcom starring and written by Greg Davies, is steeped in the history of TV comedy.

The trouble is, it tries to pay homage to every genre -- and the result is a slapdash jumble that can't decide where to earn its laughs.

Greg plays a useless slob of an ex-teacher called Dan, a 50-year-old who lives like a drunken student. It's a tribute to The Young Ones: in the first series, Rik Mayall played his dad.

But some of the jokes belong in Terry And June. Surveying the residents of his mother's retirement home, Dan sighed: 'They all moan about Marks & Spencer, but they won't buy their blouses anywhere else.'

Sometimes, Greg tries to ape Tony Hancock in his writing. One line, about having 'callouses the size of marrowfat peas', was a deliberate echo of Hancock's classic complaint: 'I've got toes like globe artichokes!'

Man Down needs to decide what sort of sitcom it really is. In fact, it needs to grow up a bit.

Blackadder's greatest episodes

With an ensemble cast that no other sitcom can ever hope to match, the show gave us plenty of memorable episodes, but we've tried to narrow them down to just a select few.

Man Down, Channel 4, review: "Surrealist fun"

Comedian Greg Davies may have got a much later career start than Jack Whitehall but like him, seems to be making the most of his moment in the sun playing over-the-top idiots, although his are rather lower down the social scale.

20 facts for Jonathan Creek's 20th anniversary

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the first time that David Renwick's ingenious creation first hit our screens. To celebrate, here's a look at 20 things you may not know about everyone's favourite tousle-haired, windmill-dwelling amateur sleuth.

Interview with the creators of Alan B'Stard

The creators of The New Statesman on how B'Stard was a Tory 'hero' and why they're bringing back the show for the satire-starved post-truth era.