Tony Benn

"Don't mind Eddie, he likes to call a spade a spade. It's when he calls me a spade that I mind!"

Such is the power of sitcom that those two lines from Love Thy Neighbour are still fresh in my memory after nearly 40 years. Possibly because it is such a dreadful joke, possibly because every joke in Love Thy Neighbour was a variation on it.

Back in the seventies and early eighties, the humble sitcom was the meat and potatoes of British broadcasting, providing millions with unsophisticated but satisfying fare. This was before the genre was elevated to an art form, subjected to quality control and critically scrutinised to death. Or called a genre, for that matter.

Beyond a Joke takes us back to those glory days and places classic, and not so classic, British sitcoms into their social and historical context.

Which makes Beyond a Joke sound as dry as dust, but it really isn't. For one thing, the programme takes full advantage of the archives, cherry picking all of the best moments to make its point. And in a welcome change from the usual clip show convention of recruiting unknown stand-up comedians and former children's TV presenters to blab inanities, it invites actual informed opinion from such illustrious contributors as Tony Benn, John Cleese and Dick Clement.

Episode one was all about class, a rich vein of humour that sitcoms of the period mined extensively. We saw Captain Mainwaring bristle with indignation as Sergeant Wilson joined the golf club, Basil Fawlty fawning over an aristocratic guest, Margot Ledbetter locking horns with the local council. Plus Stan from On The Buses trying to sneak a dolly bird upstairs past his disapproving extended family. Which accurately reflected the enduring post-war housing shortage, but made a less than convincing case for Reg Varney as a sex god.

All of which was linked by Dave Lamb's suitably jaunty narration.

Harry Venning, The Stage, 8th May 2009