The Comedy Years
- TV documentary
- ITV3
- 2019
- 4 episodes (1 series)
Documentary series looking at how TV comedy shows portrayed society in 1979, 1984, 1998 and 2003. Features Shaparak Khorsandi, Jon Culshaw, Debra Stephenson, Dom Joly, Ann Widdecombe and more.
Episode menu
Series 1, Episode 2 - 1984
Further details
The Comedy Years: 1984 features interviews with stars of comedy past and present - revealing the comedy moments that inspired them - including the likes of Omid Djalili, Janet Street Porter, Brian Conley, Barry Cryer, Clive Anderson, Shappi Khorsandi and Cannon & Ball.
This episode looks back at comedy from 1984. It was the year of the miners' strike; a conflict that saw Britain embroiled in a bitter industrial dispute as Margaret Thatcher took on union leader Arthur Scargill.
Meanwhile our political figures were on the receiving end of the rudest, most irreverent comedy series we'd ever seen on mainstream television with the creation of Spitting Image.
It was the year when alternative comedy burst into the mainstream, with cult hits like The Young Ones and Alas Smith And Jones now battling it out in the TV schedules with more mainstream shows like Russ Abbott's Saturday Madhouse.
It was also the year the nation mourned the passing of two comedy greats - Eric Morecambe and Tommy Cooper.
Broadcast details
- Date
- Saturday 20th April 2019
- Time
- 9:20pm
- Channel
- ITV3
- Length
- 60 minutes
Cast & crew
| Shaparak Khorsandi (as Shappi Khorsandi) | Self |
| Jon Culshaw | Self |
| Debra Stephenson | Self |
| Dom Joly | Self |
| Ann Widdecombe | Self |
| Sherrie Hewson | Self |
| Janet Street-Porter | Self |
| Tracy-Ann Oberman | Self |
| John O'Farrell | Self |
| Andrew Collins | Self |
| Anil Gupta | Self |
| Alastair Campbell | Self |
| Barry Cryer | Self |
| Hugh Bonneville | Narrator |
| Omid Djalili | Self |
| Clive Anderson | Self |
| Tommy Cannon | Self |
| Bobby Ball | Self |
| Leslie Ash | Self |
| Brian Conley | Self |
| Louise Gold | Self |
| Steve Nallon | Self |
| Roy Hattersley | Self |
| Nick Owen | Self |
| Ninia Benjamin | Self |
| Eric Chappell | Self |
| Joanna Van Gyseghem | Self |
| Neil Stacy | Self |
| Kerry Allison | Director |
| Gavin Barclay | Director |
| Stuart Ramsay | Series Producer |
| Kerry Allison | Producer |
| Gavin Barclay | Producer |
| Mark Scantlebury | Executive Producer |
| Mark Robinson | Executive Producer |
| Jude Bibby | Post Producer |
| Mike Eccles | Editor |
| Daniel Ward | Editor |
| Dave Woodyer | Editor |