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 3 - 1998
Further details
The Comedy Years: 1998 features interviews with stars of comedy past and present - revealing the comedy moments that inspired them - including the likes of Shobna Gulati, Kulvinder Ghir, Sherrie Hewson, John Culshaw, Debra Stephenson, Ingrid Lacey, Robert Duncan and Susannah Doyle.
This episode looks back at 1998. It was the era of New Labour and Blair's Britain - and also a year that saw some ground-breaking new comedy series.
The Royle Family brought a new, social-realist style of filming to the world of sitcom. Meanwhile, the BBC launched the first all-Asian TV sketch show, Goodness Gracious Me.
Victoria Wood made her first foray into the world of situation comedy with the award-winning series Dinnerladies.
1998 also saw the final series of two much-loved shows of the Nineties - satirical comedy Drop The Dead Donkey and cult sitcom Father Ted.
Broadcast details
- Date
- Sunday 21st April 2019
- Time
- 9pm
- 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 |
| Joel Dommett | Self |
| Mark Heap | Self |
| Kevin Day | Self |
| Robert Duncan | Self |
| Ingrid Lacey | Self |
| Susannah Doyle | Self |
| Glenn Wilhide | Self |
| Duncan Preston | Self |
| Shobna Gulati | Self |
| Kulvinder Ghir | Self |
| Arthur Mathews | 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 |