The Peter Principle
- TV sitcom
- BBC One
- 1995 - 2000
- 13 episodes (2 series)
Sitcom starring Jim Broadbent as a inept bank manager. Also features Claire Skinner, David Schneider, Daniel Flynn, Tracy Keating, Janette Legge and more.
Press clippings
The other key to sitcom success
There will be sitcoms that fail for whatever reason. On the Sitcom Geeks podcast, we enjoy talking about them, partly because failure is funny. But also examining failure is often more informative than the successful show where success seems inevitable. (It wasn't).
James Cary, Sitcom Geek, 27th April 2021The three scriptwriters of The Peter Principle (BBC 1) were ill advised to use lines like "Very amusing!" and "Ha, ha! Very amusing!" Even when it's true - and it wasn't - it isn't wise.
Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian, 4th February 2000The Peter Principle (BBC1), astonishingly from the blue chip production company Hat Trick, is a vacant farce about an incompetent bank manager. [...] Like the toad which wears a precious jewel in its head (don't try and check on this, children), The Peter Principle has the brilliant Jim Broadbent. Broadbent was the best Marie Antoinette I ever saw. And Marie Antoinette, let me tell you, was funnier than this.
Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian, 3rd June 1997