Sitcoms - One thing we do very well

Nothing is comparable. This is where the term "wheeler dealer" hails from. Too many moments of sheer brilliance, including the 'Trotters Independent Traders Reliant Robin (AKA the TIT Mobile) and - that Batman and Robin scene. David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst at their finest. Surprised that this has not been copied yet, but sure it's in the pipeline.

Cleese as the madcap hotel proprietor on the Cornish riviera (Torquay must have loved the advertising). The inter-relationship between Basil, Sybil and Manuel is so worth the watch. Classic comedy.

Shepherds Bush 'Rag And Bone' father and son classic comedy. Although dated now, so many moments of brilliance. One episode the old man (played by Wilfred Brambles) is making a pie for dinner whilst Harold (Harry H. Corbett) is out on the rounds. I spat my coffee across the table and nearly choked as he first smoothes down the pastry edges with his dirty old fingerless gloves on, and then the piece de resistance, took out his false teeth and used them to crimp the edge down. So so funny in it's time. Steptoe and Son's (1962) storyline was heavily used / copied for the American Sanford and Son (1972).

Like a stain on the eiderdown of English history, the Blackadder family has been present at some of the greatest events in our nation's past. We join their tale in the late 1400s, with Edmund Plantagenat, alias 'The Black Adder', the weasley 'spare' son of King Richard IV. En route to the dawn of the new millennium in 2000, we bump into Lords and Sirs of the dynasty including those from the times of King Charles I, Prince George in Regency England, the Captain Blackadder of World War I, and Elizabeth I's favourite Lord. Ben Elton excelled, and it stood the test of time, finally finishing in WW1. Acerbic, sharp and classic English sarcastic humour, has so many well known comedy actors (Dr House is in here).

Eddy and Patsy, wealthy PR executive and hanger on best friend in the 'silver spoony' bourgeois (in the posh sense) whose lives are interlinked into the "Darling" social society, which means they don't have to work - pretending to is good enough! Classic Jennifer Saunders, and when it first ran seeing the former glamour girl Joanna Lumley send herself up as the chain smoking, alcoholic Patsy was sheer brilliance.

The late, great Leonard Rossiter (who can forget that old Campari Ad with Joan Collins) who went on to star in 'The Fall and Rise of Reginal Perrin'. Rigsby, the cowardly live-in landlord of the shabbiest boarding house ever, and his boarders, including Richard Beckinsale who went on to "Porridge" fame before so tragically dying at a very young age - father of Kate Beckinsale of Van Helsing / Underworld fame. Stands the test of time, except the haircuts and clothes!

Warren Mitchell plays Alf Garnett, a working-class bigot whose only loyalties are to the Queen, the Conservative Party and West Ham United FC. He is constantly at war with his "silly old moo" of a wife, his daughter and his son-in-law, the "Scouse git". In the age of political correctness this would make most people choke, and good old Mary Whitehouse got in there on the moral band wagon (remember she actually managed to get the BBC to stop playing Chuck Berry's "My Ding-A-Ling"!!). Over the top, anarchistic, and very funny. Til Death Us Do Part (1965) was taken and the storyline used for the American follow up 'All In The Family' (1968). Archie Bunker would have choked at Alf Garnett!

Arkwright the money grabbing, tight fisted corner shop proprieter, his errand boy Granville (a young David Jason before Fools And Horse fame) and the ever elusive 'fiancee' District Nurse, Gladys Emanuel who Ronnie Barker could never get his hands on. Not that he should have had any fingers left using "that" old cash register. The money making schemes, the love lorn Granville and that brass band music are truly priceless. Ronnie Barker was already known as a comedy sketch comedian hosting a show with his partner Ronnie Corbett, and who then went on to 'Porridge' and 'Going Straight'.

Gary and Tony (Martin Clunes and Neil Morrisey) as the two 'lads' that shared a flat and wouldn't grow up, with the two long suffering girlfriends and the heroine fantasy workship of Kylie Minogue. She should be so lucky. 90's humour and 'laddism' at it's best (now which men "didn't" like this?). Made in 1992, was copied in 1996 and made into a US equivalent (by now there was no attempt to even change the name) and I saw an episode. Oh dear!

Dawn French (of French and Saunders fame) has one of those expressionble faces that you want to laugh as soon as you see her. In this she's Geraldine Grainger the jolly 'female' vicar of a small country village called Dibley which is inhabited by errr, well - typical English village really, let's just say interesting characters.

Go watch, it's very very funny, as you would expect from Jennifer.

Not very well known, and I stumbled over this by mistake one evening, and could not stop laughing. In a prim, stereotypically Surrey like (well-to-do) English village, with the housewives holding tea parties, village fetes, and fighting each other with sub machine guns whilst dealing drugs, racketeering and any being involved in any other vices that are possible, all under the facade of the sweet English rose scenario. Very underated, and very very funny.

Occupied France. A small village café, run by René Artois (Gordon Kaye)and his wife, Edith. But all is not as it seems at Café René, for the proprietor is the unwitting and unwilling hero of the French resistance; codename Nighthawk. René struggles through the war, treading a dangerous line between the French resistance, the communist resistance and the occupying German forces, in order to keep his business afloat and his person out of a coffin. Not to mention keeping his affairs with each of his two waitresses hidden from the other - and certainly hidden from his wife! The double-entendres, epic. Amazingly funny.

John Sullivan wrote this before 'Fools and Horses', a very young Robert Linsday as Wolfie Smith, the Che Guevara loving unemployed "Urban Guerilla" of Tooting Broadway. Forgotten but much loved, 'Power To The People!'

An older Robert Lindsay and Zoe Wannamaker. Ben a dentist, his wife and his dysfunctional family.

Ricky Gervais playing David Brent as the talentless, tactless egocentrical office manager, as filmed by a BBC documentary team. Produced in 2001, the American version of the same name was released 2005.

What can I say, it had to be here because of that 'Carry-On' man Sid James! Bless This House centres around travelling stationery salesman Sid Abbott, and his wife Jean live with their teenage children, Mike, who is fresh from art college and more preoccupied with protests than finding a job, and Sally, a trendy schoolgirl. The children are 18 and 16 years old at the start of the series. Sid and Jean constantly battle to comprehend the permissive ways of the new generation and are usually out of touch. Their neighbours and best friends are Trevor and his wife Betty. Very 70's, and yes, a tad dated - but when you hear Sid Jameses laugh, nuff said!

Doing Porridge (doing time). Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale. Set inside Slade Prison the comedy focuses on repeat, habitual criminal Norman Stanley Fletcher (Barker). Fletcher is smart, witty, cunning and charismatic, sharing his cell with Lenny Godber (Beckinsale) a first offender to who he imparts his pearls of wisdom. Slade is run by the strict Scottish head 'screw' Mr Mackay who has help from the gullible Mr Barrowclough (who Fletcher exploits).

Miserable Victor Meldrew (Richard Wilson) takes early retirement and has too much time on his hands, getting into all sorts of predicaments unintentionally and accompanied by his long suffering wife played by Annette Crosby.

Rik Mayal as Alan B'Stard in a satirisation of the Conservative party of the period. Mayall plays the wealthy, selfish, greedy, dishonest, devious, lecherous, sadistic ultra-right-wing Conservative back bencher perfectly. 'The Young Ones' influence being so very evident. Brilliant!

70's Sitcom starring Richard O'Sullivan (who later went on to do the spin-off Robin's Nest) as a single man sharing with two very attractive female flat mates (Sally Thomset and Paula Wilcox) who pretend 'Robin' is gay to allay any unusual interest from the landords, George and Mildred Roper (later also a spin-off comedy of it's own). Made in 1973, it was copied in the US in 1976 as 'Three's Company' starring John Ritter as Jack Tripper in an identical story line.