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Recommend me some British comedy shows

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My top fave 10, unranked:

  • Only Fools and Horses
  • Porridge
  • Open all Hours + Still Open All Hours
  • Vicar of Dibley
  • Dinner Ladies
  • Unlikely Lads
  • Hebburn
  • Peter Kays Car Share
  • MRS Browns Boys
  • Are you Being Served?
 
Some Mothers do 'ave em (Michael Crawford is a genius, very much physical comedy).

Ronnie Barker comedies (Porridge, Open All Hours - NOT still open all hours).

Coupling (think Friends written by Stephen Merchant).

Only Fools & Horses.

The Royle Family

Brass Eye

Idiot Abroad

Phoenix Nights

The Young Ones
 
The League of Gentlemen
Psychoville
Inside No. 9
Absolutely Fabulous
One Foot in the Grave

The first three are from the same team, and all are dark and hilarious in different ways.

And if you want "sardonic and mean-spirited," you won't find better than Nighty Night. Can't believe I'm the first one to mention it.
 
Look! The Pie! said:
The League of Gentlemen
Psychoville
Inside No. 9
Absolutely Fabulous
One Foot in the Grave

The first three are from the same team, and all are dark and hilarious in different ways.

And if you want "sardonic and mean-spirited," you won't find better than Nighty Night. Can't believe I'm the first one to mention it.
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I forgot about Nighty Night. First series was great but the second one was pretty poor in my opinion.
 
You absolutely need to watch The Thick of It, a good place to start might be to watch In The Loop, which is a theatrical version of the show. Phoneshop is also hilarious and severely underrated.

Switch Back 9 said:
Watched but didn't enjoy
Spaced (do not like Simon Pegg's brand of comedy)
Mrs. Brown's Boys (I don't hate it but I don't know if I really like it)
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That makes two us. I'm usually pretty in tune with nerd culture in general, but I do not get everyone's fascination with Simon Pegg. I find him painfully unfunny and people go on like that poxy TV show/films are the funniest thing on the planet. I also think he's a massive hypocrite over appearing in The Clone Wars.

Also his face is stupid.
 
Look! The Pie! said:
The League of Gentlemen
Psychoville
Inside No. 9
Absolutely Fabulous
One Foot in the Grave

The first three are from the same team, and all are dark and hilarious in different ways.

And if you want "sardonic and mean-spirited," you won't find better than Nighty Night. Can't believe I'm the first one to mention it.
Click to expand...

I'm usually the one to bring up Nighty Night in these threads haha, so little people seem to have seen it yet it is excellent, anything with Julia Davis is

Check out Hunderby too

Also, not Davis but also dark and excellent is Getting On
 
normanski said:
Coupling (think Friends written by Steven Moffat
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Had to correct! I love Coupling so much. I think to liken it to Friends is somewhat misleading (and that's how it was originally marketed) but it's a very clever series which is experimental in structure and specialises mostly in different views and navigations of sexual experience.

The Man With Two Legs is a fucking masterful piece of television.

Also, Lesbian Spank Inferno is a term that will never leave my head.
 
Life's Too Short and Gareth Marenghis's Dark Place are two of my favourites. Recently I also watched Fleabag on BBC. It's only 6 episodes and kind of weird but I really enjoyed it.
 
They've been mentioned, but not enough - Only Fools & Horses is one of the great classic British comedies, second only to Fawlty Towers in my book. Del's ridiculous scheming, Rodney's gormless look and attempts to strike out on his own, Boycie lording it over them all with his money, Trigger's stupidity, Uncle Albert's "During the war...", etc. One of the funniest shows ever made. It's a product of it's time in that a lot of words and dialogue wouldn't be allowed today, but it's still absolutely hilarious.

Monkey Dust - what can I possibly say about Monkey Dust? There is nothing else like it out there.. anywhere as far as I know. It's an incredibly biting look at Britain and British life as well as pointing fingers at other countries, especially the US, where Hollywood keeps churning out revisionist historical films ("In honour of all the Americans who lost their lives in the Early Middle Ages"). Many would find this show extremely offensive, and even those who love it describe it as sick, but it absolutely is a work of art... and damn funny with it.
 
adam387 said:
If you like politics, especially British politics, then try "Ballot Monkeys." The sequel series "Power Monkeys" aired this summer and it was even funnier. It dealt with Brexit, the Trump campaign, and Putin's Russia.
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Thank you for this! Watched the first series and loved it. Watching the second series now. It's hilarious that they've added Trump and Putin into the mix.
 
Not recent shows, but these are ones I always loved to watch

Desmond's
chef
Keeping up Appearances
Are You Being Served
 
I've just had a sitcom pilot produced for BBC3. It's called PUMPED and you can watch it here on the iplayer. Maybe not outside of the UK though unless you use a VPN. Here's a clip. Subtitles might come in handy for our American friends :)
 
Wigwam said:
I've just had a sitcom pilot produced for BBC3. It's called PUMPED and you can watch it here on the iplayer. Maybe not outside of the UK though unless you use a VPN. Here's a clip. Subtitles might come in handy for our American friends :)
Click to expand...

Good first you. I'll give it a watch later.

Also, completely forgot to mention Top Coppers. Aired last year and I thought it was great. It's a satire of 70s cop shows with some brilliant comic timing. Really hope it gets a second series.
 
One foot in the Grave
Are you being Served
Dad's Army
Keeping up Appearances
Coupling
To the Manor Born
The Good Life
Open all Hours
 
I watched a series on BBC Three recently on the iPlayer, called 'Murder in Successville'. I could try to explain it, but instead:

wikipedia said:
Murder in Successville is a British sitcom with improvisational elements created by Andy Brereton and Avril Spary. The series aired on BBC Three from 6 May 2015. Murder in Successville stars Tom Davis as DI Sleet who is partnered with a guest celebrity every episode to solve a murder. The cast of every episode includes impersonations of various celebrities who live in the fictional Successville. Celebrities are transposed into fictional versions that fit into the setting of Successville, such as Alan Carr who in Successville's universe is a mobster and brother to Jimmy Carr. Liam Hourican appears as Chief Gordon Ramsay in each episode, introducing the guest celebrity at the start and revealing whether they have picked the correct killer at the episodes conclusion.
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Disclaimer: It's cheesy as hell, but there are some pretty funny moments to be had in it. Most of the comedy is derived from the fact that the improv is so blatantly and intentionally poor. The quality of the comedy differs from episode to episode, but DCI Sleet as a character is generally pretty funny. It's definitely.. unique xD Season Two is on YouTube

I think the funniest thing I've ever seen on this show was Emma Bunton trying to interview "Louis Walsh" in his log cabin in S02E05 (near the end of the episode). You could tell she was genuinely freaked out by the scene xD
 
Since you mentioned enjoying Bottom and Young Ones, you might want to check out "The Comic Strip Presents..." Which came before it.

Each episode was a self contained story and would star a random selection of some of the most prominent names from alternative 80's British comedy. The main cast members that showed up in episodes most often were Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson, Jennifer Saunders and Alexei Sayle, and you would also often get appearances from other prominent comedy names from the 80's such as Robbie Coltrane and Keith Allen.
 
One you might not hear recommended so much: Teachers, with Andrew Lincoln. A grounded but bordering-on-the-absurd comedy based around the personal and working lives of a group of secondary school teachers.
 
One of my favorite shows ever is Misfits on Hulu. It's raw and hilarious for the first three seasons. The first show I ever recall that seemed to accurately depict that class of late-teen-to-young-twenty-something accurately, and it is totally relatable to Americans. Heavy shit happens too but the show never really takes itself seriously so I think it still skirts by as a comedy.

Whites I enjoyed a great deal. I'm kind of big on cooking shows and this was a funny one. Made me a fan of Darren Boyd and Katherine Parkinson.

The rest I can name are just like a rundown of the greatest hits one can google. Black Books, The Office, etc.
 
Zemm said:
Dark place
The thick of it
I'm Alan Partridge
Operation Good Guys (can't believe no one's mentioned this. Mockumentary style show about a police force, hilarious and I think all episodes can be watched on Vimeo if you want a teaser)

Are all top tier must watch TV. Kiss my face.
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Seconding Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, based on the shows you've watched you'll love every second of it.
 
Some British humor that I enjoy:
Taskmaster (Series 1 & 2, while 3 will start soon)
Duck Quack Don't Echo
8 Out of 10 Cats (not countdown but seems to be discontinued until series 19)

I'll be sure to watch the recommendation here too. I too have just recently follow British tv shows which I prefer now to the American ones.
 
magnificenz said:
Some British humor that I enjoy:
Taskmaster (Series 1 & 2, while 3 will start soon)
Duck Quack Don't Echo
8 Out of 10 Cats (not countdown but seems to be discontinued until series 19)

I'll be sure to watch the recommendation here too. I too have just recently follow British tv shows which I prefer now to the American ones.
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If you like these game shows try Would I Lie to You?, it's pretty great.
 
The Fast Show!!

i guess no one likes it anymore :/ super nostalgic show for me. some really absurd humor that just worked for me 100%.

at least check out the Competitive Dad or Fat Coppers sketches on youtube or something, so good. ohh and The Unpronouncables!! masterful comedy.
 
Olly88 said:
Men Behaving Badly. Can't believe I forgot about it before.

The Fast Show is a good recommendation. Scorchio!
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Also Early series of the Royal Family was great. The specials are where it went downhill.

Anyway. All Partridge stuff. Every bit of it. Embrace the Alan into your life.
 
Apparently most people in this thread haven't watched Coupling because there's no way somebody's seen the show and wouldn't recommend it.
 
Zemm said:
Operation Good Guys (can't believe no one's mentioned this. Mockumentary style show about a police force, hilarious and I think all episodes can be watched on Vimeo if you want a teaser)
Click to expand...

Took a while to be mentioned. Underrated gem.

The episode where they have an open day and present the Police Commissioner his own dead, toasted, dog, as a prize, is legendary.
 
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