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Worst British Sitcoms of all time!

507 replies

Babygirl66 · 10/04/2020 12:52

In your opinion what is the worst British sitcom of all time.

My definition of Sitcom, is a comedy that prime purpose is to be “funny”. For Example shows such as Being Human, Fleabag, my mad fat dairy, Brasic and Jonathan Creek don’t count as whilst they contain humour they are not what most would consider a sitcom as they contain to much of a serious undertone. (Not saying these are bad shows, I just see them refer to as sitcoms a lot when they technically are not)

OP posts:
BiBiBirdie · 11/04/2020 09:07

My Hero the program with Ardal OHanlon from Father Ted. Awful.

BGD2012 · 11/04/2020 09:10

There was one with Denise Van Outen about 20 years ago. Dreadful. Babes in the Wood?

cushioncovers · 11/04/2020 09:13

It would be easier to list the ones I do like. But if I had to say one I can't stand is Mrs browns boys.

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Zaphodsotherhead · 11/04/2020 09:27

Just goes to show that comedy is subjective

And also, with some of the older comedies, that a lot of us have happy family memories of sitting round the TV on cold winter's nights with mum and dad laughing themselves silly. For me it was Dad's Army (the humour of which rather bypassed me, but my dad's dad was, apparently, in the Home Guard, and my dad could relate to some of the daft situations).

BiBiBirdie · 11/04/2020 09:38

@BGD2012 I remember Babes in the Wood. It was proper Ladette style wasn't it?

Iamthewombat · 11/04/2020 10:21

It’s already been discussed upthread, and yes, it was terrible.

Iamthewombat · 11/04/2020 10:26

Never The Twain (ITV sitcom about rival antique dealers played by Windsor Davies and Donald Sinden, attempting to outdo each other and getting into hilarious scrapes etc.) was terrible and yet I just saw that it ran for ten years and 11 series! Who was watching it?

gingerbreadslice · 11/04/2020 10:38

Not going out has got worse over the years I saw an episode around Christmas time of a woman giving birth in a ski lift was just so bad

Gingernaut · 11/04/2020 10:41

Mind Your Language - every racist stereotype in an evening class for speakers of other languages

Bless This House - Sid James as the family patriarch with every sexist and racial stereotype of the 70s.

Citizen Khan - really doesn't hit any mark for me.

susiella · 11/04/2020 11:08

Don't Drink The Water
The Liver Birds

MrsJBaptiste · 11/04/2020 11:13

"Language Timothy!" is a well used phrase in our house.

As is "Brace yourself, Rodney!"

The kids have no idea what we're on about...

maryberrystalentlesstwin · 11/04/2020 11:22

I think I it's pretty unanimous that Mrs Brown's Boys is the shittest sitcom ever. I will never, ever understand why so many people love it. It's is beyond (out the the universe) awful.

It's interesting that a lot of people have said that they dislike the Royle Family. To me it was an absolutely perfect depiction of many evening I spent at home with my own of with friend's families when I was growing up. It's exaggerated, obviously, but my god they got it so right!

1066vegan · 11/04/2020 11:25

I can't understand the dislike of the Royle Family either. I wonder if a lot of people only watched one episode. I think the more you watch it, the more you get to know the characters and the funnier it becomes. Plus a couple of episodes were really moving without being over sentimental.

iklboo · 11/04/2020 11:34

@Iamthewombat - we only had three channels then. You had to watch what you were given Grin

BGD2012 · 11/04/2020 12:02

@BiBiBirdie. It was a group of girls in a flat share I think? Late 90s so yes very laddish. It was crap lol. X

Babygirl66 · 11/04/2020 12:13

I'm so happy that no one has put Gavin and Stacy here or IT crowd
Whilst I like Gavin and Stacy, I am not a massive fan of the IT Crowd. Like already mentioned I would of found it funnier if it didn’t have a obviously artificial laugh track. I also find Richard Ayoade extremely irritating, it’s like he pretends to have Autism (even though he doesn’t).

What is the one where Nicholas Lyndhurst has to look after his “teenage” twins played by Tracy Baker and the slave out of Plebs. That was dire, think it might of been a spin off from my family.
The show was called After You’ve gone. I actually use to really enjoy that show (however I was 8, so it is possible that I would think differently now). To be fair I Remember very little of the show itself apart from a scene where Dani Harmer (and its Tracy Beaker not Tracy Baker) was siting on a computer, but I do remember laughing hysterically at the show, every time it was on. I think that part of the reason I liked it so much was because I was obsessed with Tracy beaker and would watch anything with Dani Harmer, I also used to have a bit of a crush on Ryan Sampson and still do despite hating plebs. Whilst not a spin off from my family, it was made by the same production team.

I also despise sit coms that use canned laughter. I have absolutely no problem with shows that are taped in front of a studio audience, but don’t add a laugh track, when there is clearly no audience!
Literally this! It almost as if the The producers think the audience are so stupid they need to be told when to laugh. It makes you wonder if they actually get the point of comedy

Mrs Brown's boys is only funny when he forgets his lines and everyone corpses.
I think that is why it was so popular to begin with, but like I said in my previous post it has ran for far too long!

Harry Hill. Wtf is that bloody puppet all about? The most unfunny bloke on television.
Completely understand as a child I adored him, now as an adult he makes me cringe. How on earth any adult can find sausages funny is beyond me.

Duty Free, what a waste of actor Keith Barron
I am clearly to young to know earthier the show or Keith Barron Grin

I think by far the worst though has to be Last of the Summer Wine - why??
Again, good concept but ran for far too long

Heil Honey I'm Home. A 50s American style sitcom made in Britain in the 90s. It stars Adolf Hitler as himself and Eva Braun living in a flat next door to a Jewish couple.
Because of course that was going to go down well...Hmm

Surprised no-one has said Two Pints Of Larger And A Packet of Crisps. I quite liked series 1 to 6. But after that, it goes downhill very quickly*The Fact that you liked a show for 6 seasons means that the show ran out of ideas instead of being a bad concept. I have never watched it so can’t say, but I don’t particularly like Sheridan Smith

OP posts:
Zaphodsotherhead · 11/04/2020 12:36

To be fair, I don't think it's Richard Ayoade pretending to be autistic, I think it's how the part is written. We shouldn't blame the actors for the writing being crap - we should blame their agents for letting them take the part in the first place!

MigginsMs · 11/04/2020 12:42

Black adder the later ones

Sacrilege! 😭

Had forgot about some of these...last of these summer wine was so crap.

Sorry if I have missed these on the thread skimming through but Hi de Hi and the Brittas Empire were terrible as well

MigginsMs · 11/04/2020 12:45

The gone wrong show

Oh god yes! What absolute shite!

MigginsMs · 11/04/2020 12:49

I'm probably in a minority of one, but I never 'got' The Young Ones

Me too. I wasn’t allowed to watch it when I was at school and I felt so left out when everyone else talked about it. However when I was old enough to watch it I realised it was dire and was so grateful to my mum

TopBitchoftheWitches · 11/04/2020 12:57

Absolutely fabulous is brillant if you understand the lifestyle.
Not a dig btw.

Blibbyblobby · 11/04/2020 12:59

I don’t mind Mrs Browns Boys, or at least it’s no worse than a lot of TV. It seems good natured, and done with a knowing twinkle in its eye that says “we know this is old school stuff but it’s still fun to do”

Can’t stand Gimme gimme gimme and Ab Fab, just screetchy overacting. Keeping up appearances is another one I never had much time for.

But the worst I know of is The Return of Shelley. It’s just terminally unfunny.

Zaphodsotherhead · 11/04/2020 13:14

I feel the same about Upstart Crow Topbitch. If you enjoy Shakespeare and have studied quite a lot of it, then it's funnier than if you don't have a clue about any Shakespeare plays. (Source: my XP who barely knew who Shakespeare was and couldn't 'get' any of the jokes. The whole 'Bottom' name thing passed him by, he just thought it was a 'bum' joke).

BadLad · 11/04/2020 13:16

Black adder the later ones

Sacrilege!

I assumed this meant the rather recent ones, like the civil war episode, and didn't mean Blackadder Goes Forth.

LaneBoy · 11/04/2020 13:17

It’s the first series of blackadder I really don’t like. I enjoy the rest although there are bits in all of it I don’t find funny

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