Worst British Sitcoms of all time!

[Babygirl66]

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)

I did enjoy Friday Night Dinner but the caravan poo episode was too much.

Rising Damp. Sleazy landlord.

Miranda
Mrs Brown's Boys
Mr Khan

Such poor humour, all of them.

Miranda.

I love the Royle Family.

Mrs Brown's Boys, though to be fair I have only ever watched 5 minutes of it. Something about it made me feel queasy.

I think these are just personal preferences though, and plenty are very much of their time.

In terms of actual quality, I'd say the worst ones I've ever seen are Mrs Brown's Boys (well tbh I've seen about 30secs but had to turn off) and a really appalling comedy by Ben Elton called The Wright Way. It was so unutterably dreadful I couldn't stop watching it, like some kind of televisual masochism 😂

So relieved to see so many saying Mrs Brown’s Boys, in spite of the not British thing. I’ve never managed more than a few minutes.

For me a lot of comedies I love just go on too long. I love the first three series of Coupling but the fourth was crap because Jeff wasn’t in it. Outnumbered went on too long as well - I binge watched the lot last year having never seen it, and I wouldn’t bother watching the later ones again. Found that with US stuff I loved too, like Scrubs and Will & Grace.

Possibly an unpopular opinion but while I don’t hate it, I don’t really get the fuss about Father Ted. Some bits I find really funny, and I do like Dougal, but I find some of the humour around Father Jack and Mrs Doyle quite... I don’t even know. Just not my thing.

Rising Damp. Sleazy landlord.

Ugh yes, how could I have forgotten that one?! Leonard Rossiter was a talented actor but the Rigsby character used to set my teeth on edge.

Allo Allo - never watched it and always thought that the concept of a sit com set in occupied France was completely wrong.

a really appalling comedy by Ben Elton called The Wright Way.

I'd forgotten that one! It was Grade-A shit!!

There was also a really shit ITV one set in a hardware shop, with Martin Freeman and Reg Holdsworth out of Corrie.

Scarborough. Jason Manford, unbelievably dire.
As is Sandylands. Sanjeev Bhaskar
And, despite an absolutely stellar cast, Hold the Sunset.
They deserve some kind of award for making so many brilliant actors act and sound as funny as disentry.

We were watching 'On The Buses' today; I'm ashamed to say that I still love it, in spite of it being horrendous misogynistic.

Mrs Brown's Boys
Citizen Khan
Count Arthur Strong (does anyone else remember this? I can't be the only person that saw it, surely?...Please??)
Anything that should really have 'Whoops! My Middle Class Wife' as it's title instead of Terry and June, Fresh Fields, etc
Miranda (I thought she was so funny when it first came out. The shame.)
Friday Night Dinner (I wanted to like it, I love Tamsin Greig. But it's all a bit 'oh here comes a joke!' And the dad character makes me cringe.)
Only Fools And Horses (never got the love for this. It's like an exercise in how many objectional characters you can get in one story.)

I love/d Rising Damp - every one a great actor.

Mrs Brown's Boys

Objectionable. Obviously.

Fr Ted was made by a British production company, but created and written by and featured all Irish people. I think of it as Irish not British.

Mrs Brown’s Boys is definitely the worst. Can understand why it wins so many awards across the water in Britain.

I disagree with some of these; I love Red Dwarf, the Royal Family, Father Ted, Outnumbered (even the later series), The Good Life and Ever Decreasing Circles.

Totally agree that the early series of Not Going Out (the ones with Tim Vine) were much better than the later ones where the characters became caricatures of themselves (although there are still some funny lines).

I like Only Fools and Horses and Porridge, but the attitudes to women and casual homophobia/stereotyping of gay characters in some episodes make me feel very uncomfortable eg Del thinks it's ok to book a stripper for a party in the pub but is embarrassed when she turns out to be his new girlfriend, Raquel.

I've only ever seen the trailers for Mrs Brown's Boys but always think that if they're the best bits that are supposed to make us want to watch, then the rest of the programme must be really crap.

@thesuninsagittarius I never watched Count Arthur Strong because I already knew what to expect. It's one of the few radio programmes that is so bad that it makes me switch off Radio 4.

Embarrassed now that I specifically mentioned MBB being not British and then talked about Father Ted. 🤦‍♀️ My mistake, sorry 😳

It's difficult to say really, because the objectively bad sitcoms are the ones where I watch one episode, don't laugh once and never watch again. So they're usually forgotten about. But probably something like The Wright Way, Shane or Hold The Sunset. Or Scarborough, which I might have enjoyed more if it were billed a 'gentle comedy drama' rather than a 'sitcom'.

I think people are being a bit hard on Miranda. It might be a bit crap in places (i.e. the Heather Small impressions and all the farting/falling over) but I don't think you can watch the episodes 'Holiday' or 'Just Act Normal' and objectively say it's the worst British sitcom of all time.

Benidorm started out good but after the first couple of series it turned to absolute shit.

Never watched Mrs Browns Boys, but the excerpts look absolutely dire.
Good to see it topping this particular thread, but how does it get prime time viewing ?
Totally confused

Mrs Brown’s Boys.

Mind your Language.

That godawful one with David Mitchell as Shakespeare. I was at a friend's house and just couldn't believe how fucking terrible it was