This volume features details of every comedy show broadcast on British television, from the first shows inception in 1936 to the present day. Full broadcast details, cast information, credits, synopsis and critique are included.

This collection offers an overview of British TV comedies, ranging from the beginnings of sitcoms in the 1950s to the current boom of 'Britcoms'. It provides in-depth analyses of major comedies, systematically addressing their generic properties, filmic history, humour politics and cultural impact.

Think you're funny? Writing successful comedy isn't just about having a gift for gags; you need to hone your talent and polish your humour to earn a living from making people laugh. If you want to write stand-up comedy, sketches, sitcoms or even a comic novel or film, How to be a Comedy Writer tells you all you need to know and more about the business, the structure of jokes and the nuts and bolts of a craft that can be learnt. This new ebook edition has been specially formatted for today's e-readers.

The first life of the man who was Lord Peter Wimsey, Bertie Wooster and starred in I’m Alright, Jack! With the death of Ian Carmichael in 2010 one of the last links was lost with the golden age of British cinema. Carmichael starred alongside Terry-Thomas and Peter Sellers in the Boulting brothers’ classic satirical comedies I’m Alright, Jack! Private’s Progress and School for Scoundrels. He summed up, on screen and in life, the kind of Englishman who was beginning to emerge after the war – educated, not necessarily upper class, upwardly mobile and a study in good manners and a sense of fair play – and thus played the straight-man foil to the distracted ravings of his wilder co-stars. Subsequently, he became Bertie Wooster in a highly successful television series based on P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves stories. He also made the part of Lord Peter Wimsey his own in another long-running adaptation of Dorothy L. Sayers’ famous detective novels, and was still acting on television well into his eighties alongside Susan Hampshire in ITV’s drama series The Royal.

The new edition of The British Cinema Book has been thoroughly revised and updated to provide a comprehensive introduction to the major periods, genres, studios, film-makers and debates in British cinema from the 1890s to the present. The book has five sections, addressing debates and controversies; industry, genre and representation; British cinema 1895-1939; British cinema from World War II to the 1970s, and contemporary British cinema. Within these sections, leading scholars and critics address a wide range of issues and topics, including British cinema as a 'national' cinema; its complex relationship with Hollywood; film censorship; key British genres such as horror, comedy and costume film; the work of directors including Alfred Hitchcock, Anthony Asquith, Alexander Mackendrick, Michael Powell, Lindsay Anderson, Ken Russell and Mike Leigh; studios such as Gainsborough, Ealing, Rank and Gaumont, and recent signs of hope for the British film industry, such as the rebirth of the low-budget British horror picture, and the emergence of a British Asian cinema. Discussions are illustrated with case studies of key films, many of which are new to this edition, including Piccadilly (1929) It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), The Ladykillers (1955), This Sporting Life (1963), The Devils (1971), Withnail and I (1986), Bend it Like Beckham (2002) and Control (2007), and with over 100 images from the BFI's collection. The Editor: Robert Murphy is Professor in Film Studies at De Montfort University and has written and edited a number of books on British cinema, including British Cinema and the Second World War (2000) and Directors in British and Irish Cinema (2006). The contributors: Ian Aitken, Charles Barr, Geoff Brown, William Brown, Stella Bruzzi, Jon Burrows, James Chapman, Steve Chibnall, Pamela Church Gibson, Ian Conrich, Richard Dacre, Raymond Durgnat, Allen Eyles, Christine Geraghty, Christine Gledhill, Kevin Gough-Yates, Sheldon Hall, Benjamin Halligan, Sue Harper, Erik Hedling, Andrew Hill, John Hill, Peter Hutchings, Nick James, Marcia Landy, Barbara Korte, Alan Lovell, Brian McFarlane, Martin McLoone, Andrew Moor, Robert Murphy, Lawrence Napper, Michael O'Pray, Jim Pines, Vincent Porter, Tim Pulleine, Jeffrey Richards, James C. Robertson, Tom Ryall, Justin Smith, Andrew Spicer, Claudia Sternberg, Sarah Street, Melanie Williams and Linda Wood.

Throughout its history, British television has found a place, if only in its margins, for programmes that consciously worked to expand the boundaries of television aesthetics. Even in the present climate of increased academic interest in television history, its experimental tradition has generally either been approached generically or been lost within the assumption that television is simply a mass medium. Avaible for the first time in paperback, Experimental British television uncovers the history of experimental television, bringing back forgotten programmes in addition to looking at relatively more privileged artists or programme strands from fresh perspectives. The book therefore goes against the grain of dominant television studies, which tends to place the medium within the flow of the ‘everyday’, in order to scrutinise those productions that attempted to make more serious interventions within the medium.