Owen Brenman
Documentary celebrating the British sitcom and taking a look at the social and political context from which our favourite sitcoms grew. We enjoy a trip through the comedy archive in the company of the people who made some of the very best British sitcoms. From The Likely Lads to I'm Alan Partridge, we find out the inspiration behind some of the most-loved characters and how they reflect the times they were living in.
Oscar Charlie was a 13-episode CBBC children's television series that aired for the first time on 26 September 2001. The series is about a boy, Charlie Spinner, who discovers that his grandfather, Oscar Spinner, is actually a secret agent. He acts senile but it is just a cover so that nobody would notice. After Charlie confronts Oscar with this they work together on a dangerous assignment.
Out of work, scrounger Robert Martin lives with his dysfunctional family - long suffering wife accident prone son and pregnant teenage daughter in a shabby house next door to a giant shopping center in the London suburbs. The Martins are the family from hell! Robert dreams if winning a dream holiday for his family, and when he fails to win yet another competition he flips, out tracks down the elderly winners, ties them up in the cellar and steals their tickets!
Richard Briers plays Godfrey Spry, who, having been hit on the head in a freak accident, ends up with an attention span of just 30 seconds. As a result he begins to obsess over TV commercials and begins to take advertising claims literally, causing erratic twists in his behaviour and complicating the lives of all those around him.
One Foot in the Grave is a BBC television sitcom series The series features the exploits of Victor Meldrew and his long-suffering wife, Margaret. The programmes invariably deal with Meldrew's battle against the problems he creates for himself. Living in a typical household in an unnamed English suburb, Victor takes involuntary early retirement. His various efforts to keep himself busy, while encountering various misfortunes and misunderstandings are the themes of the sitcom. The series was largely filmed on location in Walkford, near New Milton in Hampshire, although several clues show that the series may have been set in Hampshire – possibly Winchester. Despite its traditional production, the series supplants its domestic sitcom setting with elements of black humour and surrealism.
A young novelist falls for a married blond beauty. She's too afraid to leave her thuggish husband and the idea of "accidental" death comes up. The writer doesn't go through with it and they break off. However, she's not done with him yet.
