Comedy Playhouse
Encyclopedia
Comedy Playhouse was a long-running British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...

 that aired for 120 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old...

, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas and Gaiters
All Gas and Gaiters
All Gas and Gaiters was a British television ecclesiastical sitcom which aired on BBC1 from 1966 to 1971. It was written by Pauline Devaney and Edwin Apps, a husband-and-wife team who used the pseudonym of "John Wraith" when writing the pilot...

, The Liver Birds
The Liver Birds
The Liver Birds is a British situation comedy, set in Liverpool, Merseyside, North-West of England, which aired on BBC1 from 1969 to 1978, and again in 1996. It was created by Carla Lane and Myra Taylor. The two Liverpool housewives had met at a local writers club and decided to pool their talents...

, Are You Being Served?
Are You Being Served?
Are You Being Served? is a British sitcom broadcast from 1972 to 1985. It was set in the ladies' and gentlemen's clothing departments of Grace Brothers, a large, fictional London department store. It was written mainly by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft, with contributions by Michael Knowles and John...

and Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom written by Roy Clarke that was broadcast on BBC One. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse on 4 January 1973 and the first series of episodes followed on 12 November 1973. From 1983 to 2010, Alan J. W. Bell produced and...

, which is the world's longest running sitcom, having run from January 1973 to August 2010.

Background

The first two series of Comedy Playhouse were written by Ray Galton
Galton and Simpson
Ray Galton OBE , and Alan Simpson OBE , are British scriptwriters who met in 1948 at a tuberculosis sanatorium, the Surrey county sanatorium near Godalming, on which the sitcom Get Well Soon was based...

 and Alan Simpson
Galton and Simpson
Ray Galton OBE , and Alan Simpson OBE , are British scriptwriters who met in 1948 at a tuberculosis sanatorium, the Surrey county sanatorium near Godalming, on which the sitcom Get Well Soon was based...

, but after that the episodes were written by various writers. In all, 27 series started from a pilot in the Comedy Playhouse. The first eight series were in black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...

, with the rest being in colour. Like many television programmes from the time, many of 1960s episodes are missing presumed wiped
Wiping
Wiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...

.

Specials (1973)

The first episode of the longest-running sitcom in the world, Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom written by Roy Clarke that was broadcast on BBC One. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse on 4 January 1973 and the first series of episodes followed on 12 November 1973. From 1983 to 2010, Alan J. W. Bell produced and...

was broadcast in an episode.

Scottish Comedy Playhouse

The BBC aired six comedy pilots in 1970 in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 only under the title Scottish Comedy Playhouse, none of which developed onto a full series. While these were being aired, Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines...

was broadcast in the rest of the UK. The episodes were
  1. Stand In For A Hearse (22 Sep 70)
  2. The Siege of Castle Drumlie (29 Sep 70)
  3. The Dinner Party (20 Oct 70)
  4. To Grace A Son (28 Oct 70)
  5. Stobo Takes The Chair (3 Nov 70)
  6. Take Your Partners (10 Nov 70)

See also

  • Armchair Theatre
    Armchair Theatre
    Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series, which ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by Associated British Corporation, and later by Thames Television after 1968....

  • Theatre 625
    Theatre 625
    Theatre 625 is a British television drama anthology series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 from 1964 to 1968. It was one of the first regular programmes in the line-up of the channel, and the title referred to its production and transmission being in the higher-definition 625-line...

  • The Wednesday Play
    The Wednesday Play
    The Wednesday Play was an anthology series of British television plays which ran on BBC1 from October 1964 to May 1970. Every week's play was usually written for television, although adaptations from other sources also featured...

  • ITV Playhouse
    ITV Playhouse
    ITV Playhouse was a UK comedy-drama TV series that ran from 1967 to 1983, which featured contributions from playwrights such as Dennis Potter, Rhys Adrian and Alan Sharp. The series began in black and white, but was later shot in colour and was produced by various companies for the ITV network, a...

  • Play for Today
    Play for Today
    Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...

  • The Afternoon Play
    The Afternoon Play
    The Afternoon Play is a series of individual plays which sometimes appear on BBC One during weekday afternoons. The first series began on 27 January 2003, and as of 2008 there have been five series...

  • Seven of One
    Seven of One
    Seven of One was a British comedy series that aired on BBC2 in 1973. Starring Ronnie Barker, 7 of One is a series of seven separate comedies that would serve as possible pilots for sitcoms. Originally it was to be called Six of One, which Barker planned to follow up with another series called Half...

  • Screen One
    Screen One
    Screen One is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 between 1989 to 1993.Following the demise of the BBC's Play For Today which ran from 1970 to 1984, producer Kenneth Trodd was asked to formulate a new series of one-off television dramas...


External links

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