It’s an old habit of the Brits to curl our lips with superiority at American attempts to remake British shows, as if mocking their efforts to brew a decent cup of tea. Attempts to remake The Inbetweeners, The IT Crowd, even Are You Being Served? have all flopped for want of understanding the subtle ingredients that perhaps made them suited to a transatlantic crossing. But what of British adaptations of American shows? They have their own chequered history.

Currently, however, there is the potential of a success. Hang Ups, the new Channel 4 series starring and co-written by Stephen Mangan, based on Web Therapy, the fine series created by Lisa Kudrow of Friends in 2011. Both are based on the same concept – online therapy sessions with the potential for multiple high-profile guest stars. However, whereas Kudrow’s Fiona Wallice is a comically self-absorbed “therapist” with a mass of unhelpful, ulterior motives, Mangan’s Richard Pitt is a more hapless and stressed, altogether more British creation. He’s deep in debt, surrounded by a whirl of family and the attendant problems they bring, not least his own father, played by Charles Dance.

There have been some notorious failures, perhaps the most ignominious of which was The Brighton Belles, a remake of The Golden Girls, already a hit series in the UK, which was such a commercial and critical flop that it was pulled halfway through its run, as if with a discreet vaudeville hook from the side of the stage. Despite the pedigree of Sheila Hancock and Wendy Craig, no one had an any earthly reason to watch such a flagrant replication of an already well-loved show, any more than they would go to the zoo to see what was a cow quite obviously dressed up as a buffalo. Russ Abbott, meanwhile, was as ill-suited to star in Married For Life, a remake of the American series Married With Children, a masterpiece of sleazy, no-hugging-no-learning comedy as he would have been to take over as lead singer of Joy Division.

There have, however, been more successful efforts in other TV genres. The British version of The Apprentice managed to attain the same effect as the original American version, having us rooting against the obnoxious but often inept aspirants, jumped-up estate agents obsequiously vying for the favour of an alpha-ogre, be it Trump or Sugar.

The Apprentice’s Sir Alan. Photograph: BBC/Talkback Thames/Talkback Thames

It is surprising to learn the number of gameshows that originated in the US. Blankety Blank was based on Match Game, a show that first premiered on NBC in 1962 with the same rules as its British remake, but a very different feel. In the hands of its first host, Terry Wogan, and then Les Dawson, it turned into a show that drily undercut its own primetime naffness. Similar, Sale Of the Century, the “quiz of the week” back in the 70s in which contestants competed for sums up to £100 was not from Norwich, but from NBC again. Yet, the matchlessly slick Nicholas Parsons made it his own and left no hint of its American origin. Dale Winton similarly made his own indelible stamp on Supermarket Sweep, another US remake.

The same could not be said of ITV’s The Price Is Right, however, starring the late Leslie Crowther, wildly successful as it was. This had first been broadcast in America in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was remade in Britain in 1984 at the height of the dizzily acquisitive years of Thatcherism/Reaganism in full throttle. Crowther, best known to viewers of a certain age as Peter Glaze’s comic sidekick in kids’ show Crackerjack reinvented himself as a rooting-tooting, razzle-dazzle host whipping up audiences and game participants into a frenzy of materialistic greed. His invite to “come on down!” felt very unseemly and un-English to conservatives, while to lefties, it was a televisual example of Britain as 51st state of the US.

Back to comedy, however. Perhaps one reason British adaptations of American shows have not always fared well is that great American sitcoms, for example, enjoyed greater resources. In particular in terms of writers which helped raise their overall standards, as opposed to British comedies that were generally written by much smaller teams. It helps that Hang Ups has quality running throughout. From a quality cast, including Katherine Parkinson, and a raft of guests and bit-parters including Richard E Grant and Jessica Hynes, as well as writing assistance from Neil and Rob Gibbons, who have done such good work reviving the Alan Partridge character in recent years. Others hoping to remake American comedy in Britain should watch this and learn.

Hang Ups starts tonight at 9pm on Channel 4