Blackadder writer says sitcoms are a ‘truly original art form’ but now critics and social media pundits dismiss them before they get a chance to grow on people

Snobbery and “lazy contempt” from critics and social media is killing the sitcom, according to Blackadder writer Ben Elton.

The comedian and author warned “we are in danger of losing something of real value in our culture”, pointing to shows now regarded as British television classics such as Dad’s Army, Fawlty Towers and Only Fools & Horses.

Elton argued that, “a great and original television art form is dying … it really is” and said that “once the studios and the talent base that support it are lost” they “will never come again”.

Giving the inaugural BBC Ronnie Barker Comedy Lecture, Elton said that because sitcoms require lots of people to make them, as they are recorded live like a theatre show, if they are not given a chance beyond a first series they will die out.

He explained: “All that [effort] makes these shows very, very expensive. An expense that frankly is easy to duck if you’re just going to get slagged off for doing it anyway.

“While there’s nothing we can do about shrinking budgets, fractured audiences and TV companies turning their precious facilities into prime real estate, it might help if commentator, critic and columnist alike stopped treating studio sitcoms with such thoughtless contempt.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ben Elton: ‘The principal objection to these comedies is that people are laughing.’ Photograph: Tom Watkins / Rex Features

He blamed sitcoms’ demise on class, critics who dislike background laughter as it means a value judgment has already been made, and the misconception that the laughter is canned.

“The principal objection to these comedies is that people are laughing. Why is that? I think it’s because we’re British.

“The laughter is evidence of effort. The terrible British sin of ‘going for laughs’. Laughs which are clear evidence of the greatest comedic crime of all, the crime of ‘trying to be funny’.”

He said he did not think his hit 1980s show The Young Ones, starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, would “survive in today’s critical environment … had Rick, Vyvyan, Neil and Mike arrived in a world of instant opinions, formed and tweeted while a show is actually still on air I don’t think they’d have been given the grace to grow on people as they did.”

He said a “sea change” in the 1990s after the success of “innovative” single camera, non-audience comedies such as The Royle Family and The Office led to the studio sitcom becoming “overnight a by-word for critical contempt”.

Highlighting shows such as Absolutely Fabulous, he said: “The country’s biggest popular comic hits have always been accompanied by laughter. They form an abiding and affectionate collective memory. They are part of what it means to be British. And yet … the form is routinely dismissed and often despised.

“It really is a sort of snobbery and I say that reluctantly … but I make the charge none the less because I think we are discussing nothing less than a prejudice against joy. Corrosive, destructive and coloured I’m afraid by that ancient British cultural cancer – class.”

Elton admitted a vested interest as he writes sitcoms such as Upstart Crow, the BBC Shakespearean sitcom starring David Mitchell, which is returning for a second series, but defended other sitcoms given a pasting by some critics, such as Miranda and Mrs Brown’s Boys.

“I’d plea that when we write about comedy, be it in a newspaper or in a tweet, we shouldn’t leap to judgment. I don’t think any comedy should be judged on its first outing, particularly a sitcom which by its nature is designed for the long haul.”

Elton revealed Barker told him to his face at a BBC party that he didn’t like his comedic style when they first met, although they became friends later, but thought he would approve of his arguments about sitcoms: “It is not a tired and cheesy format at all. It is a great popular art form, a truly original television art form. A form which I suggest has created a community of audience, a collective affection and a store of shared memories which is unparalleled in our culture.”

The Ronnie Barker Comedy Lecture airs on BBC1 on Friday 25 August.