Why the Golden Age of American Sitcoms Makes Me Sad

I’m a big fan of sitcoms, I’m not ashamed to admit it. I really enjoy American Sitcoms too, it’s not the quality of American Sitcoms that makes me sad, it’s more that our British ones just aren’t what they used to be. We used to dominate the sitcom world back in the days of Blackadder, Only Fools and Horses and Fawlty Towers, but that is no longer the case, the mantle has well and truly crossed the Atlantic.

What do we have now sitcom wise? In the past few years there has been a few great British Sitcoms, The Office, The Inbetweeners, The Thick Of It…but they’re all finished now and according to the general consensus, the best we have to offer is Miranda, which frankly I think is poor at best. There is nothing out there today that can rival the classics, there is no stand out comedic sitcom performer like Rowan Atkinson, Hugh Laurie or Stephen Fry…even Ricky Gervais is largely an American product now. America likes to adapt the best of our Sitcoms, The Office, The Inbetweeners and now Only Fools and Horses, but somehow I can’t see them wanting to adapt anything currently attempting to pass as comedy over here. We’re in a truly sorry state that we have to rely on our American cousins for all our comedy viewing.

With the amount of talent around in the British stand-up world, it’s hugely disappointing that there is such a lack of decent sitcoms. With the likes of Jimmy Carr, Russell Howard, Michael McIntyre and Micky Flanagan knocking around you’d think that one of them could knock out a decent script. Where are all the comedy writers? Are they just non-existent, or like Ricky Gervais does all our talent decide to apply their trade over the pond? We’re a witty people, where is all our comedy?

There’s no way that we can compete with so many high quality American Sitcoms, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Community, 30 Rock, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Parks and Recreation…there is just a remarkable number of excellent American comedies, too many to even mention here. Then there’s the comedic talent, each of these have their own standout performers that have absolutely nothing to worry from the likes of Miranda Hart.

What can we do? To put it plainly there is no way to compete with current American Sitcoms, it truly is a golden age in Television and although it makes me happy as a TV and Sitcom fan, as a proud British citizen, it makes me sad to see the sorry state of our own programming. It seems that broadcasters are more interested in producing trash TV like The Only Way is Essex, The Voice, Big Brother etc. All we can do is hope that a new wave of British comedy writers and actors can emerge to attempt to reclaim the crown of Kings of Sitcom…at present John Sullivan must be spinning in his grave to see the disappointing state of the great British Sitcom.