''Comedy Playhouse'' is a long-running British

anthology series An anthology series is a written series, radio, television, film, or video game series that presents a different story and a different set of characters in each different episode, season, segment, or short. These usually have a different ca ...

of one-off unrelated

sitcoms A sitcom (short for situation comedy or situational comedy) is a genre of comedy produced for radio and television, that centers on a recurring cast of characters as they navigate humorous situations within a consistent setting, such as a home ...

that aired for 128 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including '' Steptoe and Son'', '' Meet the Wife'', '' Till Death Us Do Part'', ''

All Gas and Gaiters ''All Gas and Gaiters'' is a British television ecclesiastical sitcom which aired on BBC One, 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 th ...

'', '' Up Pompeii!'', '' Not in Front of the Children'', '' Me Mammy'', '' That's Your Funeral'', '' The Liver Birds'', ''

Are You Being Served? ''Are You Being Served?'' is a British television sitcom that was broadcast from 1972 to 1985. It was created and written by David Croft (TV producer), David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd. Croft also served as executive producer and television directo ...

'' and particularly ''

Last of the Summer Wine ''Last of the Summer Wine'' is a British sitcom set in Yorkshire created and written by Roy Clarke and originally broadcast by the BBC from 1973 to 2010. It premiered as an episode of ''Comedy Playhouse'' on 4 January 1973, and the first seri ...

'', which is the world's longest running sitcom, having run from January 1973 to August 2010. In all, 27 sitcoms started from a pilot in the ''Comedy Playhouse'' strand. In March 2014, it was announced that ''Comedy Playhouse'' would make a return that year with three new episodes. Two further series each comprising three episodes were broadcast in 2016 and 2017 respectively.

Background

The series began in 1961 at the prompting of Tom Sloan, Head of BBC Light Entertainment at the time. Galton and Simpson were no longer writing for

Tony Hancock Anthony John Hancock (12 May 1924 – 25 June 1968) was an English comedian and actor. High-profile during the 1950s and early 1960s, he had a major success with his BBC series '' Hancock's Half Hour'', first broadcast on radio from 1954, ...

and Sloan asked them to write ten one-offs with the hope that one might become established as a series. Thus, the first two series of ''Comedy Playhouse'' were written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, but from the third series onwards, the episodes were written by various writers including the likes of

Barry Took Barry Took (19 June 192831 March 2002) was an English writer, television presenter and comedian. His decade-and-a-half writing partnership with Marty Feldman led to the television series '' Bootsie and Snudge'', the radio comedy ''Round the Hor ...

, Bernard McKenna, Bob Larbey,

Brian Cooke Brian Cooke (born 1937) is a British comedy writer who, with co-writer Johnnie Mortimer, penned scripts for and devised many top 1970s/80s television sitcoms, including '' Man About the House'', '' George and Mildred'', and '' Robin's Nest''. ...

, Carla Lane, Craig Cash, David Croft,

Dick Clement Dick Clement (born 5 September 1937) is a retired English writer, director and producer. He became known for his writing partnership with Ian La Frenais for television series including ''The Likely Lads'', ''Whatever Happened to the Likely La ...

, Dick Hills,

Doug Naylor Douglas Rodger Naylor (born 31 December 1955) is an English comedy writer, science fiction writer, director and television producer. Life and career Naylor was born in Manchester, Lancashire, England, and studied at Chetham's School of Music ...

, Edwin Apps, George Evans,

Graham Chapman Graham Chapman (8 January 1941 – 4 October 1989) was a British actor, comedian and writer. He was one of the six members of the Surreal humour, surrealist comedy group Monty Python. He portrayed authority figures such as The Colonel (Monty Py ...

, Harry Driver, Jack Docherty,

Jack Rosenthal Jack Morris Rosenthal (8 September 1931 – 29 May 2004) was an English playwright. He wrote 129 early episodes of the ITV (TV network), ITV soap opera ''Coronation Street'' and over 150 screenplays, including original television plays, featur ...

Jeremy Lloyd John Jeremy Lloyd (22 July 1930 – 23 December 2014) was an English writer, screenwriter, author, poet and actor. He was the co-writer of several successful British sitcoms, including '' Are You Being Served?'' and '' 'Allo 'Allo!''. Early ...

, John Esmonde, John T. Chapman, Johnny Speight,

Ian La Frenais Ian La Frenais (born 7 January 1937) is a retired English writer best known for his creative partnership with Dick Clement. They are most famous for television series including '' The Likely Lads'', ''Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?'', ' ...

, Ken Hoare,

Kingsley Amis Sir Kingsley William Amis (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social crit ...

Jilly Cooper Dame Jilly Cooper, (born Jill Sallitt; 21 February 1937) is an English author. She began her career as a journalist and wrote numerous works of non-fiction before writing several romance novels, the first of which appeared in 1975. Cooper is ...

Marty Feldman Martin Alan Feldman (8 July 1934 – 2 December 1982) was a British actor, comedian and writer. He was known for his exophthalmos, prominent, strabismus, misaligned eyes. He initially gained prominence as a writer with Barry Took on th ...

, Michael Pertwee, Neil Shand,

Pauline Devaney Pauline Devaney (born 27 January 1937) is a British actress, writer, and artist, best known for her television writing in partnership with Edwin Apps. Devaney was born in Stoke-on-Trent, and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She and ...

, Peter Jones,

P.G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse ( ; 15 October 1881 – 14 February 1975) was an English writer and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Je ...

Richard Harris Richard St John Francis Harris (1 October 1930 – 25 October 2002) was an Irish actor and singer. Having studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, he rose to prominence as an icon of the British New Wave. He received numerous a ...

, Ronald Chesney, Ronald Woolfe,

Roy Clarke Royston Clarke (born 28 January 1930) is an English comedy writer, best known for creating the sitcoms ''Last of the Summer Wine'', ''Keeping Up Appearances'', ''Open All Hours'' and its sequel series, ''Still Open All Hours''. Early life Cla ...

Richard Waring Richard Waring (born Richard Waring Stephens; 27 May 1911 – 18 January 1993) was an American actor. He is perhaps best remembered for his role in the film '' Mr. Skeffington'' (1944). Biography Richard Waring was born Richard Stephens in ...

, Sid Green and Vince Powell.

Archive status

The first eight series were made in

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

, with the rest from ''Up Pompeii!'' onwards being in colour. Like many television programmes from the time, many of 1960s & 1970s episodes are lost. As a result, 95 episodes are currently missing from the archives, although audio recordings from the soundtracks of 15 missing episodes have been recovered, short extracts survive from ''Till Death Us Do Part'' and ''Thank You Sir, Thank You Madam'', and a further episode ''The Melting Pot'' survives as a

U-Matic U-matic, also known as -inch Type E Helical Scan or SMPTE E, is an analog recording videocassette format developed by Sony. First shown as a prototype in October 1969 and introduced commercially in September 1971, it was among the earliest vi ...

video copy. In Australia the series was broadcast on

ABC Television ABC Television most commonly refers to: *ABC Television Network of the American Broadcasting Company, United States, or *ABC Television (Australian TV network), a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia ABC Television or ABC ...

in the early 1960s-late 1970s.

Commercial release

The series itself hasn't been released on home media, although some of the surviving episodes have been repeated on television or included on DVD boxsets as pilot episodes to their respective series. These include ''Steptoe and Son'' ''(The Offer)'', ''Meet The Wife (The Bed)'', ''All Gas and Gaiters (The Bishop Rides Again)'', ''Up Pompeii!'', ''Are You Being Served?'', ''Last of the Summer Wine (Of Funerals and Fish)'' and ''Happy Ever After''. Clips from the series were also featured in the documentary ''Comedy Playhouse: Where It All Began'', which was broadcast on BBC1 on 29 April 2014, which featured interviews with actors and writers who participated in the series, including Ray Galton, Alan Simpson,

June Whitfield Dame June Rosemary Whitfield (11 November 1925 – 29 December 2018) was an English radio, television and film actress. Whitfield's big break was a lead in the radio comedy '' Take It from Here'', which aired on the BBC Light Programme ...

Bernard Cribbins Bernard Joseph Cribbins (29 December 1928 – 27 July 2022) was an English actor and singer whose career spanned over eight decades. During the 1960s, Cribbins became known in the UK for his successful novelty records " The Hole in the Ground" ...

and

Keith Barron Keith Barron (8 August 1934 – 15 November 2017) was an English actor and television presenter who appeared in films and on television from 1961 until 2017. His television roles included the police drama '' The Odd Man'', the sitcom '' Duty Fr ...

Episodes

Series 1 (1961–2)

Series 2 (1963)

Series 3 (1963-4)

Series 4 (1965)

Series 5 (1966)

Series 6 (1967)

Series 7 (1968)

Series 8 (1969)

Series 9 (1969-70)

Series 10 (1970)

Series 11 (1971)

Series 12 (1972)

Series 13 (1973-4)

Series 14 (1974)

Series 15 (1975)

Revived series

Series 16 (2014)

Series 17 (2016)

Series 18 (2017)

Scottish Comedy Playhouse

The BBC aired six comedy pilots in 1970 in

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

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'' (also known as simply ''Monty Python'') is a British surreal humour, surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam, w ...

'' was broadcast in the rest of the UK. All episodes from this series were wiped soon after transmission and are currently missing from the archives. The episodes are as follows:

Notes

References

Mark Lewisohn Mark Lewisohn (born 16 June 1958) is an English historian and biographer. Since the 1980s, he has written many reference books about the Beatles and has worked for EMI, MPL Communications and Apple Corps.

, "Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy", BBC Worldwide Ltd, 2003
British TV Comedy Guide for ''Comedy Playhouse''

External links

at Television Heaven * *{{IMDb title, 0861749, Comedy Playhouse
''Comedy Playhouse''
at

British Comedy Guide British Comedy Guide or BCG (formerly the British Sitcom Guide or BSG) is a Great Britain, British website covering British comedy, British comedies. BCG publishes guides to TV and radio situation comedy, sketch shows, comedy dramas, satire, va ...

1961 British television series debuts 2017 British television series endings 1960s British comedy television series 1970s British comedy television series 2010s British comedy television series 1960s British anthology television series 1970s British anthology television series 2010s British anthology television series BBC television comedy BBC anthology television shows Lost BBC episodes Black-and-white British television shows British English-language television shows