Comedy Playhouse

Comedy Playhouse[4] is a long-running British anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms that aired for 120 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, Up Pompeii!, Not in Front of the Children, Me Mammy, That's Your Funeral, The Liver Birds, Are You Being Served? and particularly Last of the Summer Wine, which is the world's longest running sitcom, having run from January 1973 to August 2010.

Comedy Playhouse
Titlecard for the 1961/1962 series episode "The Offer". This episode was the pilot for Steptoe and Son.
Created byA.J. Bacon[1] (outline)

Neil Munro[2]

Jilly Cooper)[3]
StarringVarious
Country of originUnited Kingdom
No. of episodes129
Production
Running timeUsually 25 minutes, 30 minutes or 35 minutes
Release
Original networkBBC1
Picture format405-line Black and white (1961–1967)
625-line Black-and-white (1968–1969)
625-line PAL (1970–1975)
1080i HDTV (2014–2017)
Audio formatMonaural (1961–1975)
Surround sound 5.1 (2014–2017)
Original release
  • Original Series
    15 December 1961 (1961-12-15) – 9 July 1975 (1975-07-09)
  • Revived Series
    29 April 2014 (2014-04-29) – 15 September 2017 (2017-09-15)

In March 2014, it was announced that Comedy Playhouse would make a return that year with three new episodes.[5]

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 and Sloan asked them to write ten one-offs with the hope that one might become established as a series.[6] Thus, the first two series of Comedy Playhouse were written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, 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, with the rest being in colour. Like many television programmes from the time, many of 1960s episodes are lost. In Australia the series was broadcast on ABC Television in the early 1960s-late 1970s.

Episodes

Series One (19611962)

The pilot episode of Steptoe and Son was broadcast as an episode.

Series Two (1963)

Series Three (19631964)

The pilot episodes of The Walrus and the Carpenter and Meet the Wife were broadcast as episodes.

Series Four (1965)

Series Five (1966)

Series Six (1967)

Series Seven (1968)

Series Eight (1969)

Series Nine (19691970)

Series Ten (1970)

Series Eleven (1971)

Series Twelve (1972)

The first episode of Are You Being Served? was broadcast as an episode, although this episode was used as a filler following the Munich Olympics terrorist attack, the BBC having originally declined broadcasting it.

Series Thirteen (1973)

Series Fourteen (1974)

Series Fifteen (1975)

Series Sixteen (2014)

  • "Over to Bill" (29 April 2014)
  • "Miller's Mountain" (6 May 2014)
  • "Monks" (13 May 2014)

Series Seventeen (2016)

  • "Hospital People" (26 February 2016)[7]
  • "Broken Biscuits" (4 March 2016)[8]
  • "Stop/Start" (11 March 2016)[9]

Series Eighteen (2017)

  • "Tim Vine Travels in Time" (1 September 2017)[10]
  • "Mister Winner" (8 September 2017)[11]
  • "Static" (15 September 2017)[12]

Scottish Comedy Playhouse

The BBC aired six comedy pilots in 1970 in Scotland 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 was broadcast in the rest of the UK. The episodes were

  1. Stand In For A Hearse (22 September 1970)
  2. The Siege of Castle Drumlie (29 September 1970)
  3. The Dinner Party (20 October 1970)
  4. To Grace A Son (28 October 1970)
  5. Stobo Takes The Chair (3 November 1970)
  6. Take Your Partners (10 November 1970)

See also

Notes

References

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