In the real world, being out of work is obviously not a laughing matter. On television dramas, the unemployed are most often portrayed as sympathetic characters - hardworking manual labourers who are unfairly made redundant, for example.

Yet the plight of people on the dole has also been a perennial staple of British comedy. In these situations, however, the jobless have no one to blame but themselves - Peter Tilbury's Shelley is a prime example. They are feckless, self-absorbed and often invest vast amounts of energy in cheating the system.

Allow me to present you with four prime examples:

Keeping Up Appearances: Onslow

Onslow, Hyacinth's socially embarrassing brother-in-law from Keeping Up Appearances, is the poster child for bone idleness.

In his ubiquitous vest, Onslow is a beer swilling, telly watching, lie-in champion who is perfectly content to collect his benefit, live in his derelict house and regularly rebuff the advances of his frustrated wife, Daisy.

Nonetheless, Onslow is not merely a man of leisure. Lack of gainful employment has afforded him the free time to develop some interesting economic philosophies:

The Royle Family: Jim

There are very few positive things to be said about The Royle Family's patriarch, Jim Royle. He's slovenly, rude, mean-spirited and extremely selfish and lazy.

On momentous occasions, Jim will show affection for his daughter Denise, who is in many ways just as shiftless as her father, but he focusses most of his attention on manipulating his family into giving him what he wants:

Shameless: Frank

Frank Gallagher from Shameless is a bit different from the stereotypes mentioned above. Yes, he is chronically unemployed; he drinks away his giro; and he can consistently be found fleeing trouble, both legal and romantic. In a word, Frank is immature.

But from time to time, Papa Gallagher can be insightful and, when sober, shows himself to be capable of remorse. He is obviously too clever to be idle. After meeting his horrible father, one can't help but empathise with Frank's lack of self-esteem. If only he could invest the same amount of effort into supporting his large brood that he expends evading his responsibilities.

Rab C. Nesbitt

Rab C. Nesbitt might actually be the worst of the lot. Unemployment is his chosen career, and he works hard to make sure he's a success at that.

Rab is an unapologetic alcoholic, a professional deadbeat and fancies himself a philosopher of the downtrodden. His angry, confrontational style doesn't win many victories though, particularly since his arguments tend to be unintelligible.

Previous illustrations aside, sometimes the people who are meant to be helping the unemployed can be pretty maladjusted as well...

The League Of Gentlemen: Pauline

Pauline Campbell-Jones is a job centre restart officer with a sadistic streak and a deep-seated need to feel superior.

Both verbally and physically abusive to her hapless clients, Pauline is eventually reported to her superiors by an undercover investigator whom she then proceeds to assault. Unfortunately, her replacement seems to be no more compassionate...

The Job Lot

The newest sitcom to focus on the topic of unemployment can now be found on ITV1 on Mondays - The Job Lot.

Trained and poised to assist their West Midlands community, the staff of Brownall Job Centre are led by neurotic manager Trish (Sarah Hadland). Her support team of three includes Karl (Russell Tovey), a young man who is just as disillusioned as his clients are.

Add two mismatched security guards and a renegade fraud investigator to the dynamic, and the poor jobseekers stand little chance of actually achieving the goal of employment...