Who are the best sitcom writers of all time? Page 3

Clement & Le Frenais
Galton & Simpson
Peter Tilbury
Eric Chappell (and Jean Warr)
Graham Linehan (and Arthur Mathews)

John Sullivan
John Cleese
Richard Curtis/Ben Elton count as one writer somehow..

In my opinion British comedy has only produced two genius's, Spike Milligan and Peter Cook, neither were sitcom writers, so I guess Galton and Simpson for writing the rulebook, Clement and La Frenais the most consistent, Johnny Speight for breaking the rules, Python for rewriting them, Ben Elton and the Comic Strip for refreshing it. Of course none of them could hold a candle to the true master of situation comedy P G Wodehouse

Looks like the usual suspects have come up and to be fair rightly so.

Interestingly most seem to be comedy writers from the 60s, 70s and 80s.

My own favourite has to be Jim Hitchmough, who is probably best known for Watching. Very cleverly written and also extremely funny, the best ingredients for a good comedy.

Thumbs up also to Perry and Croft, Clement and La Frenais for consistently funny comedies.

Quote: smc4761 @ 12th October 2016, 6:48 PM

Looks like the usual suspects have come up and to be fair rightly so.

Interestingly most seem to be comedy writers from the 60s, 70s and 80s.

My own favourite has to be Jim Hitchmough, who is probably best known for Watching. Very cleverly written and also extremely funny, the best ingredients for a good comedy.

Indeed, Watching was amazing.

What annoys the life out of me is the TV companies give us the same old sitcoms again and again, OFAH Fawlty Towers, Porridge, UK Gold is particularly guilty of this.

There are literally hundreds of funny sitcoms out there needing a repeat, WATCHING being a prime example.

Stop giving us the usual dross, there are only so many times you can watch Del Boy falling through the bar and it is funny, give us something new and refreshing

Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, Galton and Simpson!

I remember, a good few years before the Internet was usable and reliable, teaching Dick Clement how to use a modem to transfer his scripts. At the time he was in California and I was in London and he was trying to send the scripts to their production company here in London. It was WitzEnd, part of SelecTV.

It was difficult!

Ben Elton