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Channel 4's 30 Greatest Comedy Shows

Channel 4's 30 Greatest Comedy Shows

  • TV factual
  • Channel 4
  • 2012
  • 1 episode

A countdown of the 30 greatest comedy shows in Channel 4's archives. Features Simon Pegg, Al Murray, Charlie Higson, Vic Reeves, Bob Mortimer and more.

Press clippings

C4's 30 Greatest Comedy Shows (Channel 4, weirdly, Saturday) was unforgivable because most people don't - and shouldn't - think of TV shows in terms of what channel they went out on. And also, of course, because it's mutual masturbation. Hmm, maybe I'll write a really long article all about the really great articles I've written before. (Leave it, trolls, too easy.)

Sam Wollaston, The Guardian, 26th August 2012

There's no getting around the fact that this is a monumental feast of backslapping: a two-hour, self-loving parade where Channel 4 tells itself just how wonderful and influential it is. Which is pretty insufferable if you think about it. Luckily for Channel 4, it does have a lot to cheer about.

This was the channel, after all, that gave us Green Wing and Spaced, Peep Show, Brass Eye and Father Ted. And we should be forever grateful to C4 for giving Harry Hill his TV debut with The Harry Hill Show (1997-99), which figures in the foothills of the top 30, voted for by members of the public.

Elsewhere Dom Joly, from Trigger Happy TV, bemoans the albatross of the giant mobile phone gags, where he yelled "HELLO!" into a fake mobile ("I really hate it [now]. I hate it with a passion uncontested. It's my Emu"), and Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer reveal they filmed their Big Night Out 20 minutes after leaving the pub.

Alison Graham, Radio Times, 25th August 2012

Chris Morris's scathing satire Brass Eye, Jessica Hynes and Simon Pegg's brilliantly offbeat Spaced, Victoria Pile's gloriously surreal Green Wing - Channel 4, it's fair to say, has reeled out a number of memorable comedies since it launched in 1982. Part of C4's Funny Fortnight, this lively two-hour programme counts down its top 30, as voted for by readers of the station's website. "Rude, radical, and irreverent, over the last 30 years Channel 4 comedy has taken us on one hell of a ride," intones the narrator, with no shortage of hyperbole. Though the tone, of course, is self-congratulatory, there's still plenty to enjoy here, not least the terrific archived footage, which reminds you why these show's have such an enduring appeal. Interspersed with these clips are hilarious insights from an impressive array of talking heads: among them, Tamsin Greig, Sally Phillips, Al Murray, Charlie Higson, David Mitchell, Robert Webb, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes, who says about Spaced: "When I think about all the things I've done, that was the most intense, the most fun, the thing I'm most proud of." One caveat: how did a show as derivative as Star Stories make it on to the list?

Patrick Smith, The Telegraph, 24th August 2012

Vote for your favourite Channel 4 comedy

This is where the great British public - that's you - gets to vote for the best Channel 4 comedy ever.

Channel 4, 19th June 2012

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