British Comedy Guide
The Comedy Years. Image shows from L to R: Louise Gold, Steve Nallon. Copyright: Shiver Productions
The Comedy Years

The Comedy Years

  • TV documentary
  • ITV3
  • 2019
  • 4 episodes (1 series)

Documentary series looking at how TV comedy shows portrayed society in 1979, 1984, 1998 and 2003. Features Shaparak Khorsandi, Jon Culshaw, Debra Stephenson, Dom Joly, Ann Widdecombe and more.

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Episode menu

Series 1, Episode 3 - 1998

The Comedy Years. Image shows from L to R: Susannah Doyle, Robert Duncan, Ingrid Lacey. Copyright: Shiver Productions
In 1998 New Labour were in power and ground breaking new comedies started to appear on TV which included The Royle Family and Goodness Gracious Me.

Further details

The Comedy Years: 1998 features interviews with stars of comedy past and present - revealing the comedy moments that inspired them - including the likes of Shobna Gulati, Kulvinder Ghir, Sherrie Hewson, John Culshaw, Debra Stephenson, Ingrid Lacey, Robert Duncan and Susannah Doyle.

This episode looks back at 1998. It was the era of New Labour and Blair's Britain - and also a year that saw some ground-breaking new comedy series.

The Royle Family brought a new, social-realist style of filming to the world of sitcom. Meanwhile, the BBC launched the first all-Asian TV sketch show, Goodness Gracious Me.

Victoria Wood made her first foray into the world of situation comedy with the award-winning series Dinnerladies.

1998 also saw the final series of two much-loved shows of the Nineties - satirical comedy Drop The Dead Donkey and cult sitcom Father Ted.

Broadcast details

Date
Sunday 21st April 2019
Time
9pm
Channel
ITV3
Length
60 minutes

Cast & crew

Cast
Shaparak Khorsandi (as Shappi Khorsandi) Self
Jon Culshaw Self
Debra Stephenson Self
Dom Joly Self
Ann Widdecombe Self
Sherrie Hewson Self
Janet Street-Porter Self
Tracy-Ann Oberman Self
John O'Farrell Self
Andrew Collins Self
Anil Gupta Self
Alastair Campbell Self
Barry Cryer Self
Hugh Bonneville Narrator
Guest cast
Omid Djalili Self
Joel Dommett Self
Mark Heap Self
Kevin Day Self
Robert Duncan Self
Ingrid Lacey Self
Susannah Doyle Self
Glenn Wilhide Self
Duncan Preston Self
Shobna Gulati Self
Kulvinder Ghir Self
Arthur Mathews Self
Production team
Kerry Allison Director
Gavin Barclay Director
Stuart Ramsay Series Producer
Kerry Allison Producer
Gavin Barclay Producer
Mark Scantlebury Executive Producer
Mark Robinson Executive Producer
Jude Bibby Post Producer
Mike Eccles Editor
Daniel Ward Editor
Dave Woodyer Editor

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