If you love Britcoms, you need to buy this book. The author's affection for the shows he loves is infectious, and he does a good job ob of bringing you along with his actual life through the decades. Right off the bat, his mention of the musicality of Fawlty Towers is spot on:
Each episode is choreographed in a similar way to a complicated musical number on stage or on screen. The exits and entrances of the characters are crucial to the plots and the comedy, and the intricacies of each plot, and how they cross over is a wonder of ingenious plotting.
And it's nice to see someone show so much admiration for the fantastic Miranda Hart. Readers should also delight in arguing about which shows he left out; I would start the screaming with:
Gavin and Stacey, To the Manor Born, Open All Hours, Still Open All Hours, Black Books, The Vicar of Dibley, Count Arthur Strong, Cuckoo, Spy, Whites, Rev, Father Ted, The Green Green Grass, Peep Show, Friday Night Dinner, Uncle, Derry Girls (tho to be fair the author mentioned not including Father Ted because it's Irish and not British, so maybe that goes for DG too...same with Moone Boy), Benidorm, The Wrong Man(s), Catastrophe, Chickens, Vicious, Fresh Meat. Also an entire chapter on the disappointing White Gold, for which the thinking apparently was "great we have half of The Inbetweeners here so let's make sure to barely use them at all". Grrr.
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