Comedy Playhouse

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This article is about the BBC series. For the equivalent ITV series, see ITV Playhouse.

Comedy Playhouse
Comedy Playhouse.jpg
Titlecard for the 1961/1962 series episode "The Offer". This episode was the pilot for Steptoe and Son.
Created byTom Sloan
StarringVarious
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes129 (98 missing)
Production
Running timeUsually 25 minutes, 30 minutes or 35 minutes
Original release
NetworkBBC1
Release
  • Original Series
    15 December 1961 (1961-12-15) – 9 July 1975 (1975-07-09)
  • Revived Series
    29 April 2014 (2014-04-29) – 15 September 2017 (2017-09-15)

Comedy Playhouse[1] is a long-running British anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms that aired for 120 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including Steptoe and Son, Meet the Wife, Till Death Us Do Part, All Gas and Gaiters, Up Pompeii!, Not in Front of the Children, Me Mammy, That's Your Funeral, The Liver Birds, Are You Being Served? and particularly Last of the Summer Wine, which is the world's longest running sitcom, having run from January 1973 to August 2010.

In March 2014, it was announced that Comedy Playhouse would make a return that year with three new episodes.[2]

Background

The series began in 1961 at the prompting of Tom Sloan, Head of BBC Light Entertainment at the time. Galton and Simpson were no longer writing for Tony Hancock and Sloan asked them to write ten one-offs with the hope that one might become established as a series.[3] Thus, the first two series of Comedy Playhouse were written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, but after that the episodes were written by various writers. In all, 27 series started from a pilot in the Comedy Playhouse. The first eight series were in black-and-white, with the rest being in colour. Like many television programmes from the time, many of 1960s & 1970s episodes are lost. As a result, 98 episodes are currently missing from the archives. In Australia the series was broadcast on ABC Television in the early 1960s-late 1970s.

Episodes

Series One (1961–1962)

Main article: Comedy Playhouse (series 1)

The pilot episode of Steptoe and Son was broadcast as an episode.

Series Two (1963)

Main article: Comedy Playhouse (series 2)

Series Three (1963–1964)

Main article: Comedy Playhouse (series 3)

The pilot episodes of The Walrus and the Carpenter and Meet the Wife were broadcast as episodes.

Series Four (1965)

Series Five (1966)

Series Six (1967)

Series Seven (1968)

Series Eight (1969)

Series Nine (1969–1970)

Main article: Comedy Playhouse (series 9)

Series Ten (1970)

Series Eleven (1971)

Series Twelve (1972)

Main article: Comedy Playhouse (series 12)

The first episode of Are You Being Served? was broadcast as an episode, although this episode was used as a filler following the Munich Olympics terrorist attack, the BBC having originally declined broadcasting it.

Series Thirteen (1973)

Series Fourteen (1974)

Series Fifteen (1975)

Series Sixteen (2014)

Main article: Comedy Playhouse (series 16)
  • "Over to Bill" (29 April 2014)
  • "Miller's Mountain" (6 May 2014)
  • "Monks" (13 May 2014)

Series Seventeen (2016)

  • "Hospital People" (26 February 2016)[4]
  • "Broken Biscuits" (4 March 2016)[5]
  • "Stop/Start" (11 March 2016)[6]

Series Eighteen (2017)

  • "Tim Vine Travels in Time" (1 September 2017)[7]
  • "Mister Winner" (8 September 2017)[8]
  • "Static" (15 September 2017)[9]

Scottish Comedy Playhouse

The BBC aired six comedy pilots in 1970 in Scotland only under the title Scottish Comedy Playhouse, none of which developed onto a full series. While these were being aired, Monty Python's Flying Circus was broadcast in the rest of the UK. The episodes were

  1. Stand In For A Hearse (22 September 1970)
  2. The Siege of Castle Drumlie (29 September 1970)
  3. The Dinner Party (20 October 1970)
  4. To Grace A Son (28 October 1970)
  5. Stobo Takes The Chair (3 November 1970)
  6. Take Your Partners (10 November 1970)

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Comedy Playhouse". IMDb (Comedy). British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). 15 December 1961. Retrieved 28 January 2022.
  2. ^ Ian Burrell (17 March 2014). "BBC1 to revive 'Comedy Playhouse' after 40 years". The Independent. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  3. ^ Radio Times, 25 March 1971
  4. ^ "BBC One – Comedy Playhouse, Series 17, Hospital People".
  5. ^ "BBC One – Comedy Playhouse, Series 17, Broken Biscuits".
  6. ^ "BBC One – Comedy Playhouse, Series 17, Stop/Start".
  7. ^ "BBC One – Comedy Playhouse, Series 18, Tim Vine Travels in Time".
  8. ^ "BBC One – Comedy Playhouse, Series 18, Mister Winner".
  9. ^ "BBC One – Comedy Playhouse, Series 18, Static".

References

External links

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