100 Greatest TV Shows to Watch Now – the British comedies
20 great British comedies available on demand, from Peep Show and The Thick of It to Fawlty Towers
Find out which British comedies made it on to our on demand list of the 100 Greatest TV Shows to Watch Now. Read more about the top ranked, and check out the full list here.
Peep Show
Every episode of this suffocatingly funny comedy is free on 4oD. Uptight office worker Mark (played by uptight comedian David Mitchell) and layabout Jeremy (Robert Webb) share a flat and a love/hate/hate relationship. No TV show has so perfectly captured the everyday, unending, constant horror of existence. Listening to their thoughts, it’s like you’re a passenger trapped in the slow-motion car crash of their lives.
The Thick of It
Netflix / Amazon Prime Instant Video
The comedy that had every politician smirking with recognition. From second homes to omnishambles to a missing bell-end — no, wait, that was Jeremy Hunt’s bell-ringing malfunction — Armando Iannucci’s satire reflected and prefigured life with vicious clarity. The series never feels preachy, never lets “the message” get in the way of character and comedy. Even Malcolm Tucker would struggle to pull that off.
More like this
The Gavin & Stacey
Netflix / Amazon Prime Instant Video
James Corden and Ruth Jones made their comedy names by writing and starring in a sitcom that’s impossible to dislike. Mathew Horne and Joanna Page play the long-distance lovers who put clans from opposite sides of the country — Billericay and Barry Island — on a collision course. Like The Royle Family before it, it’s all about the lovable quirks of our nearest and dearest — it doesn’t take long before the characters feel like family.
Read the full guide to The 100 Greatest Shows to Watch Now in the latest issue of Radio Times, out from Tuesday 13 January.
And the rest...
