I interviewed TV comedy's biggest stars – and here's how to write a hit sitcom

I've spent the last few months trying to convince the country that British comedy isn't dead. To say it's been an uphill struggle would be underselling it, but to be fair, my competition is a tad more prolific.

My journey began shortly after John Cleese declared, in an interview with Radio Times, that the once-great genre had popped its clogs – and the BBC was standing over its body holding a bloody knife.

"The people in charge now have no idea at all," he concluded, in an indictment of our public broadcaster. "The writers deserve better than this. The British people deserve better than this."

In his view, the BBC had not produced a decent comedy since The Office (which ended in 2003). Now, far be it from me to correct the creator of Fawlty Towers, but this struck me as a patently ridiculous claim.

Six months on, a cursory glance at the shortlisted contenders in Radio Times' greatest modern comedy poll should decisively prove otherwise (and yes, voting is still open, by the way).

It is true, however, that the comedy genre faces serious challenges: audiences are more fragmented than ever, personal tastes are thoroughly polarised and funding seems to evaporate into thin air.

Earlier this week, I explained why a renewed focus on quality long-running sitcoms could help reverse those money woes. Now, it's time to think about how to make one – and for that, I've gathered some advice from those who've done it before.

1. Be specific – it won't scare people off

When crafting a sitcom intended to have mass appeal, your inclination might be to think of a setting as generic as possible to avoid alienating viewers with something that they don't instantly recognise.

It's an understandable, but misguided notion. On the contrary, the premise is where you can be as granularly specific as you like, so long as there is an access point for the uninitiated.

Friday Night Dinner creator Robert Popper describes it as having a clear idea of what your show is "really" about, under the surface, throughout the development and writing process.

His own hit comedy revolves around the Jewish tradition of Shabbat dinner, held on Fridays, inspired to a large extent by his own family and life experience. In that respect, it's quite personal, but there's a universal element at its core.

"It's the feeling you have when you go home to your parents as an adult, and as soon as you walk in, you're 13 again," explained Popper to Radio Times. "Everyone has that, so it doesn't matter if your family's not the same, you will know that feeling."

He continued: "If I wrote just a general family that I thought were kind of funny, I don't think it would have resonated. I think the more specific it is, the more relatable it becomes, because it feels so real."

Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee took a similar approach to her own celebrated series, following a group of Catholic schoolgirls growing up in Northern Ireland during the fraught and deadly Troubles.

Upon first glance, it might read like an incredibly particular scenario. But again, McGee drew out what all viewers would identify with, while not compromising on the (at times, moving) truth of her premise.

"Even though the situation they were in was very different from most teenagers' experience, I always had in my head this idea that the Troubles were going on, but the real troubles were your teenage years," she told Radio Times.

"Everyone's had those real troubles of fancying the person that doesn't fancy them, their mum not letting them do something, their teacher being a nightmare – and I think people responded to that."

John Morton employed this method too while giving the workplace comedy a refresh with W1A, which is set within the walls of the BBC, but sought to be more than a self-indulgent in-joke for the corporation's employees.

"I hope that people who have watched it recognise the situation, even if they have no interest in or knowledge of media," he said, in an interview with Radio Times.

"It's about some people trying to organise something important under pressure from day to day, and stubbing their toe on details and on human nature. Really, they could be organising anything – it could be the village fete."

In summary, far from being a liability that limits your audience, specificity can actually help rejuvenate well-trodden ground.

Just ask Gavin and Stacey, whose rollercoaster romance was only made richer by its embrace of the distinctly regional, while amassing viewers in huge numbers with the relatable pitfalls of young love, clashing in-laws and domestic quirks.

2. Your premise is only as good as its characters

What does every legendary sitcom have in common? The style of comedy may vary, but everything from Only Fools and Horses to Friends to Peep Show to Ghosts shares one unifying feature: iconic characters.

In each case, their personalities are so intricately fine-tuned that they really take on a life of their own, which continues in the collective imagination long after the credits roll.

Brassic co-creator Danny Brocklehurst knows "for a fact" that the camaraderie between his show's smalltime crooks was the driving factor that kept viewers coming back year in, year out – as was the finding of annual research by Sky.

"They got up to silly things and they swore a lot, but they were really good-hearted criminals who all look after each other and tried to do the right thing for each other," he told Radio Times. "And I think that's quite endearing to an audience."

Alas, devising your lead role(s) is the "hardest" part of comedy writing, according to People Just Do Nothing co-creator and star Asim Chaudhry, who played wannabe Lothario and businessman Chabuddy G.

"We can all write jokes and we can all write funny situations, but to come up with a truly memorable character that stands the test of time... there's only a handful of them in British comedy," he explained, in a chat with Radio Times.

The work might be tough, but it's necessary to ensure your sitcom has a healthy engine that can keep it on the road for years, as Martha Howe-Douglas and her Ghosts co-writers found while working on the BBC One mega-hit.

"We tackle sexuality, homelessness, grief, all things that are not funny in themselves, but the way that the characters deal with those subjects is where the jokes come from," she explained to Radio Times.

"We don't make fun of the situations that the characters are in... it's about how they learn lessons," continued Howe-Douglas. "By series 2, you knew how the characters would react to certain situations – that was the fun in the show."

Chaudhry added that a well-developed comedy character can be funny "anywhere", citing Chabuddy G's short-lived stint on Love Island (for 2023's Red Nose Day) and an earlier appearance by the Kurupt FM crew on Dragons' Den.

Arguably, the epitome of this coveted achievement is Steve Coogan's beloved broadcaster Alan Partridge, whose masterfully observed personality has generated belly laughs across a wide variety of formats and mediums.

It just goes to show how a fully fleshed out protagonist can be the key that unlocks a dazzling array of possibilities.

3. Embrace your "undiluted" voice

In the world of TV development and production, there can often be a lot of cooks in the kitchen – and some of them, like it or not, do need to be there.

So, by no means am I suggesting you should turn your nose up in disgust at the audacity of a constructive note, but there is clearly merit in sticking to your most firmly held beliefs about what a given project should be.

As Big Boys creator Jack Rooke told Radio Times: "For a long time, the producers wanted it to be more like an E4/Inbetweeners-style 'laddy' comedy, but I just can't write that. We did try!

"The early iterations of Big Boys were a bit more like that, but I just really didn't like it. I like 'lad humour' – there are episodes of The Inbetweeners that make me howl with laughter – but it's just not the story I wanted to tell."

Would Big Boys have carried the same poignancy with its exploration of grief and youth mental health had it taken the more lowbrow route suggested? It seems unlikely.

Similarly, Rob Delaney credits Catastrophe's success to the strong "authorial imprint" made by himself and co-creator Sharon Horgan, which produced a hilarious romcom that was also able to touch on weightier themes.

"We talked about what we wanted to talk about. We did it in a way that we wanted to do it," he reflected, in a conversation with Radio Times. "I think you can tell if shows are made out of compounds and stuff. Catastrophe is pretty elemental.

"It's undiluted: What two people, who were united in their creative goals, really wanted to do," he added. "And if it hadn't been that, I don't think it would have been successful."

Matt Berry used that same word ("undiluted") to describe his own Channel 4 series Toast of London, which couldn't be further from Catastrophe in terms of tone, style and subject matter – and yet, the hands-off approach still mined comedy gold.

"This was a show that contained material that myself and Arthur [Mathews, co-creator] found funny, and we just hoped that Channel 4 would think it was OK. To be fair, they didn't mess with it, they just let us get on with it," he said.

"I don't know whether that goes towards it lasting or not... All I would say is that it was a fairly pure voice due to the amount of people that were involved in the creative side – largely, just two."

As Berry proceeded to make clear, that amount of creative freedom is very unusual, but a powerful or distinctive voice is clearly something that shouldn't be suffocated or shied away from – by commissioners, producers or the writer(s) themselves.

Just think: would a more reserved approach have helped or hindered other genre delights, such as Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Fleabag, Michaela Coel's Chewing Gum or Kat Sadler's Such Brave Girls?

That isn't to say this mantra is only good for stories of a ruder disposition; it was daring, in its own way, to commission something as earnest and understated as Detectorists in the face of more trendy competition.

"I wanted to see if people would still go for something that had some warmth and some heart to it, and wasn't cynical," recalled Mackenzie Crook, who defied the typical style of the 2010s with a series evoking The Good Life and Ever Decreasing Circles.

4. The cheaper, the better (sorry)

Two things can be true at one time: no, comedy shouldn't be viewed as a strictly low budget endeavour, but yes, in the eyes of UK commissioners, it currently is.

If you're looking to get a sitcom made, and especially if you want the most creative freedom possible, it would be advisable to come up with a premise that can be realised without breaking the bank.

Mackenzie Crook credits affordability for why Detectorists was such an easy sell to BBC Four. Despite being a "strange idea on paper," he told Radio Times, "they commissioned it almost immediately because there was no risk – it was cheap to make".

Rob Delaney also cites low costs when decoding why he and Sharon Horgan were granted such a long leash on Catastrophe, although filming in east London in 2026 might not be the steal it was a decade earlier.

Fortunately, recent years have seen a concerted effort to spread production more widely across the country, including G'wed in Liverpool, The Outlaws in Bristol and Alma's Not Normal in Bolton.

In any case, consider how many locations, cast and crew members your story really needs in order to be told effectively – and if that sounds almightily depressing, try to reframe it as a creative exercise of its own.

For example, breakout hits of recent years like Peter Kay's Car Share and Ghosts were able to keep costs down through the resourceful use of a single location: a red Fiat 500L and Surrey's West Horsley Place (aka Button House), respectively.

Ghosts producer Matthew Mulot clarified that it was "not cheap" to hire out the show's manor house for months at a time, but the team squeezed every penny out of it by dressing up the many rooms and corners as external environments.

This meant that they very rarely needed to devote time and resource to moving the cast and crew across town, which in turn allowed production to advance at a rapid pace.

Mulot added that there's "no way" Ghosts could have conjured the same "authenticity" for its historic haunted house on a studio set, but it's an option to mull over for sitcoms with a more mundane primary setting.

Changing Ends creator Alan Carr shared that, even after falling out of fashion, the classic and relatively inexpensive studio-based sitcom (à la Miranda, Not Going Out or Mrs Brown's Boys) remains an oft-elusive "holy grail" to broadcasters.

"I just wanted that 'meat and two veg sitcom'," he explained. "There's nothing wrong with being traditional – it's nice to think that people are passing the baton along. It's a wonderful thing, and it's very British as well."

It's certainly not an option to be dismissed out of hand, no matter how slick and modern you may wish to be perceived. After all, in the words of Matt Berry, "everything ends up on GOLD".

"Even these things that you think are the most cutting-edge, with the most cutting-edge people in, that's going to eventually end up on GOLD," he mused. "As long as you were true to yourself when you put it together, I think that's it, really."

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