Month: June 2022

A Look At What Went Wrong With Series 6 and 7 of “The Brittas Empire”

The cast of the show during Series 6. Clockwise from top left; Julie (played by Judy Flynn), Helen (played by Pippa Haywood), Brittas (played by Chris Barrie), Linda (played by Jill Greenacre), Penny (played by Anouschka Menzies), Gavin (played by Tim Marriott), Carole (played by Harriet Thorpe), Colin (played by Michael Burns) and Tim (played by Russell Porter)

Introduction

“The Brittas Empire” was a British sitcom running from 1991 to 1997 which featured Chris Barrie as Gordon Brittas, a manager with a Dream but not enough social skills and too much confidence to lead it without everything descending into chaos, as well as a similarly oddball staff to compliment him. This blog post in particular though is specifically focused on a later part in the series’ history, namely Series 6 and 7. By this point, Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen (the original creators of the series) had left, with Series 5 presumably being intended to be the end of the Series, a theory backed up by the fact that their final episode had everyone being given their happy ending. However, after said special, the BBC decided to continue the series for two series, getting on new writers to fill the void left by the original two’s absence. Despite the attempts of the new writers, however, these new episodes were not well-liked by the viewers for a variety of reasons, and this post attempts to look into why this may be the case.

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Welcome to my blog about Sitcoms!

Welcome to my very own blog: British Sitcoms and Me, a blog which I have just set up to discuss British Sitcoms, whether that be my opinions on them or just some interesting facts that I have recently found out about them.

Why are you doing this?

Good question, random observer! First, it’s Summer where I’m currently living (although you wouldn’t be able to tell from the weather) and I’ve recently finished University for the year so it would be nice to have something to do to pass the time without devolving into madness (although I do hope to continue working on this when I get back to University in the Autumn). Secondly, I have been exploring my future career options and have found that maintaining a blog works well in getting into future career pathways, especially if I want to get into the study of media, so I figured: Why not start now!

Why British sitcoms in particular?

Also a good question there. Well, I first discovered them around about 2018-2019 through shows like Derry Girls and The IT Crowd. However, it wasn’t until the 2020 Covid-19 Lockdown that I realized that I really liked them, thanks to me gaining special interests in shows like Red Dwarf and my favorite underrated sitcom of all: The Brittas Empire. And, whilst there is some good coverage about them online, I feel like it is a field that isn’t particularly crowded, especially concerning those sitcoms which were once popular, but are never talked about nowadays.

Of course, it doesn’t help that compared to dramas, sitcoms are somewhat ignored in media coverage. This is a fact that is especially true with studio sitcoms, which are nowadays treated as laughing stocks (I still shudder at a Guardian article suggesting that audience laughter is unsophisticated). So, with this in mind, I figured I might try to give more coverage to those sitcoms that need some love.

So what types of British Sitcoms do you plan to talk about?

Well, I could in theory talk about anything in this field. However, I have a preference for those sitcoms from the 1990s. And I’m not just talking about more popular shows like Absolutely Fabulous and One Foot in the Grave. I’m talking about stuff like Sitting Pretty, Is It Legal? and On The Up. But, as I say, if it piques my interest in the field of British Sitcoms, I will try to make a blog post about it.

…Bloggist out.