This Saturday the BBC will be announcing the results of their three month quest to uncover Britain's Best Sitcom (or the BBC's Best Sitcom, as it's turned out). I've cast a geographical eye over the Top 10 shortlist to investigate any possible spatial connections. Three of the supposed favourite sitcoms were located along the south coast of England (Torquay, Bournemouth-ish and Walmington-on-Sea), one in a Buckinghamshire village, one in Doncaster and one in a Cumbrian prison. But the other four were very definitely London-based, as indeed have been rather a lot of other TV sitcoms over the past fifty years. A suspiciously large number of these have been based in South, West and Southwest London too, not a million miles from BBC TV Centre and Thames's Teddington Studios. I guess at least this saved on the licence fee.
I've delved back into my memory, and deep into the internet, in an attempt to produce the definitive (clickable) postcode-by-postcode guide to London's sitcoms. And here's my first updated version:
Now, I reckon with your help I can improve this list. Firstly there are some sitcoms I've listed but without an exact location. Can anybody pinpoint these a bit more precisely? Secondly there are sitcoms like Comrade Dad and Butterflies(?) that I haven't managed to locate within London at all. Where were they exactly? And thirdly, and most importantly, there'll be other London-based sitcoms that I've completely failed to remember. What were they, and where? Do tell me. Just for a laugh.
