\"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.\"... \"They laugh that win\"
In this episode I talk to my former Sitcom Geeks co-host James Cary. James is one of the most successful audience sitcom writers in the UK, having worked on a host of TV and radio audience shows including Miranda, My Hero, Think The Unthinkable and My Family. His own show Bluestone 42 ran for three series on the BBC. Together we nerded out for 222 episodes about all matters sitcom.
We stopped making the show in 2023, in the time since I've become obsessed with Shakespeare, but have also come to understand how so much of the audience TV show, my favourite form of comedy, owes its debt directly to the plays of Shakespeare. I thought I might struggle to persuade James of this latest theory but it turns out that he has his own favourite Shakespeare obsessions as well.
In this, the first part of the interview, we talk about what an audience sitcom is and how it sits as a direct descendant of the old English music hall and the plays of Shakespeare. We talk about what we love about audience sitcom (\"I like laughing\" is James's excellent answer to the question), and how this relates to some of the best aspects of Shakespeare - including the feeling engendered by being in the room when the show is happening.
We discuss how flawed characters are at the heart of the best sitcoms, and talk of how this is also true in a lot of Shakespeare.
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