1. Romans Empire (BBC2, 2007)
Very rarely is such a deftly written sitcom with an incredible cast on our screens so briefly. This short-lived sitcom (described by some as an English Arrested Development) that ran for a single series in 2007 follows the lives of Roman Pretty, a business mogul with a raging ego who seems to be routinely commuting from Cloud-cuckoo-land, and his immediate and extended family including his three daughters Jenny, Nikki, and Kelly, Nikkis ex-boyfriend Leo who still lives with the Prettys and is the only sane man in the family, and Jennys husband Jase who is desperate to escape his life with Jenny and their infant daughter. It had an excellent cast including Neil Dudgeon (Inspector Morse), Matthew Horne (Gavin & Stacey), Chris ODowd (The IT Crowd), and Montserrat Lombard (Ashes To Ashes) in several of the main roles, and comedienne Morwenna Banks as the occasionally heard voice of Jases daughter who constantly berates him for his attempts to abandon her. The whole thing is incredibly dense with three primary storylines: Leo trying to win back Nikki, Roman trying to build a theme park called Romania, and Jase trying to escape his marriage by any means necessary including faking his own death and converting to Judaism. But beyond that there are frequent running gags and a minor subplot of the Prettys gardener Mr Hokasawa planning to murder Roman as an act of revenge but failing to go through with it after falling in love with Kelly while everybody is oblivious to his declarations of dire vengeance thanks to nobody speaking Japanese. The programme having so much material to use means it never feels like it's going nowhere but, surprisingly, it doesnt feel overstocked with characters and jokes either, always finding room to smoothly slot in episode-specific subplots and one-off gags. Its content is also pretty bold for a BBC2 sitcom with one episode seeing Kelly recording Nikkis boyfriend Seb performing Wang Shapes (the alternate term Genital Sculpture gives you some idea of what that consists of), and some surprisingly daring jokes about Jases conversion to Judaism such as Jenny turning up at the local Synagogue wearing a Burkha after looking up "the wrong kind of temple" on the internet.
Its a very well put together programme that deserves more recognition than it currently gets but it has yet to be repeated on the BBC, and the DVD has become something of a rarity, leading to it having a massive price tag. Which means that unless you have money to burn, you're unlikely to see this. But if you can find a way to watch it, definitely give it a try.
Which British TV comedies do you think are overlooked? Leave a comment...