Does The UK Have The World’s Best Comedy?

You have to admire the guts of anyone trying to make a new British comedy. Whether TV or film, game or documentary, good luck walking in the footsteps of giants like Fawlty Towers, Only Fools & Horses or Blackadder. Even in this century every new comedy property must measure itself against Love Actually, The Office, Wallace & Gromit and Bridget Jones’s Diary, to name but a few. Yet people keep trying – and more astonishing, they keep succeeding in living up to those legends. We’ve gone into the archives to take a look and it’s official: there’s literally no kind of comedy that the UK hasn’t nailed at some time – and some recent hits look to be continuing that trend.

Let’s start with some genre cross-overs that you might expect to be difficult. Surely we’re not mixing mirth with murder, right? Well, tell that to the star-studded See How They Run or Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths. In fact, stick with only Colin Farrell starring films and try In Bruges or Killing Of A Sacred Deer for good measure and for some wry giggles alongside the deaths. Bad Sisters also mixes crime and pun-ishment thanks to Sharon Horgan, a one-woman comedy machine (see also: Catastrophe, Motherland, Military Wives and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie). TV’s Wedding Season has also seen a man on the run trying to clear his name in another unlikely laugh-fest. In games, Tangle Tower is the one for you, giving a light-hearted and even cozy feel to the search for a killer. Think of it like a game take on Gosford Park but with fewer big-name thespians involved.

There’s grand theft art and comedy in The Duke; natural disaster and comedy in Triangle Of Sadness and hitwoman comedy in TV’s Killing Eve. Politics is the focus of comedy in Yes Minister, The Death Of Stalin and Derry Girls; even more unlikely, Chris Morris (The Day Today) got laughs from terrorism in the extraordinary Four Lions. What’s that? You want a comedy that combines the story of striking miners and LGBT activists amid the AIDS crisis? Even that exists: check out Pride and prepare your heart to be both touched and broken. Or perhaps you want a documentary-style comedy that addresses the biggest possible questions of existence and the universe? Then try the reliably uninformed Cunk On Life, with Diane Morgan’s Philomena Cunk explaining the facts of life as only she can.

We have comedy from literary classics – The Personal History Of David Copperfield – and (sort of) drawn from English history – the immortal Blackadder – and (indirectly) the Bible itself – Good Omens. There are comedies about priests (Father Ted), spies (Slow Horses) and the obscenely posh (Saltburn). One recent favourite for audiences is Ghosts, the story of a couple who inherit a crumbling manor filled with, well, ghosts. That’s been remade rather well for American audiences, but the original is still, for our money, the most charming.

Sci-fi and fantasy are also well represented, as you’d expect. Attack The Block is an alien invasion comedy, as is The World’s End, while Yesterday is a sort of alternative-reality comedy and Barbie is, of course, set in a doll’s world. For chocolate-based giggles, it has to be Wonka. Alternatively, Shaun of the Dead mines laughs from a zombie apocalypse, while Scott Pilgrim Takes Off finds video-game style action mixing with absurdity and The Baby takes horror comedy back to the nursery. If you enjoyed the comic fantasy of something like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, try the game Tactical Breach Wizards, which sees a SWAT team of wizards tackle a corrupt theocracy – but with laughs. The Fable series of games are well established and set in a sort of fantastical early Briton, but with their upcoming instalment starring comic legend Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, Early Man) you can tell that humour is a big part of the series.

As you’d expect, police comedy comes in all flavours. There’s the terrifyingly competent copper who leads Hot Fuzz, the mostly-together Annika on TV , the general ineptitude of Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa and the completely unhinged Filth. Similarly, there’s huge variation in musical comedy and even comedy in musical documentaries. Think of the wild excesses of the Elton John story in Rocketman, or the singalong joy of Mamma Mia! and its sequel, Here We Go Again. But also look at the witty subjects of The Sparks Brothers, Oasis doc Supersonic and Sinead O’Connor story Nothing Compares for big laughs alongside the big tunes.

Absurdity in fashion is the focus of both Cruella and Absolutely Fabulous (both the original TV show and its big-screen spin-off), while Polite Society manages to combine action movie, comedy of manners and wedding drama to hilarious effect. Even British animals can be funny, in the likes of A Shaun the Sheep Movie, Andrea Arnold’s somehow funny documentary Cow or games like The Grinch Christmas Adventures.

Finally, there’s just the humour of everyday life. Think of the young people just trying to figure things out in Rye Lane, Peep Show, The Inbetweeners, Spaced or Fleabag. They’re all wildly different styles and moods of comedy, but they share a curiosity about life that makes them special. Think of the poor chef trying to keep up with his disruptive customers in the game PlateUp!. Or look to the wild, indefinable worlds of comedy like Poor Things, Inside No. 9 or Monty Python. Blame the weather, perhaps, but these islands have bred people who try to make a joke out of pretty much everything. Well, you have to, don’t you?