Characters from "Britain's Best Sitcoms" Quiz

Answer: Yes Minister

"Yes Minister" (1980-84) and its sequel "Yes Prime Minister" (1986-88, 2013) were political satires that poked fun at the relationship between the UK's elected Members of Parliament and the Civil Service bureaucracy which supported them. In "Yes Minister", Sir Humphrey Appleby (played by Nigel Hawthorne) was the Permanent Secretary to Jim Hacker (Paul Eddington) at the Department of Administrative Affairs.

The running joke throughout all the series was that the elected politicians thought they made all the important decisions and got things done, while in fact the senior Civil Servants (typified by Sir Humphrey) actually ran the show and more often than not stopped the politicians doing anything stupid. The real joke of course was that this is a fairly accurate reflection of reality.

Answer: The Good Life

Margo Leadbetter was a character in "The Good Life", 30 episodes of which were made between 1975 and 1978. She and her husband Jerry lived next door to Tom and Barbara Good, who decided to drop out of the rat-race and become wholly self-sufficient in their South London suburban home, digging up their lawn to plant vegetables and keep pigs and chickens.

The relationship between the two very different couples was the driving force for much of the comedy. Margo, played by Penelope Keith, was a snobbish social climber who nevertheless valued her friendship with the Goods more than she disapproved of their lifestyle, and when the chips were down would always rally round to support them.

Answer: Fawlty Towers

Polly Sherman was the waitress in the sitcom "Fawlty Towers", set in a Torquay hotel. She was probably the most normal and sane member of the hotel staff, although this didn't prevent her being embroiled in many of the ludicrous goings-on, alongside the hotel owner Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), his wife Sybil (Prunella Scales) and Manuel the Spanish waiter (Andrew Sachs).

Connie Booth, who played Polly, co-wrote the series with John Cleese, to whom she was married at the time. Although only twelve episodes were ever made (two series of six each in 1975 and 1979) it is often cited as the greatest ever British TV sitcom.

Answer: Blackadder

Up until 2020, four series of "Blackadder" had been made (plus a couple of specials), each set in a different British historical period. Baldrick, played by Tony Robinson, appeared in each of these as the sidekick to Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson).

In the first series, "The Black Adder", set in mediaeval England, he was more intelligent than his master, but in subsequent series the roles were reversed, and he became very much more dim-witted. His catchphrase was "I have a cunning plan", usually as the prelude to suggesting something profoundly idiotic.

Answer: One Foot in the Grave

Victor Meldrew was the lead male character in "One Foot in the Grave" (1990-2000), who at the start of the series had just been made redundant from his job as a security guard. Played by Richard Wilson, he was the quintessential "grumpy old man", continuously at odds with the world and everyone in it, to the dismay of his long-suffering wife Margaret, played by Annette Crosbie.

While ostensibly following a traditional sitcom format, the series became known for its blend of farce and tragedy, often branching out into surreal plotlines and very black comedy. The final episode (of 42) took this to its logical conclusion and dealt with Victor's death in a hit-and-run car accident.

Answer: Porridge

"Porridge" is 1950s British slang term for a prison sentence, and the series of that name was set in the unlikely comedy setting of the fictional Slade Prison. The main character, Norman Fletcher, was played by Ronnie Barker.

Even more than most sitcoms, the show was constrained by its subject-matter to a very limited setting, but it used this to its advantage by focussing on the relationships between the prisoners and the warders, and successfully drawing the humour from their characters. It has often been praised by actual inmates as an accurate portrayal of day-to-day prison life. "Porridge" ran for three full series from 1974-77, plus a follow-up series entitled "Going Straight" that featured Fletcher's life after his release.

Answer: Only Fools and Horses

Rodney Trotter and his older brother Derek (known as "Del Boy") were the two central characters in the sitcom "Only Fools and Horses", which ran on the BBC between 1981 to 2003 (seven full series plus 16 Christmas specials). Del (played by David Jason) was a fast-talking South London market trader, always on the look-out for a dodgy money-making opportunity. Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst) was his younger, less intelligent, brother, who invariably found himself dragged into Del's illegitimate schemes.

The contrast between Del's ambitions and humdrum reality was summed up in his business vehicle, which was a battered yellow three-wheeled Reliant Regal van, but with the words "Trotters Independent Traders: New York - Paris - Peckham" stencilled on the side. The title is a reference to the British saying "Only fools and horses work".

Answer: Open All Hours

"Open All Hours" was a sitcom set in and around a South Yorkshire corner shop run by Arkwright, a tight-fisted curmudgeon played by Ronnie Barker, with the assistance of his nephew, Granville (David Jason). Arkwright had an unrequited love for his neighbour, Nurse Gladys Emmanuel, played by Lynda Baron. While apparently fond of him, she nevertheless resisted all his advances.

26 episodes of the show were made following the original 1973 pilot, the final episode being broadcast in 1985. In 2013, to mark the 40th anniversary of the pilot, the show's creator, Roy Clarke, wrote a one-off Christmas special entitled "Still Open All Hours". David Jason reprised his role as Granville, who has now taken over the shop on his own, following the death of Arkwright (Ronnie Barker himself having died in 2005). Lynda Baron also returned as Nurse Gladys. The show was so successful that a full series was commissioned, followed by several more. By 2020, it had clocked up 41 episodes, more than the original.

Answer: The Vicar of Dibley

Alice Tinker, played by Emma Chambers, was the verger of Dibley Parish Church in the BBC sitcom "The Vicar of Dibley", which was first broadcast in 1994. The show starred Dawn French as the Reverend Geraldine Granger, the village's first female vicar.

Alice can politely be described as intellectually challenged, but has a heart of gold. At the end of the second series she marries Hugo Horton: a good match, as he is almost as dim-witted as she is. Only two full series of "The Vicar of Dibley" were ever made (1994 and 1998), but these were followed by numerous seasonal specials, meaning the show's 20 episodes (as at November 2020) spanned a relatively long period of time.

Answer: Dad's Army

A total of 80 episodes of "Dad's Army" were broadcast between 1968 and 1977: nine full series in only ten years. Its subject was the British Home Guard during the Second World War, which was mostly made up of men either too old or too young for full military service and was intended to be the first line of defence in the event of a surprise German invasion.

Frank Pike, played by Ian Lavender, was the youngest member of the troop, and was presented as a naïve "mummy's boy". During the show's eighth season he was called up for full military service but was rejected because of his rare blood group. When a 2016 film version was released with Blake Harrison playing Pike, Ian Lavender made a cameo appearance as a new character, Brigadier Pritchard.