TV to make you smile

We don't actually talk about TV in general enough here but given the comments in the other thread (we'll ban that word in this thread) it is clear we all need a bit of an escape so I thought a thread to help us all out with shows that either make you laugh or engrossed you in another world for a bit might make sense. We are of course spoiled for choice with a huge amount of on demand content available, with quite a bit for free on the iPlayer and All4.


I'll start with comedy and if you haven't yet certainly try This Country, The Young Offenders, Derry Girls and Friday Night Dinner. Also though Ladhood and My Left Nut were excellent.

And if you want something now a bit more cultured I've randomly found myself tuning into a John Williams Proms from 2017.

BBC Four have been repeating the wonderful Clive James travelogues for the past few months. There's still some left on iPlayer.

One of the more interesting skits from BBC Proms in the last few years:


Things like this make you realise that certain compositions and/or arrangements for shows don't come about by accident. You can just see a cartoon from a soundtrack like this on its own.

Yes I remember my dad being a big fan of Shelley first time round but I was only old enough to see the revival.

Forces TV is such a curious channel, last time I looked it was showing Never The Twain and Slingers Day every evening. Nice they get an airing and some of them are quite good still... but Forces TV?

ITV does not want to repeat them - if they did, they would have ensured they had the rights, which they didn't bother. Slinger's Day is really bad sitcom with Bruce Forsyth and his worst wig ever on display - Never the Twain is one of those sitcoms forgotten by many

Most (I think all, actually) of the sitcoms on Forces TV are made by Thames, so ITV never owned the rights anyway, so they wouldn't be able to just show them without having to pay Fremantle for the rights. Which would be a lot more expensive than showing what they own. ITV3 have repeated several of them at some point of course, but they'll have bought them in from Fremantle.

I will admit I think Forces TV output is "mixed" to say the least. Having said that though its providing some respite from the chaos and uncertainty in the world right now.

I agree about Slinger's Day. Just so long as they don't show....
https://www.tvark.org/?page=media&mediaid=89954

Forces TV is so called because it's owned by the British Forces Broadcasting Service. Incidentally, the rest of their network just rebranded a couple of weeks ago.

https://www.forces.net/newbfbs
https://www.forces.net/75-reasons-to-love-new-bfbs

When it began the shows they had were all forces related. They bought in a few military related sitcoms (i.e. Get Some In, Hogan's Heroes and The Phil Silvers Show), then the connection to the forces in the shows they bought in got looser and looser (i.e. I Dream of Jeannie, Get Smart), then they seem to have started buying in anything. I guess it rates and brings them in more money though.

A couple of years ago my best mate was dangerously ill in ICU andnthe only things which brought a smile to my face during that time was ITV3 reruns of Man About the House and George and Mildred. Gentle and genuinely funny programmes from Thames TV.

I see Miranda was rerun on Friday night unexpectedly on BBC 1 again a good choice.

Perhaps we can have Allo Allo rerun? The early series were the best (the Chistmas Special into series 3 being the top)