My Family & Barrowman

[Si Hunt]

Zoe Wanamaker has admitted that she is no longer impressed with the quality of My Family.

The actress, who plays Susan Harper in the BBC One comedy show, revealed that she and co-star Robert Lindsay even refused to film one episode because it was so poor.

"What attracted me to the first scripts was that they had a slightly quirky, American Jewish quality to them. That's my humour. Critics absolutely hated it. The public liked it. But it's turned into a machine," Wanamaker told The Daily Telegraph.

"Robert and I even refused at one point to do one, it was so bad. That caused a lot of problems, but we just felt it was not good enough. We had practically a football team of scriptwriters working on the last series."

However, Wanamaker added that she is grateful for the financial rewards of appearing on the programme.

"I shouldn't knock it. Hey, I bought three paintings. I also planted 23 trees the other day in my cottage."

My Family returns for a seventh series next week.

Er... is anyone a fan?

Si.

[Ralph]

I refused to watch it from the start

[Jon Masters]

Given the low quality of the product anyway makes you wonder how bad the boycotted script must have been.

[Darren]

From day one it was absolutely the worst sitcom I have ever seen.





And I've seen The Green Green Grass and My Hero.

[MacNimon]

From day one it was absolutely the worst sitcom I have ever seen.

I've got to disagree here...there's been countless ITV 'sitcoms' much worse than this.

Admittedly it's not the BBC's greatest moment either, though. Why can't they come up with series as memorable as Steptoe or Dads Army nowadays?

[Perry Vale]

It's only worth watching for Danielle Denby-Ashe, isn't it?

[Logo Polish]

It's not necessarily the worst comedy there's ever been, but I do find it incredibly irritating, to the extent that I rarely have the patience to stay with it all the way through an episode.

[Milky Tears]

I agree with Perry Vale.

[Pip Madeley]

This reminds me of that time that Hartnell, Purves and O'Brien refused to do 'Mission to the Unknown' because it was so unbelievably rubbish. The arguments between the regulars and the production team were so intense that O'Brien was sacked for verbally abusing Donald Tosh - he hastily wrote her out in the scripts for the next story 'The Myth Makers'. Meanwhile, the script for 'Mission' for rewritten to remove the TARDIS crew and Verity Lambert handed in her resignation.

[Martin Penny]

It's only worth watching for Danielle Denby-Ashe, isn't it?

Yes

I thought the first few series were good, with some genuinley funny moments, but it's gone on for too long now. Plus they've got rid of most of the original cast.

[Matthew T]

I think the original cast left and went on to better things as opposed to being got rid of!

I like it - I've got the first 5 series on DVD. It has markedly declined in quality after season 3 though, so I don't know if I'll bother getting any more.

[Andrew Curnow]

What's Pip been drinking?!

[Simon R]

It used to be wathcable in a "leave your brain at home sort of way" but that cousin or whatever she is is very irritating and it's a waste of three very good actors (Linday, Wanamakelovetoyoubaby and Denby's-Gash). It had it's day when Kris Marshall spacked off but you can see why the Beeb keep going as they're not excatly falling over with popular sit coms at the moment.

[WhiteCrow]

I live in fear of "My Family" themed nights on UK Gold. I never found it anything too special.

I swear the BBC have lost the knack for making comedy. All they seem to churn out now is hospital/police drama. I'm sure Doctor Who only came back because someone saw the word "Doctor".

[Pip Madeley]

I swear the BBC have lost the knack for making comedy. All they seem to churn out now is hospital/police drama.

I think that's the generalisation of the decade, surely?

Extras
The Mighty Boosh
The Catherine Tate Show
Ideal
Little Britain
Mock The Week
Have I Got News For You
Saxondale
That Mitchell And Webb Look
The Thick of It
Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe
Rush Hour
Dead Ringers
Help
and
Hyperdrive (well yes, I'll give you that one)

Off the top of my head. They're making just as many comedy shows as they always did.

[Si Hunt]

The trouble is, history only remembers the winners. So you look back and say "They used to have Fawlty Towers and The Good Life and Porridge, what have we got today?", whence you have plucked the best three comedies from a ten year spell ignoring the dozens of crappy shows that had to also be churned out.

If you look back on our most recent complete decade, (the nineties) you can see it turned out many, many shows that are easily the equal of the best of the previous decades - "Men Behaving Badly", "Knowing Me, Knowing You", "One Foot In The Grave", "Dinnerladies", "Red Dwarf"...

Si.

[Dirk Gently]

Turlough speak the truth.

[WhiteCrow]

The trouble is, history only remembers the winners. So you look back and say "They used to have Fawlty Towers and The Good Life and Porridge, what have we got today?", whence you have plucked the best three comedies from a ten year spell ignoring the dozens of crappy shows that had to also be churned out.

You know this would make a great competition - THE COMEDIES THAT TIME FORGOT.

The not so good comedies you never heard of again ...

• Mixed Blessings
• Take a letter Mr Jones
• Life after birth
• My dead Dad

[Pip Madeley]

Take A Letter Mr Jones has had a bit of a comeback since John Inman, certainly on the Internet.

[Alex]

Extras
The Mighty Boosh
The Catherine Tate Show
Ideal
Little Britain
Mock The Week
Have I Got News For You
Saxondale
That Mitchell And Webb Look
The Thick of It
Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe
Rush Hour
Dead Ringers
Help
and
Hyperdrive

Personally out of that list I only find The Mighty Boosh, Ideal, The Thick of It, Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe and Help to be of any good, and it's only The Boosh and Help that I really really liked. My problem with comedy at the moment is that no one seems to be taking risks and doing something different. I found all of Attention Scum on youtube last night, Simon Munnery's sketch show, and it's fantastic in it's madness and unpredictability, but nothing at all is being made like that.

I'm looking at all the comedy that I've really loved over the last couple of years, and nearly all of it is being made in the US, eg. Arrested Development, Wonder Showzen, South Park, Family Guy, American Dad, King of the Hill, The Sarah Silverman Program, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Trailer Park boys, etc, and I just wish we were making more that's comparable to that. Even people who were previously wonderful have made a couple of dud shows recently (Chris Morris, Armando Iannucci), I'm just hoping the new Enfield / Whitehouse sketch show and Peep Show are both something to get excited about when they return on Friday.

[Dirk Gently]

Extras
The Mighty Boosh
The Catherine Tate Show
Ideal
Little Britain
Mock The Week
Have I Got News For You
Saxondale
That Mitchell And Webb Look
The Thick of It
Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe
Rush Hour
Dead Ringers
Help
Hyperdrive

Well there is obviously a difference of opinion here. Off that list I like Mock the Week, Have I got News For You, That Michell & Webb look, Dead Ringers & I even quite liked Hyper-drive.

Off that list I don't like much of Catherine Tate or Little Britain & don't like Extras (or the Office). I really don't think much of Gervais at all. That Comic Relief bit he did was his best work IMO.

[Dave Lewis]

It's all about the threes...

Three of these are works of timeless genius...

Three of these are sometimes brilliant, sometimes bollocks...

Three of these are crappy, but with the occasional moment of joy...

Three of these are God-awful piles of effluent...

Three of these I've never even heard of...

[Pip Madeley]

I'm guessing the Mighty Boosh, The Thick of It and Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe are your works of timeless genius?

[Alex]

Pip! I've just noticed you've missed off Look Around You from that list! No no no! Bad Pip!

[Pip Madeley]

Well, in my defence, the list was off the top of my head