From Friends to The Thick Of It, the TV sitcom has evolved – but it’s no longer in rude health. Enter offbeat shows like Stath Lets Flats, bringing joy and potential redemptionThe sitcom has a long history of being dead. According to the former NBC president of entertainment, Warren Littlefield, in the early 1980s many people believed the sitcom was over. In 1999, Entertainment Weekly noted the genre’s demise. In 2005, so did Victoria Wood. The following year, the former ITV director of programmes, David Liddiment, made a programme called Who Killed the Sitcom? In the decade and a half since, similar questions have been posed repeatedly by publications on both sides of the Atlantic. Declaring the sitcom dead now seems more like an annual ritual than a convincing take on the state of comedy. But what if this time it’s actually true?There are a few reasons why the sitcom seems, if not comprehensively deceased, then at least less responsive than it has ever been. In terms of the comedy zeitgeist, the sadcom – a frequently bleak drama hybrid – continues to rule (see: I May Destroy You, Feel Good, This Way Up, Insecure). Streaming giants increasingly shape our viewing habits, and they don’t tend to make sitcoms (their discrete episodic plots mean they are not very bingeworthy, for a start). The newly established National Comedy Awards, meanwhile, doesn’t include a sitcom category, while Bafta dropped its sitcom award in 2015 and replaced it with one for scripted comedy: this... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2021-10-26 14:35:04 UTC ]
“Is that John Williams?” Startled fans have the same reaction seemingly every time he walks into a gym. At 6 feet 8 and somewhere close to 300 pounds, he’s a giant, literally and figuratively. Those who played high school basketball against him in the early 1980s in Los Angeles or watched him... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2019-03-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Intan Paramaditha will be appearing alongside Syd Moore to discuss re-writing old stories and myths with a contemporary, feminist slant at the Essex Book Festival on 15 March 2019 at 19.00. Find out more and book tickets here. What’s exciting about Indonesian literature at the moment, and... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2019-02-21 11:15:36 UTC ]
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Larry Burstein, who has served as publisher of New York magazine for the last 13 years, is leaving that role, he announced in a memo to staff Friday morning.Mr. Burstein was on his third term as a New York magazine employee -- he worked as an account executive in the early 1980s, returned in... Continue reading at Advertising Age
[ Advertising Age | 2016-11-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Author Lisa Watts, who helped to teach a generation of children about computers a quarter of a century ago, hopes new books will inspire tomorrow’s programmers“Back in the 1980s, the big question was: what are we going to do with these computers? We were empowered – we had a ZX81 or a BBC Micro... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-10-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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I grew up on a diet of Carry On films, Benny Hill and my parents’ Daily Telegraph. The Spare Rib Reader helped me articulate an unease that I had felt for as long as I could rememberTo be honest, I can’t remember a single thing about the contents of this book. Mind you, that’s true of many books... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-07-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Though its headquarters building rises 46 stories over Central Park, and though its biggest magazine franchise, Cosmopolitan, sells more than a million copies on newsstands every month, Hearst Corp. is still, in some ways, little known to the general public. Certainly few people would guess that... Continue reading at Crains New York
[ Crains New York | 2013-11-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publication Date: Thu, 15/09/2011 - 08:25 Milo Books is to reissue an out-of-print title about football violence, first published by Penguin in 1984. We Hate Humans by David Robins explores the "murky world' of football hooliganism, the first title to do so according to the publisher. It... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-09-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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