Why doesnt Britain make great comedy sketches any more?
Four candles. A dead parrot. Ronnie Corbett knowing his place. Suits You. Numberwang. Vicky Pollard. You can chart the decades (as well as tell someones age) by the great comedy sketches. From Monty Python in the 1960s right through to Little Britain in the 2000s, the sketch show, that grab-bag of characters and ideas, catchphrases and pay-offs, whopping hits and clunking misses, has been a staple of British comedy since the beginnings of mass television. Yet at some point in the last decade, the nation that brought you The Goodies, Victoria Wood As Seen on TV, Not the Nine OClock News, Smack the Pony and Big Train has gone sketchy on sketch comedy. The last sketch show even to be nominated for a comedy Bafta was Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouses Harry & Paul, and that was in 2015. Sitcom, narrative and character comedy like Fleabag, This Country or Catastrophe has entirely replaced skits. When you do get a group of disparate comics together, its likely to be on a panel show. New comic voices such as Rose Matafeo or Jamie Demetriou go straight from stand-up or Edinburgh to writing scripted series such as Starstruck or Stath Lets Flats. And in one sense thats fine  read back through that list and our overall comedy output remains first-rate. But it is a different type of comedy, and that does merit a pause for thought. Many of our best performers  French and Saunders, Steve Coogan, Ricky Gervais  started out in sketch comedy. If stand-up is comedys gym, where comics go to get battle-hardened, a sketch show is comedys laboratory: a place where character actors and comedy writers alike get to experiment. Sketch comedy, of course, hasnt died out completely. With their reams of user data, Netflix more than anyone knows what customers like to watch, and so a second series of the unhinged American sketch show I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, beginning this week, suggests that sketches can still drive subscriptions. Likewise, Natasia Demetriou and Ellie Whites Ellie & Natasia has been given a full series on the BBC, as has Freya Parker and Celeste Drings offbeat double-act Lazy Susan. But panel shows and stand-up comedy specials are cheaper to make and easier to do. On a series like Would I Lie to You the set is the same every week, the format is well-established. All the producers have to do is cram as much well-known talent behind the desks and the ratings will follow.