SOCIAL MEDIA

22 October 2016

My All-Time Favourite British Shows

I grew up watching British shows. At a young age I fell in love with their sense of humour and from it, spawned a lifelong love of all things British. I remember watching PBS most Saturday nights, catching up of British shows that I had never heard of and loving every minute of it. Now, thanks to Netflix and Hulu, the world of British shows is right at my fingertips. With that being said, I thought it would be fun to share my top 5, all-time favourite British shows with you.

Keeping Up Appearances
Hyacinth Bucket (or as she'd lead you to believe, Mrs. "Bouquet") is a social snob, one that you can't help but love to see how far she'll go to well, keep up appearances. Her relatives are low class and something she tries very hard to hide from other people within the community (especially when her senile father is consistently picking up women). This show is riddled with moments that make you laugh so hard and cringe in embarrassment at the drop of a hat. Her poor husband Richard gets the brunt of Hyacinth's demanding ways. While her neighbor Elizabeth finds herself on the receiving end as well.

Black Books
Bernard owns a bookshop. He's also an drunk, anti-social asshole. With the help of Manny and Fran, Bernard is forced to become more sociable - much to his disdain. This leads to a lot of chaos. No matter how much Manny tries to spruce up the bookshop he seems to always get sucked back into Bernard's nihilistic view. This show is truly perfect and has so many hilarious twists and turns within it. Keep an eye out for when Manny gets drunk on absinthe or when Manny and Bernard try to replace a very old, expensive wine by making it themselves.

The Young Ones
This show is a look into the lives of four students sharing a house together. Think of this as an edgier version of the Odd Couple but with really good musical guests thrown into the mix. You have the punk - Vyvyan, the hippie - Neil, the wannabe anarchist - Rick, and the charmer - Mike. These slapstick, turned surrealist plots have a way of keeping you on your toes. Musical guests included Motorhead, The Damned and others. This show is rich with 1980's alternative comedy.

The Vicar of Dibley
Geraldine, the new vicar of a little town by the name of Dibley baffles the town's people at first because she's replaced the previous male vicar. This show is chock full of random humor from Geraldine's ditzy friend, Alice to the bizarre farmer, Owen. Geraldine is sweet and extroverted in a unique way. She takes the town of Dibley by surprise and manages to affectionately win over their hearts. This is a sweet, good hearted comedy with little bits of real life circumstances that everyone can relate to.

The IT Crowd
This show is centered around the I.T. department of a odd company by the name of Reynhom Industries. Roy, Moss and Jen are stuck in the basement. Jen knows nothing about computers and finds herself at the nerdy whim of Roy and Moss. Let's not forget the depressed and Cradle of Filth obsessed goth, Richmond, who hangs out in I.T's side closet. Just so you can get a feel for the show, one night Moss heads over to a German's house whom he met through a personal ad. Moss originally thought the German was going to teach him how to cook, only to find out that the German was actually a cannibal - hilarity ensues.


Other British shows that I love and can't leave out:
Little Britain, Red Dwarf, Father Ted, Come Fly With Me, The Detectorists, Only Fools and Horses, Friday Night Dinner, As Time Goes By, Absolutely Fabulous, The Old Guys, Last of the Summer Wine, That Mitchell and Webb Look.


Do you have any favourite British television shows that you can't seem to get enough of? Leave a comment below letting me know which ones they are!

2 comments :

  1. We subscribe to Acorn TV, which is ALL British TV. It's funny that we haven't seen any of the shows you mentioned, but we tend to go for the mystery series or the detective shows. British TV is really good and we can easily find a new series and marathon watch all weekend!

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    1. My parents LOVE British murder mysteries. I keep meaning to start watching them. What are some of your favourites?

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