What do we lose as sitcoms get slick

Let’s come back to that idea of the studio audience. In some ways it was an accident. Early radio was music hall with microphones. Early television was theatre with cameras. Just as vaudevillians depended on audiences to let them know what was funny, so too did early radio and television comedians, and it quickly became apparent that for a family clustered around their set in the living room, hearing 200 people roar their approval made for a much more immersive experience.

But, you wouldn’t bus in an audience of comedy fans for the news, or for The Archers, or for Stand Up Nigel Barton, so the template became – comedy and entertainment shows have audiences and dramas and current affairs programmes don’t.

From the 1950s to the 1990s, UK television (and much of Europe) was still mainly stuck with the awkward process of using video cameras live-switching in electronic studios and 16mm film for location work. Even “proper” dramas like Pennies from Heaven were shot this way, but gradually, film started to take over. Euston Films who made slightly grittier action shows for ITV like The Professionals or The Sweeney or even Minder shot everything on film, which made BBC shows like Juliet Bravo look cheap and plasticky, even as they aspired to the same storytelling heights.

By the mid-1980s, prestige projects like The Singing Detective or Jewel in the Crown had moved to film, but many dramas and all sitcoms were still stuck in the studio. Some directors like Ed Bye and Graeme Harper were pushing the envelope, using the edit more intentionally, pre-filming videotaped sequences with stronger angles and better lighting. Shows like The New Statesman, Bottom and Absolutely Fabulous keep that live studio audience feel, but are markedly more adventurous with their visual storytelling.

Then at the end of the 1990s, the one-two punch of first The Royle Family and then The Office suddenly made studio audiences seem old-fashioned. More non-audience comedy shows rapidly followed: Peep Show, The Thick of It, Gavin and Stacey and so on. So The Vicar of Dibley, which began in 1994, exists through this period of the studio audience falling away.

I doubt whether not having an audience was ever seriously considered. This was a conscious throwback to traditional BBC sitcoms. Gareth Carrivick had worked on Absolutely Fabulous, Goodness Gracious Me and with Lee and Herring and he would have wanted that live feeling, but he also would have been seeing what other comedy directors were doing, and he would have wanted this show to feel as much like a Richard Curtis movie as a traditional sitcom. Exteriors were now routinely shot on tape using Outside Broadcast cameras, avoiding the jump between film and video. The aim now is to make the storytelling lead, keeping the production as seamless as possible.

When the show comes back in widescreen and on DigiBeta, the show looks even better, even more filmic. And yet, what I notice is that I can’t feel the studio audience in the same way any more. Watching Fawlty Towers or Yes Minister, or even the very heavily edited Reginald Perrin, the set looks like a set, I feel like I’m sitting there with them, I can sense the actors adjusting their performances to the responses of the audience. Although I had a great time watching through the Dibley shows, I couldn’t help feeling as if the audience wasn’t really with me. The production slickness meant that the fourth wall was suddenly a bit too durable.

And maybe that’s why we won’t see a return to studio audience sitcoms any time soon.

American stand-up comedian Abigoliah Schamaun disagrees and is convinced that the pendulum will swing back any day now. To hear what she thought of The Vicar of Dibley, check out the latest episode of All British Comedy Explained.