In a 2021 speech to the Royal Television Society, then Conservative culture, media and sport minister John Whittingdale announced that the government was widening the public service broadcasters’ remit to produce more content that was “distinctively British”. As examples, he cited Only Fools and Horses, Carry On (never actually a TV franchise) and Dad’s Army: creations of a distant era, loaded with unreconstructed stereotypes of the working class, male-female relationships and Johnny Foreigner.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the diversity of the British experience is impossible to pin down in a single broadcasting remit. Part of what defines Britain’s distinctiveness on screen is our humour (even in dire straits), our landscapes and cityscapes, and an increasing commitment to diversity and inclusiveness in cast and crew. But there’s another wild card, even harder to define and rarely in evidence on screens today. Some of the greatest and most distinctively British TV has been just plain weird.
