The British sitcom writing team of Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen had something of a mini-career in the 1980s of subverting the sitcom genre. British sitcoms had been somewhat dominated by farce, with unlikely coincidences, social embarrassment and unwritten rules of social behaviour the cliches that filled the genre.
Although best known for The Brittas Empire, which took all these concerns to their logical (and sometimes illogical) conclusions while simultaneously subverting them, Norriss and Fegen began undermining sitcoms first in 1984 on the then-new TV network Channel 4 with Chance in a Million. The show’s premise was simple: you know all those coincidences and bizarre events that happen in sitcoms and drive the plots? Now imagine a man cursed with such bad luck that that’s what his life is actually like. What would he be like? How would he cope? What sort of experiences would he have? Would he have a girlfriend? And how would she deal with it?
Starring Simon Callow and Brenda Blethyn, then just beginning their TV careers, Chance in a Million paradoxically saw more romantic mix-ups, rugby teams stuck down sewers, wedding rings catapulted into fires, cases of mistaken identity, bank errors and drug traffickers than any sitcom before and since, and is fondly remembered by almost everyone who saw it. Here’s a trailer:
Continue reading “Old Gems: Chance in a Million (1984-1986)”
