The Brittas Empire feels like a
progression for the mainstream BBC1 sitcom. There's something (early nineties)
contemporary about the series' structure, characterisation, tone and milieu,
but achieved in a way that might excite, rather than antagonise, a large
mainstream audience.
The pace of it zips along, with more scenes in more locations than was usual. Sometimes this can be a bit counterproductive, when a funny idea with a lot of mileage - such as Brittas holding an antenatal class - is cut down to a few amusing vignettes when it could have been a memorable longer scene. The location is the type of place where sitcoms hadn't been set before. The leisure centre being a recently built building (those heavy fire doors) of a type that viewers would have been likely to have been in more often than they'd seen onscreen.
There's a terrific prop tarantula in this episode, crawling about the place unseen by the staff, which gives the episode a nice tactile quality.
The pace of it zips along, with more scenes in more locations than was usual. Sometimes this can be a bit counterproductive, when a funny idea with a lot of mileage - such as Brittas holding an antenatal class - is cut down to a few amusing vignettes when it could have been a memorable longer scene. The location is the type of place where sitcoms hadn't been set before. The leisure centre being a recently built building (those heavy fire doors) of a type that viewers would have been likely to have been in more often than they'd seen onscreen.
There's a terrific prop tarantula in this episode, crawling about the place unseen by the staff, which gives the episode a nice tactile quality.
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