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Mr. Bean (1990)
8.6/10on IMDb
First aired
It arrived on ITV on New Year's Day 1990 and barely needed dialogue. Rowan Atkinson, writing with Richard Curtis and Robin Driscoll, plays a social misfit who turns simple everyday tasks into chaos, and the comedy is almost entirely physical.
That makes it the easiest show here to share across languages and ages, since a joke about a car or a church service needs no translation. The run is short, and each episode is ideal for watching with kids or anyone who doesn't share your sense of humor.
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One Foot in the Grave (1990)
7.9/10on IMDb
First aired
David Renwick took the oldest sitcom figure there is, the grumpy retiree, and built farce around him with the patience of a crime writer. Richard Wilson plays Victor Meldrew, pushed into early retirement with far too much time on his hands, and the scripts plant small details that detonate scenes later.
It also went darker than most BBC One comedies of its day, letting real sadness sit alongside the slapstick. If you only know the catchphrase, the show is far sharper than its reputation.
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Waiting for God (1990)
7.8/10on IMDb
First aired
Michael Aitkens set his sitcom in the Bayview retirement home and made the residents the troublemakers. Graham Crowden and Stephanie Cole play two retirees determined to grow old disgracefully, and Cole's acid-tongued Diana gets the best line in almost every scene.
It's a gentle studio comedy in form, but the joke lands on the people who patronize the elderly, never on the elderly themselves. A warmer companion piece if One Foot in the Grave appeals.
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Keeping Up Appearances (1990)
7.9/10on IMDb
First aired
The most traditional show on this list, and proof of how far one performance can carry a sitcom. Roy Clarke wrote it, and Patricia Routledge made suburban snob Hyacinth Bucket, forever chasing influential people while hiding her working-class relatives, into one of the best-known characters in British comedy.
The format barely changes from week to week, so the pleasure is in precision: Routledge's timing on a phone call or a dinner invitation is close to perfect. Watch it for comfort, not surprise.
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Drop the Dead Donkey (1990)
8.0/10on IMDb
First aired
Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin's newsroom comedy was filmed the day before transmission, so the staff of GlobeLink News could joke about that week's real headlines. Scripts were left with gaps and filled with topical references right up to recording.
That makes some episodes a time capsule of early-1990s news, but the office politics, the spineless editor and the new owner's ruthless right-hand man still land. If you like newsroom satire, this is where a lot of it starts.
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The Brittas Empire (1991)
7.1/10on IMDb
First aired
Chris Barrie plays Gordon Brittas, manager of Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre, a man whose ambition and good intentions wreck everything they touch. A leisure center was a fresh workplace for a sitcom, and the writing pushes each episode toward escalating, sometimes absurd farce.
It's broader than the decade's best, but Barrie's oblivious self-belief is a joy, and the put-upon staff, along with Pippa Haywood as his long-suffering wife Helen, give it real bite. Good family viewing that still has an edge.
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Bottom (1991)
8.3/10on IMDb
First aired
Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson wrote it and star as Richie Richard and Eddie Hitler, two broke, anti-social and regularly violent losers stuck in a squalid Hammersmith apartment. This is slapstick pushed to cartoon extremes, where the punchline is usually somebody getting hurt.
It isn't subtle and never tries to be, which is exactly why it has such a loyal following. Pick it when you want a double act at full volume, and skip it if pain-as-comedy leaves you cold.
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2Point4 Children (1991)
6.9/10on IMDb
First aired
Andrew Marshall's family comedy looks like the most ordinary premise of the decade: the Porters, a mother, a father, a son and a daughter. Then it keeps tipping into stranger, sillier territory than you expect, which is what makes it more than filler.
Belinda Lang is terrific as stressed-out Bill, the one holding the household together, and Gary Olsen plays her husband with real warmth. A good choice if you want a 1990s family sitcom with more bite than its setup suggests.
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As Time Goes By (1992)
8.3/10on IMDb
First aired
Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer play Jean and Lionel, a nurse and a young soldier madly in love until he is sent away, who meet again 38 years later. Bob Larbey's scripts are quiet and grown-up, built on dry exchanges rather than set pieces.
Few sitcoms of the decade were about romance later in life, and fewer still had two actors this good underplaying it. Choose it for the chemistry and the gentle wit, not for big laughs.
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Men Behaving Badly (1992)
7.7/10on IMDb
First aired
Simon Nye's roommate comedy started on ITV in 1992 and moved to the BBC from its third series, where it became the defining "lad" sitcom of the decade. Martin Clunes and Neil Morrissey play Gary and Tony, two overgrown boys whose main relationship is with the fridge full of lager.
What keeps it from being just a period piece is Leslie Ash and Caroline Quentin, who play the women in their lives as sharper and funnier than the men. Watch it to understand a very specific 1990s mood.
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Absolutely Fabulous (1992)
8.2/10on IMDb
First aired
Jennifer Saunders grew a French & Saunders sketch into a full sitcom about Edina, a PR woman who behaves like a teenager, and her best friend Patsy, played by a gloriously reckless Joanna Lumley. The grown-up in the house is Edina's sensible daughter Saffron, Julia Sawalha, which flips the usual family sitcom on its head.
It skewered fashion and PR excess with real glee, and June Whitfield and Jane Horrocks steal scenes throughout. Start with the first series for the sharpest writing.
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Goodnight Sweetheart (1993)
7.4/10on IMDb
First aired
Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran handed Nicholas Lyndhurst a high-concept premise: a television repairman walking through London's East End is transported back to 1940. From there he leads a double life, juggling a wartime romance with his ambitious wife Yvonne in the present.
It's a sitcom built on a sci-fi hook, which was rare for BBC One at the time, and the wartime half gives it a romantic streak the decade's other comedies lack. Dervla Kirwan is excellent as Phoebe, his wartime love, in the first three series.
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The Vicar of Dibley (1994)
8.0/10on IMDb
First aired
Richard Curtis created it in the year the Church of England ordained its first women priests, and the comedy comes from a sleepy Oxfordshire village receiving a female vicar it never expected. The real experience of Joy Carroll, one of those first women, was its inspiration.
Dawn French's Geraldine is warm and greedy for chocolate, and the parish council of oddballs, with Emma Chambers, Roger Lloyd Pack and Gary Waldhorn, is one of the great sitcom ensembles. Ideal for a cozy evening.
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Game On (1995)
7.9/10on IMDb
First aired
Andrew Davies and Bernadette Davis wrote this BBC Two roommate comedy about three twentysomethings in Battersea, and it is blunter about sex, money and loneliness than most of its rivals. Matthew has developed agoraphobia after his parents died in a road accident, which gives a laddish setup an unexpectedly raw center.
Samantha Janus and Matthew Cottle complete the trio. If Men Behaving Badly feels too cozy, this is its spikier, sadder cousin.
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Father Ted (1995)
8.6/10on IMDb
First aired
Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews sent three inept priests to Craggy Island and produced the most quotable sitcom of the decade. Dermot Morgan's Ted, Ardal O'Hanlon's dim Dougal, Frank Kelly's Father Jack and Pauline McLynn's Mrs Doyle are each a complete comic creation.
There are only 25 episodes across three series, and the surreal plotting means almost every one has a set piece people still quote. If you watch only one show here, make it this one.
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The Thin Blue Line (1995)
7.5/10on IMDb
First aired
Ben Elton wrote it and Rowan Atkinson plays the fastidious Inspector Raymond Fowler at Gasforth Police Station, a man who treats every rule as sacred. After the near-silent Mr. Bean, it's Atkinson doing wordy, conventional studio comedy, and it ran for just two series.
The supporting cast is the hidden strength, with David Haig, Serena Evans, James Dreyfus, Mina Anwar and Mark Addy all getting their moments. A quick, likable binge rather than a landmark.
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I'm Alan Partridge (1997)
8.6/10on IMDb
First aired
Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci and Peter Baynham took a character from radio and talk-show parody and gave him a real, miserable life. Alan's chat show has failed, he hosts a graveyard phone-in on Radio Norwich, and he lives at the Linton Travel Tavern, desperate to get back on television.
This is the show that made cringe comedy a mainstream British style: no gags to rescue you, just a man saying exactly the wrong thing for half an hour. Essential viewing for the decade.
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The Royle Family (1998)
8.2/10on IMDb
First aired
Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash pointed the camera back at the audience: a Manchester family drinking tea, smoking and talking in front of the TV. Aherne refused a studio audience and laugh track, the BBC was unhappy about it, and the show was shot on film with a single camera instead.
What looks like nothing happening is some of the most precise writing of the decade, with every armchair and pause in the right place. If you grew up in a house like this, it will feel uncomfortably familiar.
More about The Royle Family19
dinnerladies (1998)
7.8/10on IMDb
First aired
Victoria Wood wrote every one of its 16 episodes and stars as Bren, trying to keep order among the kitchen staff of a factory canteen in the north of England. It looks like a traditional studio sitcom, but the dialogue is pure Wood: overlapping, observant and full of tiny absurdities.
The cast is stacked, with Thelma Barlow, Maxine Peake, Anne Reid and Celia Imrie, and two series means you can finish it in a weekend. A perfect pick if you love wordplay.
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Gimme Gimme Gimme (1999)
7.4/10on IMDb
First aired
Jonathan Harvey's north London roommate comedy is the loudest, crudest show here, and it knows it. Kathy Burke plays man-mad Linda and James Dreyfus plays Tom, an actor whose career never quite arrives, and the pair trade insults at full volume.
It's high camp rather than naturalism, a deliberate swing back to broad studio comedy at the end of a decade that was moving the other way. Not for everyone, but Burke's fearless performance is worth seeing.
More about Gimme Gimme Gimme21
Spaced (1999)
8.5/10on IMDb
First aired
Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes wrote it about two near-strangers who pose as a professional couple to rent a decent apartment, and director Edgar Wright shot it like an action movie, with whip pans and film references in almost every episode.
It closes the decade by looking ahead: single-camera, pop-culture literate and built for people who grew up on video games and movies. Nick Frost and Mark Heap are brilliant support. Only 14 episodes, so there's no excuse not to.
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