Blackadder

Series Similar to Blackadder

If you enjoyed Blackadder, these series share similar themes, tone, and quality. Each recommendation is scored on genre overlap, tonal match, and critical acclaim.

1. Only Fools and Horses

   1981 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.5), also on BBC One.

   Classic John Sullivan sitcom set in south London, centred on hapless market trader Del Boy, his brother Rodney, the rest of the Trotter clan and a host of Peckham characters.

2. Yes Minister

   1980 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8).

   Satirical sitcom set in the office of a UK Cabinet minister, Jim Hacker MP, who struggles with Civil Service bureaucracy and political machinations as he tries to get on with government business.

3. Yes, Prime Minister

   1986 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.1), hidden gem.

   Continuing the struggle of Minster Jim Hacker to actually get something done in Whitehall politics, Yes, Prime Minister saw Jim achieve every politician's dream and slide up the greasy pole, right to the door of Number 10.

4. Fawlty Towers

   1975 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.5).

   Fawlty Towers is set in a fictional hotel in the seaside town of Torquay. The plots centre on tense, rude and put-upon owner Basil Fawlty, his bossy wife Sybil, comparatively normal chambermaid Polly, who is often the peacemaker and voice of reason, and hapless Spanish waiter Manuel, showing their attempts to run the hotel amidst farcical situations and an array of demanding and eccentric guests.

5. The Young Ones

   1982 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8), hidden gem.

   Anarchic sitcom about degenerate North London students in the 80s.

6. The Good Life

   1975 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8), also on BBC One.

   Tom and Barbara Good are a middle class suburban couple who on Tom's 40th birthday decide to turn their Surbiton home into a self-sufficient allotment. They grow their own food, keep farm animals and have sold or bartered all of their electrical appliances as they have no electricity. This creates friction with their best friends and next door neighbours, Jerry and Margo Leadbetter. But even though the Goods have lowered the tone of the neighbourhood in the Leadbetter's eyes they still can't help but be best of friends.

7. Are You Being Served?

   1972 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.1), also on BBC One.

   This comedy series, which follows the exploits of employees at London's Grace Brothers department store, is full of sexual innuendo, slapstick, visual gags and double entendres. Much of the show's humor parodies Britain's class system, with the characters rarely calling their co-workers by their given names. Many of the show's characters are based on stereotypes, including the effeminate Mr. Humphries and the rich-but-stingy store owner.

8. Bottom

   1991 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.2).

   Richard Richard & Edward Elizabeth Hitler, two men with no hope of fitting in with society. Two men who will forever fall foul of lifes little jokes, mainly because they are too stupid to avoid them! Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall take an anarchic look into the lives of these two friends who are forever threatening, and commiting, violence on each other. This series could be said to be a follow up, of a kind, to The Young Ones. Same stars and same attitude but the young ones are now heading into middle age. A succesful series that spawned three live tours (and three videos of these shows) and a big screen film, Guest House Paradiso. Although the film was not released as such it is advertised as a Bottom film on the video release.

9. Black Books

   2000 · Comedy · ended

   Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8.4).

   Black Books is a second-hand bookshop in London run by an Irishman named Bernard Black. He is probably the planet's worst-suited person to run such an establishment: he makes no effort to sell, closes at strange hours on a whim, is in a perpetual alcoholic stupor, abhors his customers (sometimes physically abusing them) and is often comatose at his desk. Help comes in the lumpy shape of Manny Bianco, a hairy, bumbling individual who (almost by osmosis) becomes Bernard's assistant. Manny is not exactly great at the job either but he is a million times better than Bernard. Next door is Fran, an anxious, frustrated woman who runs a sort of new-age shop selling the most unlikely bits of arty junk. Fran is friends with Bernard and, through him, with Manny; together the trio become embroiled in escapades that are sometimes extreme or violent or fantastically ludicrous, and always bizarre.

10. Keeping Up Appearances

    1990 · Comedy · ended

    Recommended for similar Comedy profile, highly rated (8), also on BBC One.

    Played with aplomb by Patricia Routledge, Hyacinth is a character with few, if any, saving graces. Her pompous, self-serving attitude makes life miserable for all around her.