Precursors and Pioneers: 1940–1960

Tracing the British sitcom spinoff film’s formative/primitive stage, this chapter explores the sitcom’s origins on radio and its transition to both television and especially film formats. UK film’s pioneering purloining of a ready-made audience from a rival electronic medium came with Gainsborough Pictures’ Band Waggon (1940), adapted from Britain’s same-named radio variety show starring Arthur Askey. Its success spawned a radio comedy spinoff cycle, Gainsborough repeating the trick with Hi Gang! (1941) and It’s That Man Again (1943), while Aldwych Films joined in with Happidrome (1943). The trend for radio adaptation would pick up pace post-war as Hammer entered the fray, making a profit on Life with the Lyons (1954) and its sequel, The Lyons in Paris (1955). Hammer next negotiated British cinema’s first direct spinoff from a television sitcom, I Only Arsked! (1958), adapted from Granada’s The Army Game. This dual focus on families and institutions would become a staple of the new genre, as evidenced by Inn for Trouble (1960), adapted from The Larkins sitcom, and, bringing up the rear for the spinoff film’s first stage, the school-set Bottoms Up! (1960), adapted from the Jimmy Edwards television vehicle Whack-O!.