The British Working Class on TV
by deathmaumau | created - 01 Sep 2017 | updated - 01 Sep 2017 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Steptoe and Son (1962–1974)
TV-PG | 45 min | Comedy
British sitcom about a father-and-son rag-and-bone business in London. The intergenerational divide between the miserly Steptoe and his ambitious son results in comedy, drama, and tragedy.
Stars: Wilfrid Brambell, Harry H. Corbett, Frank Thornton, Tim Buckland
Votes: 3,418
2. The Likely Lads (1964–1966)
30 min | Comedy
Terry and Bob have been friends since childhood. Bob is the sensible one, trying hard to get on with his job and life. Terry is the wild one, always ready to lead Bob astray.
Stars: James Bolam, Rodney Bewes, Don McKillop, Bartlett Mullins
Votes: 765
3. Till Death Us Do Part (1965–1975)
TV-PG | 30 min | Comedy
A working-class Cockney bigot with a biased and experienced opinion of everything shares them bluntly and carelessly.
Stars: Warren Mitchell, Anthony Booth, Una Stubbs, Dandy Nichols
Votes: 1,009
4.
The Wednesday Play (1964–1970)
Episode:
Cathy Come Home
(1966)
75 min | Drama
A wedding. Happy and promising. A young couple, new to the ways of life. The joys of parenthood: A dream comes true. Then the first incident in a long, spiraling chain of events, and down ... See full summary »
Director: Ken Loach | Stars: Carol White, Ray Brooks, Winifred Dennis, Wally Patch
Votes: 1,168
5. Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (1973–1974)
30 min | Comedy
Terry and Bob from The Likely Lads (1964) continue their life after Terry arrives home from serving in the Army to discover that Bob is about to marry his girlfriend Thelma. Can Thelma lead... See full summary »
Stars: James Bolam, Rodney Bewes, Brigit Forsyth, Sheila Fearn
Votes: 1,284
6. Porridge (1974–1977)
TV-14 | 30 min | Comedy, Crime
The prison life of Fletcher, a criminal serving a five-year sentence, as he strives to bide his time, keep his record clean, and refuses to be ground down by the prison system.
Stars: Ronnie Barker, Brian Wilde, Fulton Mackay, Richard Beckinsale
Votes: 6,818
7. Rising Damp (1974–1978)
30 min | Comedy
Popular sitcom set in a seedy bedsit lorded over by the mean, vain, boastful, cowardly, racist landlord Rigsby. In each episode, his conceits are debunked by his long-suffering tenants.
Stars: Leonard Rossiter, Don Warrington, Frances de la Tour, Richard Beckinsale
Votes: 2,809
8. Scum (1991 TV Movie)
R | 78 min | Crime, Drama
This is the hard and shocking story of life in a British borstal for young offenders. The brutal regime made no attempt to reform or improve the inmates and actively encouraged a power ... See full summary »
Director: Alan Clarke | Stars: Ray Winstone, David Threlfall, Martin Phillips, Davidson Knight
Votes: 2,782
9. Going Straight (1978)
TV-PG | 30 min | Comedy
Following his release from Slade prison, Fletcher tries to stick to the straight and narrow, but it isn't easy.
Stars: Ronnie Barker, Patricia Brake, Richard Beckinsale, Nicholas Lyndhurst
Votes: 1,294
10. The Black Stuff (1980 TV Movie)
TV-PG | 110 min | Drama
A group of Liverpudlians goes to Middlesborough to lay a tarmac road.
Director: Jim Goddard | Stars: Michael Angelis, Tom Georgeson, Alan Igbon, Gary Bleasdale
Votes: 576
11. Boys from the Blackstuff (1982)
50 min | Drama
Five unemployed men would do anything just to have a job in Thatcher's Britain.
Stars: Michael Angelis, Bernard Hill, Alan Igbon, Peter Kerrigan
Votes: 1,572
12. Only Fools and Horses (1981–2003)
TV-PG | 95 min | Comedy
Comedy that follows two brothers from London's rough Peckham estate as they wheel and deal through a number of dodgy deals and search for the big score that'll make them millionaires.
Stars: David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Roger Lloyd Pack, Buster Merryfield
Votes: 56,614
13. Made in Britain (1982 TV Movie)
Not Rated | 76 min | Crime, Drama
After being sent to a detention center, a teenage skinhead clashes with the social workers, who want to conform him to the status quo.
Director: Alan Clarke | Stars: Tim Roth, Terry Richards, Bill Stewart, Eric Richard
Votes: 7,602
14. Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1983–2004)
60 min | Comedy, Drama
Seven British construction workers escape Britain's ever-growing dole queues and travel to Germany to work on a site in Düsseldorf. Follow their trials and tribulations of working away from home and away from the women they left behind.
Stars: Timothy Spall, Jimmy Nail, Tim Healy, Kevin Whately
Votes: 3,990
15. Bread (1986–1991)
30 min | Comedy
The series set in working-class Liverpool. Meet the Boswells: they're penniless, jobless and with little hope of things improving, but life's never stale.
Stars: Jean Boht, Nick Conway, Jonathon Morris, Kenneth Waller
Votes: 1,537
16. Rab C. Nesbitt (1988–2014)
50 min | Comedy
Rab C. Nesbitt is lowlife scum (and proud of it) in Glasgow, Scotland who spends his time drinking in his local and speaking to the camera about the state of society as he sees it.
Stars: Gregor Fisher, Tony Roper, Elaine C. Smith, Barbara Rafferty
Votes: 1,616
17. Our Friends in the North (1996)
TV-MA | 623 min | Drama, History
Drama examining the politics and change across Britain from the Sixties to the Nineties seen through the varying fortunes of four friends.
Stars: Christopher Eccleston, Mark Strong, Gina McKee, Daniel Craig
Votes: 2,363
18. The Royle Family (1998–2012)
45 min | Comedy
A British sitcom about the everyday life of a working-class family in Northwest England: watching telly, smoking, drinking, and bickering.
Stars: Caroline Aherne, Craig Cash, Sue Johnston, Ricky Tomlinson
Votes: 9,071
19. Phoenix Nights (2001–2002)
25 min | Comedy
The misadventures of club owner Brian Potter who is determined to make The Phoenix Club the best working men's club in Greater Manchester.
Stars: Peter Kay, Dave Spikey, Justin Moorhouse, Paddy McGuinness
Votes: 7,584
20. Shameless (2004–2013)
TV-MA | 90 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
The lives and relationships of a group of siblings and their estranged father Frank Gallagher on a rough Manchester estate.
Stars: David Threlfall, Rebecca Atkinson, Alice Barry, Nicky Evans
Votes: 18,444
21. Ideal (2005–2011)
30 min | Comedy
Moz is a drug dealer and has very strange clientele who come and go from his flat.
Stars: Johnny Vegas, Graham Duff, Nicola Reynolds, Tom Goodman-Hill
Votes: 2,986
22. This Is England '86 (2010)
TV-MA | 47 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Shaun has just finished his final exams and he realizes he is no longer a kid. It's mid 80's England, and the gang are back, looking for a laugh, a job and something that resembles a future.
Stars: Andrew Ellis, Andrew Shim, Chanel Cresswell, Danielle Watson
Votes: 14,477
23. This Is England '88 (2011)
TV-MA | 48 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Christmas 1988. Soulmates Woody and Lol find themselves in exile from each other and the gang. Trying to understand the definition 'growing up', Shaun begins a course at College, that quickly takes a wrong turn.
Stars: Andrew Ellis, Andrew Shim, Chanel Cresswell, Charlotte Tyree
Votes: 11,544
24. This Is England '90 (2015)
55 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
The year is 1990, the rave scene has just entered England. The sound of the Stone roses lurks toward Shaun and the gang. This means that Woody and Lol are living in a domestic bliss, they are happy again. But this year will see huge changes in everyone. This is the year 1990. This is England.
Stars: Lyra Mae Thomas, Chanel Cresswell, Vicky McClure, Joe Gilgun
Votes: 9,518
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