Is that the Mark Lewisohn one?
I've read it and it IS thoroughly well researched and fascinating. The only thing that stops it being a must-buy is Lewisohn's complete misunderstanding of Ever Decreasing Circles.
Unforgivable.

(Though of course Lewisohn is the man behind the criminally out-of-print Beatles Abbey Road Sessions book, a tome which would be at the top of my list of things worth saving if the planet caught fire...)

It's got a fair number of errors and omissions, but considering its 900 pages long it's pretty damn good. Buy buy buy.

I don't think it was heavy enough.

It's quite out-of-date now. And the absence of comedy quiz shows (e.g. Have I Got News For You) is very annoying.

True, but even more annoying is the preponderance of kids "comedies". There are few live action kids comedy shows that live up to the best cartoons.

And anyway, it's only out of date if you want to look up shows from the last couple of years, for which you can find plenty of information on the net anyway. It's much more useful for looking up obscure things like sixties Ronnie Barker pilots and cast lists for early C4 New Year shows.

> The only thing that stops it being a must-buy is Lewisohn's complete misunderstanding of Ever Decreasing Circles.
>Unforgivable.

Care to give a quick summary of Lewisohn's views wrt EDC? As someone who once wrote a (very short and probably ill-considered) piece on EDC, I'd be interested to know...

>True, but even more annoying is the preponderance of kids "comedies

And while he includes all kinds of inconsequential dross from this category, he excludes "Big John Little John"...

Lewisohn thinks EDC is very poor late Esmonde and Larbey, not them at the height of their powers. He suggests that the show would have been better if Paul (Peter Egan) had been the lead character, and Martin (Briers) been the annoying next-door neighbour. He totally misunderstands that the centre-staging of a sitcom stereotype (fussy man next-door) made the show into a subversive comment on the pettiness of suburban sitcom. Lewisohn can't understand why Ann, the Penelope Wilton character, wasn't married to Paul - a tension that formed the very crux of the show.
What made EDC one of the best sitcoms of its time was the way that it drew its suburban comedy archetypes so horrifyingly perfectly that it became Midwich-Cuckoo / Stepford Wives surreal. Everything looked alright, but something was very wrong in The Close.
It was entirely the point that the "perfect couple" of Paul and Ann had somehow got split up in some terrible sitcom writing accident before the show started. It was as if a box of toy figures had been vigorously shaken and then the game set in motion with everyone in the wrong place.
EDC was Esmonde and Larbey in full flourish - they knew the rules of sitcom so well that they were doing Jazz riffs on them.

(Incidentally, it's interesting to notice how a less infuriating version of the "annoying neighbour" archetype later became a huge hit in the form of Victor Meldrew.)

Couldn't have put it better myself, UB. EDC was brilliant.

What happened to Larbey & Esmonde? They did a show called Double First in 1990, which didn't have a laughter track, but what after that?

Look in the Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy