British comedy has forever had its pants round its ankles. It has always been the poor relation to British literary adaptations and dramas. From the 1930s, the great Will Hay - Britain's answer to Groucho Marx - dominated film comedy with films such as Those Were the Days and Boys Will Be Boys.

George Formby knocked out films quicker than he did ditties on his ukelele, making Boots! Boots! in less than a fortnight and Turned Out Nice Again in a matter of weeks in 1941.

Shortly after the war the golden age of Ealing comedy came into being, when a clutch of classics from Whisky Galore! to Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Ladykillers enhanced the reputation of British cinema.

The 1950s spawned gentle nostalgia, most famously with Genevieve and The Titfield Thunderbolt, and inaugurated the Doctor series based on the books of Richard Gordon. Also popular were the St Trinian's schoolgirl romps with Alistair Sim and Joyce Grenfell.

The no-frills factory approach returned with the Carry On films churned out in the 1960s and 1970s. But even the fact that they cost relatively little to make could not ultimately save them from audience fatigue.

In the 1970s, standards plummeted with sitcom spin-offs from the likes of On the Buses and Are You Being Served. Things got really bad with the soft porn/comedy Confessions of... series. Only the Beatle George Harrison's millions got Monty Python's The Holy Grail and Life of Brian made.

By the 1980s, the British film industry had almost given up the ghost, so much so that the ex-Python John Cleese's A Fish Called Wanda was hailed as a masterpiece.