Gimme Gimme Gimme creator: ‘Risky’ comedy never gets made today
The creator of BBC sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme has said the show would never get made today.
The show ran for three years from 1999 to 2001 – and was the BBC’s first sitcom with an openly gay lead male character.
It featured foul-mouthed flatmates Linda (Kathy Burke) and Tom (James Dreyfus) – and was renowned for its innuendo and dark humour.
However, the show’s creator Jonathan Harvey doubts it would get made in 2015.
He told the Radio Times: “I came up with an idea about four years ago for a new house-share sitcom that I knew was the best thing I’d written comedy-wise since Gimme Gimme Gimme.
“But the BBC turned it down because they thought it was too rude.
“And I said, ‘It’s only as rude as Gimme Gimme Gimme was’. And they said they’d never commission Gimme Gimme Gimme now because they can’t be that risky.
“The climate changed. There’s less space to try out something a bit different.”
The President of HBO recently apologised for cancelling gay drama series Looking.
He said: “I thought the show, creatively, was really doing something that I hadn’t seen on any other show, particularly dealing with gay lives.
“As a gay man, in particular, I was very proud that there was a show that felt like it was dealing very honestly and openly with gay men and their lives, without putting them into a comedic mode.”
