The behind the scenes story of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin reveals how unlikely a comedy success Reggie really was. In writer David Nobbs's original book, The Death of Reginald Perrin, the central character's midlife crisis saw him to a mental hospital - hardly the stuff of comedy. And when the writer was told to take the jokes out of the first draft of the script to make the show funnier it was clear Reggie Perrin was going to be unusual on television too.

Despite not getting his first choice of Ronnie Barker to play the lead, writer David Nobbs created a hero for a generation and changed British comedy by proving that sitcom could be successful with a serial storyline.

The show has connections to The Two Ronnies, Steptoe and Son, Fawlty Towers, The Good Life and Fairly Secret Army.

The Young Ones thrust a new sort of comedy into the television mainstream in the early 1980s. At first glance The Young Ones seemed to tear up all the rules of sitcom, but despite its enormous energy and anarchic invention it was a more conventional programme than it might have appeared. But alongside Channel 4's The Comic Strip Presents... 

The Young Ones transported a new generation of comedy writers and performers out of the clubs and into the nation's living rooms. And in a few short years the one time young pretenders had become the new comedy establishment. Their number one single for Comic Relief apart, the legacy of The Young Ones includes Saturday Live, Filthy, Rich and Catflap and Bottom.