Television series

Bread

Name: Bread
Genre: Comedy
Released: 1986
Cast: Jean Boht, Nick Conway, Jonathon Morris, Kenneth Waller, Victor McGuire

Comedy
Light-hearted

Bread is Carla Lane's late-80s BBC sitcom about the Boswells, a boisterous Catholic family in Liverpool held together by matriarch Nellie and united by one sacred rule: never do an honest day's work if the benefits office will do. It's broad, warm and unapologetically silly - squabbles over money, love and dignity, wrapped up in cheerful class rebellion. Comfort telly for anyone who misses multi-camera family chaos.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love big-hearted family sitcoms where the comedy comes from a clan of working-class schemers whose money-making schemes are more fun than the money itself.

Skip it if you want fast, slickly plotted comedy, since this one ambles, leaning on familiar domestic bickering rather than neat plotting.

What it asks of you: Thirty-minute episodes, seventy-four of them across seven series, so it rewards settling in for a long run of gentle, familiar episodes rather than a single sitting.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Only Fools and Horses....1981

Same era's other great scheme-for-cash family sitcom; Del Boy's hustles have the same 'one day we'll be millionaires' energy as the Boswells' benefit fiddles, only even funnier.

But Set in London rather than Liverpool, and its warmth curdles into pure pathos more often than Bread ever allows.

The Royle Family1998

Trades Bread's studio-audience broadness for something quieter and stranger - a family glued to the telly, doing almost nothing, and somehow it's magic.

But No plot, no laugh track, no jokes landing on cue - if you need Bread's pace, this will feel like watching paint dry.

Brookside1982

Same city, same decade, same Scouse grit - but as a soap rather than a sitcom, showing the same Thatcher-era Liverpool from the other side of the fence.

But It's a soap with real consequences and long-running storylines, not a self-contained half-hour giggle.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Bread

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Boys from the Blackstuff1982

Same Liverpool, same Thatcher-era unemployment that fuels every Boswell scheme - except here it's played entirely straight, and it's devastating.

Alan Bleasdale's five-part drama follows unemployed tarmac layers through the same city and decade as Bread, showing what the joke was actually about all along.

But It is bleak, angry and genuinely upsetting - the opposite of comfort viewing, with nothing to laugh at by the end.

Birds of a Feather1989

Two sisters and a friend scraping by on wit, benefits and sheer nerve - practically Bread's female-led cousin, with the same appetite for turning poverty into punchlines.

But Essex rather than Liverpool, and its humour leans more on innuendo than the Boswells' family bickering.

Shameless2011

The spiritual heir to Bread's 'benefits as a way of life' comedy, cranked up several notches into chaos, addiction and genuine anarchy.

But Much darker and near-the-bone than Bread; the laughs come with real damage attached.

Auf Wiedersehen, Pet1983

Working-class Brits chasing money any way they can, this time as builders working abroad - same recession-era hustle, different accents and setting.

But More drama than sitcom, with a melancholy streak that Bread mostly keeps at arm's length.

Butterflies1978

Another Carla Lane family comedy, softer and more wistful, about a housewife's quiet restlessness rather than the Boswells' loud survival tactics.

But Barely a sitcom at all by the end - it's melancholic where Bread is riotous.

Last of the Summer Wine1973

Same gentle, broad BBC comfort-viewing DNA - if you like Bread's cosiness more than its edge, this delivers decades of undemanding, silly warmth.

But No family scrimping plot at all - just old men messing about in the Yorkshire hills, a totally different flavour of nostalgia.

Steptoe and Son1962

The blueprint for British sitcoms about a family trapped together by poverty and pride - Bread's rowdy optimism is Steptoe's bitterness turned up into daylight.

A father and son squabble endlessly in their squalid rag-and-bone yard, decades before the Boswells turned the same premise into something warmer.

But Much colder and sadder than Bread - the class trap here has no way out, and the show never lets you forget it.

Benefits Street2014

The real-life version of the Boswells' relationship with the benefits system, filmed as fact decades after Bread turned the same idea into a gag.

A documentary following residents of a Birmingham street largely dependent on benefits - the exact subject Bread mined for comedy, shown with no script and no laugh track.

But It's controversial, exploitative in places, and offers none of Bread's affection or narrative safety net.