Television series
One Foot in the Grave
A sitcom that keeps insisting it's a comedy while quietly writing one of British television's bleakest studies of mortality and marriage. Victor Meldrew, freshly retired and furious at the universe's incompetence, turns petty indignities into operatic rants, while wife Margaret watches with weary love. It's farce built on real dread — funny, uncomfortable, and strangely tender. Best for anyone who suspects ageing is basically slapstick with higher stakes.
If you liked this
Fawlty Towers1975
Same volcanic engine — a man losing his mind at a world too stupid to deserve him — but cranked into pure farce. If you love watching Victor detonate, this is the purest, funniest version of that fury.
But It's broader and faster, less interested in melancholy, so if what you loved was the sadness under the shouting, this won't give you much of that.
Steptoe and Son1962
The original British sitcom about two people trapped together by love and resentment in equal measure — bleaker, scrappier, and just as funny in its misery.
But Shot on a shoestring decades earlier, it looks and sounds its age, and the father-son dynamic feels more period piece than universal.
Rising Damp1974
Leonard Rossiter's landlord is Victor's spiritual cousin — petty, prejudiced, endlessly defeated by a world that won't respect him, and drily hilarious about it.
But Some of its attitudes toward race and class have aged badly, and the humour leans more sitcom-broad than Meldrew's slow-building rage.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Ikiru1952
Both are, underneath the tone, studies of a man confronting how little of his life he's actually lived — Victor rages against it weekly; Watanabe gets one diagnosis and one last chance to matter.
Kurosawa's quiet masterpiece about a dying bureaucrat finally choosing to live is one of cinema's great answers to the question Meldrew asks every week: what was any of this for?
But It's slow, subtitled, and unmistakably a drama — no jokes to soften the ache, just an unbearably moving hour and a half.
More like this (7)
Curb Your Enthusiasm2000
Larry David turns Victor's engine — small injustices escalating into full disaster — into an American art form. Just as excruciating, just as gleeful about it.
But It's meaner and more self-satisfied, with Larry causing most of his own catastrophes rather than suffering them, which changes the flavour.
Blackadder1983
Same writers'-room instinct for exquisitely cruel put-downs and a hero perpetually furious at his own circumstances, just relocated to historical costume drama.
But Pure period farce with almost none of the domestic realism or creeping sadness that gives Meldrew its bite.
Keeping Up Appearances1990
Same decade, same suburban Britain, same comedy of social humiliation — just filtered through snobbery instead of despair, and just as merciless.
But Far cosier and more repetitive, with none of the darker undertow that makes Victor's rants feel dangerous.
The Good Life1975
An earlier vision of suburban Britain gone slightly mad, with neighbours bearing witness to one couple's chaos, much like Patrick and Pippa next door.
But Sweet-natured where Meldrew is savage — self-sufficiency played as whimsy, not a man raging against decline.
Grumpy Old Men2003no page yet
Real celebrities doing, unscripted, exactly what Victor does scripted — venting spleen at modern life's small cruelties. A fun companion piece for the mood, if not the craft.
But It's a talking-heads clip show, not a drama, so there's no story, no Margaret, no stakes — just rants.
BoJack Horseman2014
Same trick, different costume: comedy used as a delivery system for real despair about wasted time, ageing, and the gap between who you are and who you meant to be.
An animated Hollywood satire that starts as a joke about a talking horse and turns into one of television's most piercing studies of self-sabotage and regret.
But It's American, absurdist, and often genuinely upsetting in ways the trailer-friendly jokes don't prepare you for.
Death at a Funeral2007
Takes Meldrew's core joke — that death, dignity, and disaster all happen at once to people who can't cope — and turns the volume all the way up into farce.
A British ensemble comedy where one funeral collapses into blackmail, drugs, and physical calamity — pure chaos theory played for maximum, undignified laughs.
But It's broader and sillier than anything Meldrew attempts, trading his slow-burn misery for outright slapstick.
People
Cast
Production
- Andre JacqueminProducer
- Esta CharkhamProducer
- Jonathan Paul LlewellynProducer
- Susan BelbinProducer
Recommended by
Fawlty Towers, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, The Good Life, Ever Decreasing Circles, Keeping Up Appearances, Open All Hours, Till Death Us Do Part