It is an actor's command of physical space and the ability to control and direct his/her own physicality that marks out a truly great performer.

It is particularly true of comedy.

You would have to go back to Paul Eddington or Richard Bryers or David Jason or Ronnie Barker to find the nearest British equivalent.

sick to death of the mag's constant obsessive championing of various american tv series. please give it a rest and write about something else.

I've always thought that one of the ingredients that made Frasier work so well was that Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce and John Mahoney were believable as a family in so far there was a good degree of physical resemblance between them. You could believe they shared blood, unlike so many families in so many programmes on both sides of the ATlantic.

If "meat" = dialogue

e.g. Frasier's "Ham Radio" may well be the most perfect sit-com episode EVER in the history of the genre.
Why?
The actors, obviously, are key, but the fact of the absolutely nigh on perfect script is of critical importance. Not one wasted line, anywhere. Fantastic stuff, and (for me anyway) downhill from here.

..I'm thinking of Hancock and Leonard Rossiter in particular, but I can't remember the last time it happened..maybe Richard Briers in Ever Decreasing Circles, the turning of the copier handle and the switching the phone headset around?

A couple of Key George scenes...

An impotence moment - laying in bed he performs a dismissive wave of the hand that moves from despair to frustration in three brief hops.

Wearing a wig - he enters the diner like King of the Gun Slingers, followed with three cocky knocks on the counter.

on one of the DVD extras I think it's Larry David that says having Jason Alexander on board, meant every other performer had to raise their game, Seinfeld in particular

Seinfeld and Frasier, Cheers. Magic all of them. But so are Friends and Charlie Sheen's Two And A Half Men, That 70s Show, Rules Of Engagement and Will And Grace. I could watch all of them over and over again. The acting, the writing, the direction. There's hardly a wasted moment in any of them.

We haven't had a really good sitcom, Spaced & The Office aside, for years. What we have had are some really good sketch shows, and funnily enough I don't really find the American equivalent of those very funny.

How about this? I chose this but it could have been any number of others

Actually, kicking Bishop Brennan Up The Arse is a particular favourite

At the end of the final season.

Pat, obvious and sentimental. Possibly.

But it would have been right.

......Roz.......

is something I love. British, American it doesn't matter. Some rely on script, Frasier certainly is as close to script perfection as you will find and is up there with my favourites but watch and listen to a Dads Army or a Fools and Horses they're so good you don't even realise it. Some rely on situation, Some Mothers Do 'Ave Em creates situations and milks them for all they're worth, really worth another look even after all these years, it's just funny and in essence not that different to Seinfeld. Before the howls of how can you compare Spencer to Seinfeld I mean the structure of each episode. The set up, the gap filling and the final scene, straight from the sit com manual but without all the parts working you end up with My Family. The really great ones for me are the ensemble, the collection of actors that work together, Friends, Frasier, Rising Damp, Porridge among others. Some can bring a tear to your eye with a combination of all the constituent parts, watch the episode of Steptoe and Son with the escaped prisoners it is a true classic, up there with anything you will see anywhere of any genre and I'll argue the point till I'm blue in the face. Find it watch it and disagree at your peril. Yes the Americans are very good at it and we're not at the moment because we don't spend the time and effort that it requires but the British sit com legacy should not be ignored. Familiarity can breed contempt but dust off your videos watch the "Dave" channel and reaquaint yourself with Rossiter, Barker, Beckinsale, Bramble, Corbett even Crawford they're as good as anything the Americans have done or are doing now.

David Hyde Pierce's finest hour:

He does have a rather fine line in shirts, eh?

about Seinfeld and Frasier in particular.

I do think after Seinfeld finished it rendered the studio audience sitcom almost null and void and it's why nearly any sitcom of significance since then on either side of the Atlantic (Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office, Spaced, 30 Rock) have been single-camera on location.

The show just stripped sitcom down to its basest form - there is very little situation but it's not a "show about nothing" - the original concept of "how does a standup find inspiration" essentially became "what's a funny story and who can we give it to?". They took four characters, gave them extremely spurious reasons for being together and at the start of every episode let them all go off like spinning tops colliding when they do but otherwise travelling on their own journey. It's essentially four sitcom leads in one sitcom and each is given equal respect and time and none overstay their welcome.

In the UK the studio sitcom has been ruined ever since Father Ted as what used to be half-hour stage plays (Porridge, Dad's Army) became gag-heavy over-acted dreck, and the British just don't do gags. The exaggeration of characters worked on Father Ted because that was an Irish sitcom with an Irish sensibilty. All we've had since then is British sitcoms trying to have an Irish sensibilty which none of our writers have. It's no surprise then that the only two decent studio audience sitcoms of the last decade have been Graham Linehan's followups Black Books and IT Crowd.

As for Frasier, what I noticed about it was probably during Radio Ham - I agree that's the show's best episode and the final re-enactment possibly the best single scene in any sitcom ever - was how distinctive Kelsey Grammer's voice was and how clever it was to make him a radio host for the spin-off.

Then I noticed how well Roz's voice worked for radio and suddenly realised that each of the five lead actors have their own pitch and sound of voice (Frasier rich and deep, Roz smokey and throaty, Niles light and fey, Daphne high and flitting, and Martin low and growly). Like an orchestra it all comes together to make a greater sum of it's already wonderful individual parts.

Great dialogue, as pointed out by Aaron Sorkin, has a music to it, and so when people talk about the great dialogue in Frasier I think they're also remembering the great marriage with the voices of the actors.

The closest equivalent I can come with in the UK is Blackadder and how that also got a great variety of pitches and each were catered to with great writing. Blackadder could come on today as a new show and it would still be excellent, and it also wouldn't work as a single-camera show nearly as well (witness series 1) so maybe there's still hope for the old-fashioned sitcom yet...

Spin City.

Michael J. Fox was great. Just great. And he was, to my mind, the finest physical comedian of that time. Sadly, his skills were robbed by Parkinson's Disease. There were so many fine actors in that show, coupled with cracking scripts.

In the mid 90's, Friday night on Channel Four was fabulous. Friends, Frasier, Spin City, Caroline In The City, King Of The Hill... Some nights were so good I'd almost contemplate staying in instead of going to the pub and watching them all with a hangover on Saturday morning.

I feel a desire to buy more box-sets I'll never watch.

but I love this from Mad TV: -

...One Foot In The Grave and the often excellent Love Soup always well scripted and immaculately acted.
Tried to find a clip but found this instead - not comedy but well written and starring Tamsin Grieg and Dudley Sutton.

Why hasn't anybody mentioned The Thick of It? A great example of modern sitcom with 'American qualities'.

But the American re-make was a disaster by all accounts.

Ian

and Rainn Wilson in The Office are superb contemporary examples of the actors using spatial awareness to terrific effect.