A British sitcom or a Britcom is a situational comedy programme produced for British television.
British sitcoms have predominantly been recorded on studio sets, while some include an element of location filming. Live audiences and multi-cameras were first used in the US by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball for their American show I Love Lucy in 1951 and the system was adopted in the UK. Several are made almost entirely on location (for example, Last of the Summer Wine) and shown to a studio audience prior to final post-production to record genuine laughter. In contrast to the American team writing system, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's huge successes were of such quality that they became the paradigm for British sitcom writing.
