The Brittas Empire is a British sitcom created and originally written by Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen. Chris Barrie plays Gordon Brittas, the well-meaning but incompetent manager of Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre.
The show ran for seven series and 53 episodes — including two Christmas specials — from 1991 to 1997 on BBC1. Norriss and Fegen wrote the first five series, after which they left the show.
The Brittas Empire enjoyed a long and successful run throughout the 1990s, and gained itself large mainstream audiences. In 2004 the show came 47th on the BBC's Britain's Best Sitcom poll, and all series have been released on DVD.
The creators Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen often combine farce with either surreal or dramatic elements in episodes. For example in the first series, the leisure centre prepares for a royal visit, only for the doors to seal, the boiler room to flood and a visitor to become electrocuted. Unlike the traditional sitcom, deaths were quite common in The Brittas Empire.
Ben Harper is a moderately successful family man and dentist. He is also undergoing a mid-life crisis and trying to cope with the bizarre reality of raising teenage children. His wife Susan seems quite happy, enjoys her job as a London tour guide, however at home her ability to find her way around a cookbook or pantry is less successful.
Their three children Nick, Janey, and Michael are as different as chalk and cheese. Nick (19) is on his gap year, but doesn't get much further than the sofa or job centre, Janey is as sharp as a tack and 16 going on 25, while Michael is a very bright, computer-nerdish 12 year old who is just discovering girls.
Lee is a childish northerner who lives in a fancy penthouse apartment in London who goes through a variety of jobs such as a janitor and ice cream man, as well as attempting relationships with female flatmates. His best mate, Daily Mail reading, middle-class citizen Tim is always there to stop Lee from getting in trouble, or not? Mayhem is never far away with cleaner Barbara who has never done an honest day's work in her life.
Nina is a dedicated, career driven corporate attorney who has a very public nervous breakdown after getting passed up for an expected promotion and now finds herself working as a public defender. Her personal and professional worlds are turned upside down when she joins the ranks of the legal world’s underdogs and very quickly realizes that the law isn't quite as fair as she once thought.
PhoneShop is a British sitcom that was first broadcast on Channel 4 as a television pilot on 13 November 2009, as part of the channel's Comedy Showcase season of comedy pilots. It was then followed by a six-episode series that was commissioned on E4 and broadcasting began on 7 October 2010.
The series chronicles the personal life (and the wild lifestyle) of Rebecca Wright, a tough-as-nails judge serving on the Los Angeles County Circuit Court, whose time off the bench is spent partying and displaying a reckless behavior. Her reputation is about to be tamed—and judged—by Robby Shoemaker, a eight-year-old boy whose parents Rebecca put behind bars. He might be the one that can turn Rebecca's life around.