Class Dismissed? Representing Working-Class Identities in British Sitcoms

Britain is famously class-obsessed, yet working-class people remain underrepresented on British screens, both in front of the camera and behind it. Television often reduced class to a character flaw, framing poverty and struggle as personal failings rather than systemic injustices. British sitcoms have always found humor in class but even so, working-class characters have frequently drawn the short straw. Scholars have declared class a »hidden injury«—felt but rarely named. But is class still hidden? With soaring inequality after years of austerity, and the pandemic exposing old wounds anew, class is creeping back into public conversation. Prior to this, the 2010s brought a new wave of sitcoms that experimented with form and tone, blended comedy with more complex storytelling, and were written and performed by people from working-class backgrounds themselves. Are the injuries of class becoming visible again? Can comedy change how we understand class? This lecture explores working-class portrayals in British TV comedy, the effects of these portrayals on public perception, and how a new generation of working-class creatives is rewriting the rules—on screen and off.