Our crude, snide TV comedy

The creator of hit series Father Ted has hit out at the "depressing and crude cynicism" of today's TV comedy - and called for a return to old-fashioned family viewing.

Graham Linehan, who also wrote and directed the series Black Books, said: "I'm so sick of the cynics. Everything is engineered to have people being snide."

And in a veiled attack on shows such as Little Britain and its imitators, he said: "Every second programme seems to be trying to humiliate people and jokes are becoming very crude.

"I always think of the 12-year-old that I was, trying to be allowed downstairs to watch Monty Python. If I had a 12-year-old kid I wouldn't let them watch most of what's on now. It's so depressing out there.

"Comedy is supposed to be light and funny, make you feel like you're part of a huge audience. I think it's separating people and confirming a very dark view of the world."

Linehan, 37, was speaking at the launch of his new Channel 4 sitcom, The IT Crowd.

Set among computer geeks in the basement IT office of a huge, glamorous company, it is produced by The Office's Ash Atalla and bucks the trend by being filmed before a live studio audience.

"What I hope is that that 12-year-olds can watch this," said Linehan. "It's a reaction against how crass a lot of TV comedy has become. I'm trying to hark back to classic, sweet sitcoms like Dad's Army. This is unashamedly old-fashioned."

He also rejected claims that the traditional sitcom is dead.

"There was never a golden age of sitcoms," he said. "There's a good one every two or three years and then there'll be something else that comes from leftfield and blows everyone away.

"But in the meantime people make a living saying the sitcom'sdead." His remarks come after veteran comic Victoria Wood said "naturalistic" shows such as The Royle Family and The Office had rung the death knell for traditional sitcoms.

"You couldn't go back to a studio audience because The Office was too good," she said.

Former ITV director of programmes David Liddiment also recently made a TV show claiming the sitcom was dead. But Linehan insisted: "These people could have waited a few weeks."