Favourite situation comedies are like old friends. We know the characters, their idiosyncrasies, their values and at least a few facts about their histories. We know something too about the particular world that they inhabit: home, social scene, workplace (perhaps), etc, the people with whom they associate and the rules and conventions that govern their behaviour.

Our initial emphasis on characterisation is valid insofar as human behaviour is the essence of comedy. However the "situation" element is also important and must not be overlooked in the early stages of development.

"Crucible" Situations

Physical location is important (in both television and radio sitcom) because the behaviour of the characters depends on the setting in which they find themselves. For example:

• Characters enjoy their greatest freedom to do as they please when they are in their own homes. They have relatively little to hide from each other, since every member of the family is intimately aware of every other's foibles.
• The presence of friends, particularly in non-domestic situations such as the pub, introduces new behaviours. Characters in such situations (generally) try to hide their failings and to project strongly positive, even unrealistic self-images.
• The workplace shows characters in a more vulnerable light. Whereas everyone's place in the home is assured, their positions in the work hierarchy are far from secure. Characters feign loyalty to their bosses and to the company ethos because their livelihoods depend on such pretences.

This list, though very far from comprehensive, serves to illustrate how socio-physical location determines to a large extent the emotional agenda and, accordingly, the nature of the comedy. Even from this little list, it is possible to see why situation comedies are usually focused on places where people spend most of their time, or at least enough of their time for the frictions to become apparent and to cause ignition: home, work, (more than casual) club, prison, etc.

These are the "crucible" situations, where molehills become mountains and where words and actions are routinely targeted to inflict major damage.

The same cannot be said of social settings defined exclusively by bonds of friendship:

• There is no escape from the crucible, so the characters must confront their situation: respond, threaten, negotiate, squirm, etc.
• If the disaffected can simply walk away, as they may do from any avoidable situation, the potential for comedy is much reduced.

Pecking Order

The choice of a core "crucible" setting unlocks new creative potential in the defining of relationships, since pecking order becomes an essential feature.

The comic potential of pecking orders lies largely in the fact that pecking orders are largely subjective.

In a traditional family-with-dependent-children setting, for example, the position as head of the household may be contested between the breadwinner, whose self-image is that of economic enabler, and the home-maker, without whom there would be no household to be head of. Such situations have been made still more interesting by late 20th Century social trends: working women, decline in marriage, increased home-working, etc.

There is further potential too, in the definition of localised pecking orders within the overall hierarchy. Older children or long-established-but-never-promoted employees, for example, like to see themselves as first among equals, while younger siblings/colleagues seek to subvert the hierarchy with the aid of intelligence, cunning or sheer brute force.

Last but not least, there is limitless potential for interplay across the accepted boundaries of the hierarchy: children vs. parents, staff vs management, etc.

For the purposes of defining relationships between characters, it may be useful to think about non-hierarchical characters in terms of their relationship with the members of the pecking order. For example, if the teenage daughter of the household has a regular boyfriend, how does he relate to the members of the family? and what impact does he have on the girl's relationships with her parents?

Whilst fluidity is an inherent feature of pecking orders, particularly in non-family situations, situation comedy writers must take care to provide a strong central core of stable characters. The crucial principle is that audience members returning to the programme after a gap of months, or even years, need to be able to reconnect immediately with the characters in their familiar pecking orders.

This is not to say that the identities of all the characters must be firmly fixed. It is particularly easy to change the non-hierarchical characters (visitors to the house, customers, etc) if their role is merely to catalyse explosive reactions within crucible itself.

But it is also possible to change the identities of characters within the pecking order to a limited extent: in the workplace, for example, there may be a trainee post, taken by different trainees from time to time; the home-maker character may take lodgers who never seem to last more than one episode.