From Fun Bobby to Flaked: why sitcoms are sobering up

Writers such as Sharon Horgan discuss why the ‘lovable drunk’ trope is a thing of the past, as complex comedy heroes are cleaning up Modern Toss on the sober sitcomSitcom history is strewn with big drinkers. Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous was incapable of sensible thought thanks to her insatiable appetite for champagne; Bernard Black in Black Books stoked his misanthropy with wine. The characters in M*A*S*H were often drunk to blunt the trauma of war. And in It’s Always Sunny in