| Genre: | Comedy |
| Starring: | Sid James Sydney Tafler Alec Bregonzi Bill Kerr Liz Fraser |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Num Series: | 3 |
| Num Episodes: | 32 (21 missing) |
| Channel: | BBC TV |
Citizen James is a BBC sitcom that ran for three series between 24 November 1960 and 23 November 1962. The show featured comedian and actor Sid James and Sydney Tafler with Bill Kerr and Liz Fraser appearing in early episodes. It was initially written by the comedy writing team of Galton and Simpson, who based the characters very much on the "Sidney Balmoral James" and "William Montmorency Beaumont Kerr" roles that they had played in Hancock's Half Hour. The first series was set around 'Charlie's Nosh Bar', a cafe in Soho, and centred on Sid's get-rich-quick schemes. He is helped by "Billy the Kerr" and quite often frustrated by the local bookmaker Albert Welshman (Tafler). Liz Fraser played Sid's long-suffering girlfriend who has been waiting for seven years for Sid to set the date.
Changes were made to the format after the first series. Sid James' character was changed to be something of a people's champion, campaigning for social justice. Bill Kerr and Liz Fraser departed and Sidney Tafler played a different character: Charlie Davenport. The location switched from Soho to Sid and Charlie sharing a house. Later episodes were written by then Morecambe & Wise writers Dick Hills and Sid Green.[1]
Despite not being written by Galton and Simpson, the sets and familiar supporting cast gave these last two series a recognisable Hancock feeling to the proceedings.
Like many BBC series of this time, episodes were not necessarily retained (see Wiping). Only eleven episodes from the three series are known to still exist.
The then-surviving episodes, comprising the complete Series One, and two episodes each from Series Two and Series Three, were released as a collection by Acorn Media UK in February 2012. A further episode, the sixth episode of series three, was subsequently found in a store room of Monaco Television, by Philip Morris.[2] [3] [4]