British comedy less cerebral humour of Benny Hill and his ITV sketch series "The Benny Hill Show". Other notable sketch-based series include "Morecambe and Wise", "The Two Ronnies", "The Goodies", "French and Saunders", "Absolutely", "Little Britain", "The Catherine Tate Show" and "The Fast Show". In the 1980s, alternative comedy was spearheaded by Ben Elton and The Comic Strip group which included Alexei Sayle, Rik Mayall, and French and Saunders. "Vic Reeves Big Night Out" influenced the style of a whole new generation of comics in the 1990s until the present day. The 1990s and 2000s (decade) have also seen the rise of
Character sketch delve into the form was Joseph Hall in his book Characters of Virtues and Vices which was published in 1608. However, the character sketch didn’t become popular amongst the literate public until the late seventeenth century. The public appreciated sketches for their humor and readable style. As Pat Rogers notes, Henry Fielding, in book I, chapter 14 of "Joseph Andrews", invokes William Hogarth to create a character sketch of Mrs. Tow-wouse: "Indeed, if Mrs. Tow-wouse had given no Utterance to the Sweetness of her Temper, Nature had taken such Pains in her Countenance, that Hogarth himself never gave more Expression