June Whitfield of the Irving Berlin song "You're Just in Love" in "A Royal Night of One Hundred Stars". In 1982 she was made a Freeman of the City of London and was made an OBE in 1985. Having appeared in an episode of "French and Saunders" in 1988, from 1992 Whitfield played Mother/Gran in Jennifer Saunders' sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous". In 2000, she featured with the rest of the "Absolutely Fabulous" cast in the pilot "Mirrorball". From 1993 to 2001, she played Miss Marple in 12 radio adaptations of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple books. Since 1990, she has appeared in films such
British sitcom consciously avoids traditional situation comedy themes and storylines to branch out into more unusual topics or narrative methods. "Blackadder" (1983–1989) and "Yes Minister" (1980–1988, 2013) moved what is often a domestic or workplace genre into the corridors of power. A later development was the mockumentary in such series as "The Office" (2001–2003). The first British television sitcom was "Pinwright's Progress", broadcast by the BBC from 1946 to 1947, but the form did not take off until the transfer of "Hancock's Half Hour" from BBC radio in 1956. Hancock biographer John Fisher dates the first use of the term 'situation comedy'