The American Sitcom Queen Behind <em>Peaky Blinders</em>

During the 1980s and ’90s, Caryn Mandabach was the sitcom producer with the golden touch. The shows she spearheaded read like a greatest hits of American comedy: Roseanne, The Cosby Show, Cybill, Grace Under Fire, 3rd Rock From the Sun, That ’70s Show. Working for Carsey-Werner, an independent production house with uncanny success, Mandabach helped preside over a remarkable revival of the genre, becoming a full partner in 2001. Between 1983 and 1984, only one half-hour comedy, Kate and Allie, was counted among the top 10 rated shows in America. By 1988, the top three shows in the country were all sitcoms—The Cosby Show, Roseanne, and A Different World—and Carsey-Werner owned them all.

And then money got in the way. Deregulation in the American television industry created a harsher environment for independent producers, as the big four networks were freed to create all their own prime-time shows. Or, as the gangster Alfie Solomons (played by Tom Hardy) memorably explained in Season 4 of the BBC show , “Big will fuck small.” In an unprecedented career move, Mandabach left the United States in 2005 and moved to Britain, where she hoped to find new shows she could still, which arrived on British television screens eight years later, is her stand against the hegemony of the giant TV corporations.