I’ll begin by stating the obvious. Sitcoms are not monologues and as such require more than one person. The star is supposed to be just that – the star – but he or she shines brightest when accompanied by a strong supporting cast.

It is sometimes easy to overlook the contribution of those whose names appear further down in the credits. So without further ado let’s bring on some of British comedy’s top second bananas.

First we take a look at the whipping boys, whose sole purpose is to tolerate abuse. Two characters spring to mind immediately:

Name: Manuel
Show: Fawlty Towers

Played by: Andrew Sachs

Ah, si, si, senor. Manuel. That simpering, cowering creature from Barcelona who’s so glad to have a job that he puts up with anything and everything from his much taller boss, Basil Fawlty.

Is Andrew Sachs anything like his most famous creation? Not a bit. Start with the fact that he’s not Spanish. He’s German by birth. Sachs was born in Berlin in 1930, and his family narrowly escaped capture by the Nazis. In fact, his father was arrested while the family was eating in a restaurant but was then let go thanks to the intervention of a friend.

The family left Germany for England, where an eight-year old Andrew learned his first words in English: “I’m sorry I don’t understand you. I’m a little German boy.”

His young age enabled him to pick up English easily and, unlike Manuel, he learned to speak it beautifully and precisely.

Andrew drifted into a stage career not necessarily because of a strong desire to act but more because of a desire to be famous and loved. In fact, what he wanted from drama school was to learn how to “cope with mass adulation” and how to figure out “the state of the property market in Beverly Hills.”

He came across a couple of future stars during his years in repertory theatre. While Sachs was a stage manager at Liverpool Rep a young lady named Patricia Routledge would sweep the floors for him and later starred in a play he wrote. He also got to know his future Fawlty co-star Prunella Scales, who got married in a hat she borrowed from Sachs’ wife.

When approached by Cleese to play a Spanish waiter, Sachs at first asked him if Manuel could be German since it was his first language. Cleese insisted on the Spanish, which Sachs was obviously able to do to beautiful effect. He later, however, voiced Manuel in German with a Spanish accent when Fawlty Towers was re-dubbed for German television.

His post-Fawlty career has consisted of lots of voice work, radio programmes, theatrical performances, and a recurring role in a series about an Internet company called Attachments. He recently played Mullah Omar in a political satire called Between Iraq and a Hard Place.

Now a septuagenarian, Sachs has aged very well and seems no worse for wear from the torture he was put through by Cleese. Thank goodness, here’s one man willing to suffer for the sake of his art.

Name: Baldrick
Show: Blackadder

Played by: Tony Robinson

Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson were heavily inspired by Fawlty Towers when they created The Black Adder, and echoes of that influence can be seen in the relationship between Edmund and Baldrick.

Baldrick is another dim yet loyal sidekick who inexplicably puts up with a lot of abuse from a heavily sadistic employer.

Luckily for Tony Robinson, the abuse that Blackadder heaped upon Baldrick was mainly verbal and not physical. Of course he’s used to putting up with a lot – I mean, this is a man who isn’t even positive what his first name is, though it might be “Sod off” because that’s what everyone used to tell him when he was a child.

Once again there is a big difference between the actor and the character. Tony Robinson was born in 1946 and began his show biz career at the age of 12 when he played a member of Fagin’s gang and later the Artful Dodger in a production of Oliver! He later attended the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Then in 1983 he got the role that would change his life, and he became known to fans everywhere as Baldrick.

However, there is much more to Robinson than being Edmund’s sidekick. He created, wrote and starred in Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, a popular children’s programme (also enjoyed by adults) that took a very different view of the legend of Robin Hood. According to Robinson, Robin Hood was actually a cowardly tailor from Kensington, and Maid Marian was the real leader of the Merry Men.

Robinson is the author of 16 children’s books and hosts an archaeology series called Time Team, in which groups go out to excavate archaeological sites.

Robinson is also very passionate about politics. He is a member of the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee and served for several years as vice-chairman of Equity, the UK actors’ union.

In the final scenes of Blackadder Back and Forth, Baldrick becomes Prime Minister. Once you get to know more about Tony Robinson, you wonder if a political office may be in his future.

Another category that second bananas can fall into is that of the ditz. Prime example number one resides in the picturesque village of Dibley:

Name: Alice Tinker-Horton
Show: The Vicar of Dibley

Played by: Emma Chambers

Though viewers fell in love with Dawn French as Geraldine Grainger in The Vicar of Dibley, they also began asking themselves, “Who in the world is the funny woman playing Alice?” She is Emma Chambers, a heretofore-unknown actress who has developed a lot of fans thanks to her portrayal of the loveable but ditzy verger Alice.

It does take a special talent to play a character like Alice, who’s more than a bit bizarre and out there. Like Hugh Laurie, who’s also wonderful at playing rather dim bulbs, Chambers is another example of how you have to be smart to play dumb.

Before moving to Dibley, Chambers spent ten years in the theater, playing roles in classical works such as Tartuffe and As You Like It. Her first television appearances were in the police drama The Bill and an adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel Martin Chuzzlewit.

Emma then went from classical drama to Alice Horton-Tinker, the woman who still believes in the Easter Bunny and that her budgie rose from the dead. And who can forget her marriage to fellow dimwit Hugo, when she was followed down the aisle by a couple of children dressed as Teletubbies?

Geraldine has infinite patience with Alice, but at the end of one episode the vicar’s finally had enough and wallops Alice over the head with a book when, once again, Alice doesn’t get a joke. Much of Alice’s appeal is that she’s a sweet, childlike creature. To get the character right, Emma modeled her on her own niece.

Some of Alice’s scenes could prove a bit tricky for Chambers. One of the more memorable was when Alice tried to explain to Geraldine that she couldn’t believe “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter…” isn’t butter. It’s a long, convoluted scene that she said she had to practice about 150 times before she finally mastered it.

Her hard work paid off, earning Emma an award as Best Comedy Actress at the 1998 British Comedy Awards.

Emma went on to play a small but excellent part as Hugh Grant’s sister in Notting Hill, written by Dibley creator Richard Curtis. She also had a role in the 1998 sitcom How Do You Want Me?, written by Simon Nye of Men Behaving Badly fame.

Emma then took a couple of years off, feeling disillusioned, pressured and in need of a break. In 2002 she returned to the stage to play a downtrodden wife in a West End stage production of the play Benefactors. She took the role deliberately to keep from getting stereotyped. Other recent projects include doing a voice-over on Little Robots, an animated series aimed at older pre-schoolers. Her “co-stars” include Chef! star Lenny Henry.

The Vicar of Dibley was blessed with not one, but two standout supporting performers:

Name: Owen Newitt
Show: The Vicar of Dibley

Played by: Roger Lloyd Pack

Where Alice Tinker is sweet and loveable, Owen Newitt is crude, smelly, and usually late for meetings of the Dibley Parish Council thanks to his numerous gastric problems.

Over the course of the series Owen develops quite a crush on Geraldine. Of course, with his foul language and even fouler stench, it’s easy to understand why Owen is still a bachelor and why Geraldine rejects his advances. Too bad, because Owen is actually not a bad man.

Roger Lloyd Pack has been a stalwart of British comedy and drama for many years. He was born in London on February 8, 1944, the son of an actor named Charles Lloyd Pack. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the Royal Shakespeare Company. His career has been an interesting mixture of drama and comedy. Along with numerous Shakespearean plays he appeared in a production of Kafka’s The Trial. His film work includes roles in Fiddler on the Roof and Interview With a Vampire.

On television, Lloyd Pack is best known as Trigger in the long-running series Only Fools and Horses. The name refers not to any armed weapon, but to the fact that Trigger has a face like a horse.

Indeed, it is Lloyd Pack’s face that makes him marvelous for comedy, as does his ability to deliver lines with deadpan perfection. The episode when he asks the vicar to marry him and she actually agrees to kiss him is terrific. He also steals the scene when auditions are held for the Dibley Christmas pageant and Owen thinks that Jesus should be portrayed as Elvis.

Lloyd Pack’s other roles included a part alongside Penelope Keith and June Brown in the television film Margery and Gladys. He also appeared in Christmas episodes of Only Fools and Horses.

Another man not terribly concerned about his personal hygiene lives with his wife, sister-in-law, father-in-law and dog in a run-down council house:

Name: Onslow
Show: Keeping Up Appearances

Played by: Geoffrey Hughes

The slovenly, unkempt, unemployed Onslow is a perfect foil for his pernickety, class-conscious sister-in-law Hyacinth Bucket. Hyacinth does everything she can to keep her family “out of sight,” but Onslow usually takes it all in stride. He’s never too bothered about anything…that would require effort.

Geoffrey Hughes has made an icon out of the lazy, beer-loving Onslow. (Maybe too many men can relate to him?) Hughes was born February 2, 1944 in Cheshire, England. He started out in theatre, then his first major break came when he provided the voice of Paul McCartney in the animated feature film Yellow Submarine. From 1974-1983 (and again in 1987) he played Eddie Yeats on the soap opera Coronation Street.

In 1990 he began his five-season stint on Keeping Up Appearances. He provided the show with one of its classic catchphrases, “Nice,” said in a way that it got laughs no matter how many times you heard it. The popularity of Onslow became worldwide. While touring in a play in Australia, Hughes was once invited to talk to a ladies literary group in Brisbane about KUA. Over 500 fans turned out, most of them dressed like Hyacinth.

Hughes’s post-KUA career has been busy. He appeared as Twiggy, a seller of dodgy goods, in several episodes of the award-winning sitcom The Royle Family. Since 2001 he has been playing Vernon Scripps in the series Heartbeat. He also does charity work. In the late 1990s Hughes fought prostate cancer and today is a patron of the UK’s Prostate Cancer Charity.

There are other second bananas that deserve mention. Geraldine McNulty is brilliant as the venomous Mrs. Raven in My Hero. All you have to do is look at Norman Lovett, who plays the computer Holly in Red Dwarf, and you’ll start grinning. Pauline McLynn was fabulous as the ditzy housekeeper Mrs. Doyle in Father Ted.

The shows we love wouldn’t be the same without the contributions of these great supporting actors. Can you think of anyone else who deserves mention?