Scriptwriter and Comedian
As the 70s turned into the 80s, a little story unfolded quietly in the local Reading paper. It began in October. There’s a nice story from perennial warm-up man Felix Bowness there about forgetting a gig, and the new Bob Monkhouse show he mentions is of course Family Fortunes. But it’s the mention of his […]
Here’s the first mention of Alexei Sayle that I can find on the British Newspaper Archive. It’s from The Stage on Thursday 24th June 1976, and it’s a small notice that the company he was a member of will be performing in London. Two years later, the company returned to London, this time for a […]
On this day, in 2002, the cover of Broadcasting & Cable Magazine featured this photograph: The cover seems only to be justified by two sentences in the whole magazine. Here’s the first: NBC Entertainment President Jeff Zucker is “very high” on a pilot starring Chevy Chase he describes as an updated My Three Sons, “only […]
Here’s an interesting little curio. It’s a press release, that made it into many publications, including local newspapers all over the country, announcing the upcoming BBC schedule line up … … for 1987 If you know your Red Dwarf lore, you’ll be aware that the first series was delayed due to an electrician’s strike, and […]
You know when you’re browsing old copies of American television industry magazines, and you come across something that makes you stop and scratch your head with Simian-like confusion? New Monkees was a syndicated show, developed from the original by Matthew Fassberg and Victor Fresco. It lasted 13 episodes, and was jointly produced by Coca Cola […]
I wrote another book about television. I like television. I like television so much that the first thing I modelled and printed on my new 3d printer was this … I made some more after that too. There’s a few more, including TVS, ATV, and HTV, but I bought you here to talk about my […]
Thanks to the excellent Why Don’t YouTube, over on Bluesky, I was made aware of another short-lived Noel Edmonds curio. Coming so soon off of the back of The Late Late Breakfast Show tragedy, Whatever Next? was perhaps a surprising inclusion in the schedules. So it’s worth having a look at how the show was […]
I mean, it’s impossible to write about The Fast Show without quoting it. So let’s get them out of the way. Brilliant. I like this, when comedy worlds collide and remind me that sometimes shows that seem from different eras actually shared a schedule. Which is nice. This one is more interesting from a TV […]
My current ear worm is this. First of all, is that Doon Mackichan singing? Second, this isn’t the first time the song has been used in a campaign for the weirdly sexualised chocolate bar. Here’s a much earlier one, with a weirdly sexualised Frank Muir.
Here’s one of those little snippets you often stumble across in old magazines. I suppose it was inevitable that Spin City would make some references to Back To The Future, but this was a great way to do it – using the time change element. Unfortunately, this is the best quality version of the promo […]
Here’s an interview with Geoffrey Perkins, from The Stage, after he was appointed Head Of BBC Comedy. I wonder how far things got with an Alf Garnett return. He appeared on TV screens once more, in September of 1998, but that was over on ITV. Maybe everyone got cold feet, and ITV picked it up. […]
Why does Richie from Bottom resonate with me? It can’t just be the brilliant performance of Rik Mayall. Alan B’Stard, Rick, Micky Love, Drop Dead Fred are all brilliant characters, brilliantly realised, and I think about them a lot. But I think about Richie. Every. Single. Day. I’ve thought about Bottom so much over the […]
This is the story of Timothy Burton Anderson, who in 1986 sued Sylvester Stallone and MGM/UA because, he argued, they had stolen his idea for Rocky IV, and then failed to compensate him for it. A Utah screenwriter has filed a $105 million suit against Sylvester Stallone and officials of MGM/UA studios, claiming they stole […]
Here’s a story about the analysis powers of industry insiders, presented in three parts. Look at just how many sitcoms were being made. And here’s the coda …
Before his House Party, Noel did a Saturday Roadshow. It introduced a number of segments and items that would later be developed and refined in his Crinkley Bottom. The Gotchas, Wait Till I Get You Home, and the gunge tank all appeared on the Roadshow, and so did Giftbusters. This was clearly where the idea […]
It’s hard to overstate the way Sylvania Waters changed the landscape of British television, so I won’t. What’s interesting is how the show was received in Australia compared to how it was received here in the UK. Sylvania Waters exploded on to Australian TV on 21 July 1992. The link to the fictional soap that […]
If you imagine the phrase ‘Bite The Wax’ as spoken by Armando Iannucci, then your day will be all the better for it. But before we get to that, let’s talk about No’ The Archie Macpherson Show. It’s Wednesday 6th July 1988, and BBC Radio Scotland is about to debut a new youth oriented show […]
Here’s a great article from the Liverpool Echo, on Saturday 10th December 1983. ‘I want to do more theatre next year. There is an offer of a film, possibly about The Young Ones, but that’s still only an idea at the moment.’ Imagine the trailer, with voice over man growling ‘Once in every lifetime …’ […]
A small fact nugget keeps popping up about Seinfeld – that the show was renamed after the pilot to avoid allusions to the ABC show The Marshall Chronicles. As the pilot had been called The Seinfeld Chronicles, and the ABC show was cancelled after four episodes, they went with the much snappier new title. It’s […]
It’s always fun when two disparate things collide. I was reminded of All Rise For Julian Clary by, of all things, The Secret Barrister book, which mentions the show in passing. Barely a day later, following a mention on a YouTube video, I found theoldnet.com, and decided to look at the BBC’s website from 1996. […]
Inevitably, during the late 1990s, British broadcasters were looking for something a bit like Seinfeld. When BBC Two launched Rhona, The Stage asked the eponymous star: So am I right in thinking British Seinfeld?‘We have more of a Seinfeldian interest,’ she says carefully. The Real Rhona, Ben Dowell, The Stage, Thursday 20th July 2000 Then […]
I was slightly amazed to learn that the Cadbury’s Boost bar is older than I thought. I had a feeling it was launched in the 1990s, with the famous Vic & Bob advertising campaign. (As an aside, here’s the slightly less famous (possibly forgotten) Gladiators one they did). But in actuality, the Boost was first […]
I had a little lament the other evening, that it’s such a shame Kathy Burke never appeared in The New Statesman. She would have been equally wonderful as a slick Tory backbencher, or a Labour frontbencher. Here’s an early review of Kathy’s work – a performance in the play Ghosts. In 1989, Maureen Paton is […]
There’s a line on page 73 of Proctology: A Bottom Examination which reads: Rik also made a corporate video in 1988, but his was for John Cleese’s Video Arts production company. Managing Problem People: Behavioral Skills For Leaders was directed by Charles Crichton (who directed A Fish Called Wanda), and was written by Stephen Fry. […]
On 1st November 1986, the BBC celebrated 50 years of television, with its themed strand TV50. Here’s some of the continuity and trails that aired on that day. And here’s some nostalgic in-vision continuity …
Let’s preface this nonsense with two things. First, in universe, of course Alan didn’t. He was looking at a house in Norfolk, and Mrs Warboys lives somewhere else. Second, I always presumed that the house viewing scene from A Room With An Alan was shot on location. But on the DVD commentary track, Armando Iannucci […]
The final joke of Bomb, the fourth episode of The Young Ones, never gets the laugh I think it deserves. It’s not a bomb, it’s an egg the plane has laid. I wonder if the noise of the baby plane has been mixed too loud and drowns out the laugh. Anyway, here’s Rick’s exclamation when […]
Yesterday, whilst looking at clippings about ‘Allo ‘Allo, the last line of this review jumped out at me. I am constantly amazed by all the gaps in my sitcom knowledge. Bootle Saddles is a new one to me. It was written by Ray Mansell & Paul Benn, and aired on BBC Two in the autumn […]
You’d be forgiven now for not knowing that ‘Allo ‘Allo was a straight up parody of the flagship BBC drama Secret Army. But a look at the press coverage at the time of the pilot’s broadcast leaves that fact in little doubt. Or this, from 1984 when the full series first began … A charge […]
Mr Swainey is an excellent supporting character in One Foot In The Grave. He provides an optimistic counterpoint to Victor, but is rounded enough to have moments of depression and self-doubt. What’s more, he has some seemingly dark peccaddiloes. When he first returns at the start of series two, in In Luton Airport No-One Can […]