Geoff Posner
This documentary explores the legacy of one of the most notorious British sitcoms of all time. Launching alternative comedy onto our screens, the show made household names of its performers and writers and proved to be a huge influence, despite the BBC reportedly being baffled by what they'd commissioned back in 1982. Never before had a flagship comedy show contained so much violence, depravity and anarchy - it was a shot across the bow to mainstream comedians that things would never be the same again.
Sir David Frost traces the development of the sketch show over the last fifty years, from variety theatre to primetime television.
A world-class line-up of musical stars from Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Elton John to current chart toppers Jessie J and Ed Sheeran will perform at a spectacular free concert to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee this summer. Ten thousand tickets are to be given away through a public ballot for the event, to be held outside Buckingham Palace on June 4, while millions more will be able to watch the musical extravaganza live on BBC1 and Radio 2. Organised by Take That singer Gary Barlow, it will showcase the best of pop, rock, classical and musical theatre from each decade of the monarch’s 60-year reign
Milton Jones, - you know the weird bloke with the shirts from Mock the Week. As well as star of the Michael McIntyre Roadshow, and the voice of 9 series for Radio 4 (including The Very World of Milton Jones and Another Case of Milton Jones) and all sorts of other radio and telly as well. Awards too. Well it s his new show with new stuff, not in his last show. Youtube him or something....
Victoria Wood takes to the stage with an all female bill for a night of comedy in support of The British Heart Foundation to help raise awareness of heart disease in women.
One of Britain's most enduring and best-loved comics, Ronnie Corbett, turned 80 in December 2010. In this brand new comedy sketch show, the octogenarian comic legend appears alongside some of the biggest names in British comedy, in sketches featuring everything from a superannuated super-hero to a stage-struck dog. Add in a sprinkling of one-liners and a brand new Ronnie monologue in the famous chair for the must-see comedy of the festive season.
Recorded at the Shaw Theatre in London, this is the first DVD released by the award-winning stand-up comedian Marcus Brigstocke. The show is sprinkled with Brigstocke's idiosyncratic brand of liberal politics and satirical humour, with issues ranging from climate change, religious extremism, immigration and loans companies to compensation culture, women’s magazines, The EU and David Blaine - and his own battle against his middle class roots.
Little Miss Jocelyn is a British TV sketch comedy written by and starring Jocelyn Jee Esien. The show is made up of studio sketches and hidden camera footage in which unsuspecting members of the public become part of a sketch. The series ran for 2 series from 22 August 2006 until its cancellation on 14 February 2008. 12 episodes aired whilst a 13th episode was never broadcast for unknown reasons but is featured as a bonus extra on the Series 2 DVD. In 2007, Esien featured in Girls Aloud and Sugababes' Comic Relief video for "Walk This Way", where she puts a parking ticket on Ewen Macintosh, a reference to the character Jiffy from the show Little Miss Jocelyn.
Little Britain is a British character-based comedy sketch show which was first broadcast on BBC radio and then turned into a television show. It was written by comic duo David Walliams and Matt Lucas. The show's title is an amalgamation of the terms 'Little England' and 'Great Britain', and is also the name of a Victorian neighbourhood and modern street in London. The show comprises sketches involving exaggerated parodies of British people from all walks of life in various situations familiar to the British. These sketches are presented to the viewer together with narration in a manner which suggests that the programme is a guide—aimed at non-British people—to the ways of life of various classes of British society. Despite the narrator's description of great British institutions, the comedy is derived from the British audience's self-deprecating understanding of either themselves or people known to them.
TLC is a darkly surreal farce-like sitcom set in a fictional NHS hospital called South Middlesex where coffee is traded like drugs and pretty much everyone has a personality problem. It was first broadcast on the BBC on 11 November 2002 and ran over six episodes until 16 December. There were some very mixed opinions on the show among both critics and viewers, but it achieved decent ratings and featured an excellent comedy cast including Richard Griffiths, Alexander Armstrong and The League of Gentlemen's Reece Shearsmith. The series was released on DVD in the UK on 29 October 2007. The show never confirms what "TLC" stands for, although it is presumed to be a sarcastic reference to the widely used abbreviation for "Tender Loving Care", but could equally refer to the alternative yet related abbreviation "Total Lack of Concern".
An adaptation of the folktale about a lonely boy, his beloved cat, and the hard decisions that come with their adventures.
Recorded live at The Palace Theatre in Manchester. All his favourite characters appear - Alan Partridge, Paul and Pauline Calf, Tony Ferrino, Ernest Moss and the irritating Duncan Thicket.
Dinnerladies is a BBC sitcom written by and starring Victoria Wood that chronicles the antics of a group of workers in a canteen in the north of England. Bren tries to maintain a semblance of order in amongst the chaos, while dealing with the canteen supervisor, slightly sex-obsessed cancer sufferer Tony. Dolly and Jean are the bickering menopausal older women, always at odds but best friends beneath it all. Then there's thick-as-two-short-planks Anita, and the terminally uninterested Twinkle, more concerned with having a good time than anything else. Making up the motley crew are military man handyman Stan, all rules and regulations, and ditzy Philippa, who never seems to get anything right.
The Eurovision Song Contest 1998 was the 43rd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It took place in Birmingham, United Kingdom.
Over half a million people packed into over 200 venues throughout the country during 1997 to see her best show ever. This tour included an unprecedented fifteen night sell-out run at the Royal Albert Hall, which the media hailed as the best stand-up show of the decade. With her cheek, charm and dazzling wordplay, she reduced her audience to a state of delerium. Recorded during her record-breaking tour, Victoria Wood Live is your opportunity to see the queen of humour at her most brilliant.
In depth interview special with Steve Coogan's spoof Portuguese musical megastar Tony Ferrino
Coogan's Run was a 1995 UK TV series featuring Steve Coogan as a series of odd characters living in the fictional town of Ottle. It was written by various people including Coogan, Patrick Marber, David Tyler, Graham Linehan, Arthur Mathews, Geoffrey Perkins and Henry Normal. The series consists of six self-contained stories, although Coogan's characters from the other episodes in the series make occasional cameo appearances.
These are the hilarious video diaries of Christmas and New Year at the Calf's House and at the pub, Steve Coogan's brilliant characters Paul and Pauline Calf and all their antics. The DVD features Paul Calf's Video Diary and Three Fights Two Weddings and a Funeral, Pauline's wedding video diary, and features Gary Olsen in one of his last Tv appearances before his early death.
Lager lout and philosopher Paul Calf records his video diary over New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Accompanied by his friends Fat Bob and Roland and his sister Pauline, he staggers through two days of drinking, fighting and failed sex, in desperate pursuit of his ex-girlfriend, Julie.
Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast is a 50-minute television comedy special, written by and starring comedian Victoria Wood. It was broadcast on BBC One on Christmas Day 1992.
Harry Enfield's Television Programme was a British sketch show starring Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. It first broadcast on BBC Two in 1990 in the 9 pm slot on Thursdays nights which became the traditional time for alternative comedy on television. Enfield was already an established name due to his 'Loadsamoney' character, but the series gave greater presence to his frequent collaborators Paul Whitehouse and Kathy Burke – so much so that, in 1994, the show was retitled Harry Enfield and Chums.
Victoria Wood was a series of six one-off situation comedies written by and starring Victoria Wood in 1989, who took a break from sketches, two years after her very successful and award winning series Victoria Wood As Seen on TV. Wood appeared as "Victoria", a fictionalised version of herself, in all six episodes - in The Library it was said that she "worked in TV" and in Over To Pam characters appeared to recognise her celebrity and in the final episode, Staying In, she was taken to a party to perform as a comedienne and was expected to go through her stand-up 'routine'. Her character often broke the 'fourth wall' of TV and spoke directly to the camera, but not in every episode. Bored with the sketch format and with a yearning to recapture previous success as a playwright, Wood came up with six individual sitcoms as a compromise. She admitted to finding the writing difficult. Though Wood was written as the central character, other lead parts were written with specific actresses in mind, like Julie Walters and Una Stubbs. "I want people to like me and the people who play my friends, and not everybody else" she said. Screenonline says of the shows "Modest in ambition and scale but rich in wit and acuity, the six playlets showcase Wood's eye for human foibles and her distinctively eccentric characters.".
Saturday Live was a British television comedy and music show broadcast by Channel 4 from 1985 to 1987, and in 1988 as Friday Night Live. Influenced by the American show Saturday Night Live, it was produced by Paul Jackson. The series made stars of Ben Elton, Harry Enfield, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, and featured appearances by Patrick Marber, Morwenna Banks, Chris Barrie, Emo Philips, Craig Ferguson, Craig Charles and many others. The show featured comic duo Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall in their act The Dangerous Brothers. All episodes were transmitted live, although some material was pre-recorded. Recordings of shows were edited into compilation repeats, retitled Saturday Almost Live. The show was succeeded by Friday Night Live, a shorter and slightly more tightly-formatted show with Elton as the permanent host, which ran for a single series in 1988. The show's titles consisted of reforming clay animations, highly comparable to early MTV idents.
Victoria Wood As Seen On TV is a British comedy sketch series starring comedian Victoria Wood, with Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge. The show was televised on BBC Two between 1985 and 1987 and included sketches that became famous in the United Kingdom; these included one-offs like Two Soups and regular features like Acorn Antiques, as well as musical performances by Wood including her most well-known number, The Ballad of Barry and Freda. The show was created when Wood was enticed away from rival television station ITV in 1984. She wrote the whole programme, and also the synopsis of it for listings magazine the Radio Times. The series has led to spin-off script books, video tapes and DVDs. The show won BAFTA Awards for all its episodes and, in 1996, it was awarded all-time Favourite Comedy Series by the BBC itself. Wood preferred to work with a regular repertory of actors she could trust. Since the show ended, she has occasionally revived aspects of it with these colleagues. A notable spin-off is Acorn Antiques, the West End musical.
