Mel Smith
An explosive 1930s drama following a jazz band in London at a time of huge change.
A tribute to British comedian Mel Smith, who died in July 2013, aged 60, featuring home video footage, rare archive material and many classic sketches. Far more than a comic actor, Smith also wrote and edited a host of celebrated TV comedies in the 1980s and 90s. He was a theatre and film director, and as a TV producer he was responsible for several innovative comedy series. Friends and colleagues, including Griff Rhys Jones, John Lloyd and Richard Curtis, talk about Smith's talents, both in front of- and behind the camera. The programme also traces his time at Oxford and, before that, Latymer Upper School, where Smith's talents were first spotted.
Fifteen year old Eddie's mother falls very ill after a serious car accident. Eddie and his brother Stewart end up having to take care of themselves and one night when they have ran out of food and electricity, Eddie dreams that his mother asks him to find an angel's halo so that she can be saved. Will Eddie be able to save his mother in time for Christmas?
Prequel to Only Fools and Horses, set in the 1960s, Joan Trotter is in an unhappy marriage with the work-shy Reg, with whom she has a teenage son, Derek ("Del Boy"). However, the reappearance in Peckham of bank robber, "art connoisseur" and womaniser Freddie Robdal, recently released after a ten year prison sentence, would bring about changes in Joan's life.
A look behind the scenes of satirical sketch show Not the Nine O'Clock News.
Fifty years ago, a Home Office committee chaired by Wolfenden, then vice-chancellor of Reading University, recommended the decriminalization of homosexuality. But behind the scenes of what was to become a turning point in British social history, there was an even more extraordinary story. Jack's son Jeremy, then a brilliant undergraduate at Oxford, was himself gay, something his father could not bring himself to acknowledge.
A journalist investigates a series of murders that follows the discovery of an unpublished novel by Charles Dickens in the cellar of an old Thames-side-pub.
Blackball follows the fortunes of Cliff Starkey, a working-class fine of lawn bowls with an exceptional talent. Wanting to take on the Aussies he manages to become regional champion, only to get banned. Sports agent Rich Schwartz picks him up and makes him so popular the Bowls Committee deem to lift the ban. Now the question is whether he can regain his form and his friends to beat the Aussies.
A nurse eavesdrops with a friend on a cell phone conversation that describes a bank heist. She and the friend then conspire to blackmail the robbers for $2 million.
Pending release of the movie "Bean," Rowan Atkinson reflects on his comedy career and reveals how his comic creation Mr Bean evolved. This 1997 documentary includes career clips as well as interviews with Atkinson, writers Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, British comedians Lenny Henry and Mel Smith and movie celebrities Jeff Goldblum and Burt Reynolds.
Childlike Englishman, Mr. Bean, is an incompetent watchman at the Royal National Gallery. After the museum's board of directors' attempt to have him fired is blocked by the chairman, who has taken a liking to Bean, they send him to Los Angeles to act as their ambassador for the unveiling of a historic painting to humiliate him. Fooled, Mr. Bean must now successfully unveil the painting or risk his and a hapless Los Angeles curator's termination.
Shakespeare's comedy of gender confusion, in which a girl disguises herself as a man to be near the count she adores, only to be pursued by the woman he loves.
While investigating the murder of a movie star, a detective finds that he himself is being set up for the crime.
Stephen Milner is a solicitor, but he fits uneasily into the world of Lewis Strange and Partners, who are an upmarket firm of solicitors.The film follows Milner's fraught relationship with a lucrative client, Ron Jesson. When one of his offices goes up in flames, the press are convinced that Ron arranged the fire for insurance purposes.Milner also has to cope with an estranged wife, batty mother and debt ridden younger brother.
In 1939, WBN, a fourth radio network, is about to take to America's airwaves. As if the confusion of the premiere night wasn't enough, Penny Henderson, the owner's secretary, must deal with an unhappy sponsor, an overbearing boss and a soon-to-be ex-husband who desperately wants her back. As the broadcast begins, a mysterious voice breaks the broadcast and suddenly members of the cast turn up dead. It's up to her husband Roger, to find out whodunit as the police chase him through the halls of WBN.
Smith and Jones debate on an awe inspiring range of themes from Devon to death, self assembly furniture to the summer of love and aids to anal retention.
Three manic idiots—a lawyer, cab driver and a handyman—team up to run a ballet company to fulfil the will of a millionaire. Stooge-like antics result as the trio try to outwit the rich widow and her scheming big-shot lawyer, who also wants to run the ballet.
After a hard night's work, Father Christmas decides to go on a "blooming vacation", builds his sledge into a caravan and holidays in France, Scotland and Las Vegas before coming home and settling down, with a bit of grumbling, to answer the mail, get the gifts ready, deliver them and get to the Snowmens' party on time--only he's forgotten something.
Henry Wilt is a more or less failed teacher who fantasizes about murdering his dominant, non-attentive wife Eva. At a party who gets stuck in an inflatable doll and makes a complete fool of himself. Eventually, he dumps the doll in a hole at a building site. However, he has been witnessed getting rid of the doll and when his wife disappears on the night after the party, the police and Inspector Flint have strong suspicions on Mr Wilt.
Bonnie and cousin Sylvia, two very young children, are left at home in Willoughby Hall while their parents travel overseas. Only the servants and the prowling wolves are their companions. News arrives that Lord and Lady Willoughby are missing and an evil looking governess suddenly arrives at the hall...
Colin's Sandwich is a British sitcom broadcast on BBC2 in 1988 and 1990 which stars Mel Smith as Colin Watkins, a British Rail clerk who aspired to be a horror writer. The show was written by Paul Smith and Terry Kyan and ran for two series of six episodes. In the second series, Colin manages to achieve some small successes as a writer.
The Grand Knockout Tournament (colloquially also known as It's a Royal Knockout) was a one-off charity event which was shown on British television on 19 June 1987. It followed the format of It's a Knockout (the British version of Jeux Sans Frontieres), a slapstick TV gameshow which was broadcast in the UK until 1982. The event was staged on the lakeside lawn of the Alton Towers stately home-cum-theme park. However, the event used its own specially created immersing set, meaning that the location was not very recognisable in the TV broadcast.
In this enchantingly cracked fairy tale, the beautiful Princess Buttercup and the dashing Westley must overcome staggering odds to find happiness amid six-fingered swordsmen, murderous princes, Sicilians and rodents of unusual size. But even death can't stop these true lovebirds from triumphing.
Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jone star in festive special about a family with a video camera. Christmas usually means a little over-indulgence, but to the Aldershot family it is an orgy of hitherto uncharted proportions.
A short film staring British comedians Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones that seeks to update the Santa Claus myth. Made for the Finnish tourist board
The story begins on a small spaceship docking with a refueling station. On board are a group of four aliens, Bernard, Sandra, Desmond, and Julian. During a particularly tedious period of their stay at the station, the other three begin playing with the ship’s controls while Bernard is outside playing spaceball. They accidentally disconnect his part of the ship, leaving him stranded while they crash into a large blue planet close by (Earth).
Two lads in Edinburgh embark on a non-violent spree of robberies. They dress up in clown masks and act as modern highwaymen, robbing coach loads of tourists in the highlands. In the process they become folk heroes to the locals. Their adventures make for a whimsical and gentle comedy, in the Bill Forsyth vein.
The Griswalds win a vacation to Europe on a game show, and thus pack their bags for the continent. They do their best to catch the flavor of Europe, but they just don't know how to be be good tourists. Besides, they have trouble taking holidays in countries where they CAN speak the language.
Live Aid was held on 13 July 1985, held simultaneously in Wembley Stadium in London, England, and the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, United States. It was one of the largest-scale satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time: an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion, across 150 nations, watched the live broadcast. It's twelve noon in London, seven AM in Philadelphia, and around the world it's time for: Live Aid...
Alas Smith and Jones is a British comedy sketch television series featuring Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones that ran on BBC One and BBC Two from 31 January 1984 to 14 October 1998. From series 5 in 1989 the 'Alas' title was dropped and became simply Smith and Jones.
Stone (Peter Coyote) hits an armored truck without his usual driver. The ensuing getaway leads to the death of an innocent. The payback is swift and brutal. The wronged father hires a twisted, sociopathic assassin to avenge his loss. One by one the offenders are punished through grisly executions. Stone uses his wits to find a reclusive friend Terry (Mel Smith) just in time for a psychedelic funhouse showdown with his stalker.
The dashing Captain Hugh "Bullshot" Crummond - WWI ace fighter pilot, Olympic athlete, racing driver, part-time sleuth and all round spiffing chap - must save the world from the dastardly Count Otto van Bruno, his wartime adversary. And, of course, win the heart of a jolly nice young lady.
The story of a no-holds-barred, go-getting property dealer played by celebrated comedian Mel Smith, who has the view that everyone has a price though the price may not always be money.
William came to work in Fleet Street in 1971. London meant girls, as many girls as he could find. Then he met Caroline and so it began, that very strange summer ... Caroline said the best of her life.
Not the Nine O'Clock News is a television comedy sketch show which was broadcast on BBC2 from 1979 to 1982. Originally shown as a comedy alternative to the Nine O'Clock News on BBC1, it featured satirical sketches on current news stories and popular culture, as well as parody songs, comedy sketches, re-edited videos, and spoof television formats. The show featured Rowan Atkinson, Pamela Stephenson, Mel Smith, and Griff Rhys Jones, as well as Chris Langham in the first series. The format was a deliberate departure from the Monty Python's Flying Circus stream-of-consciousness meta-comedy, returning to a more conventional sketch show format. Sketches were mostly self-contained, lasting from a few seconds to a few minutes and often had a degree of naturalism in performance. The series launched the careers of several high-profile actors and writers, and also led to other comedy series including Blackadder, Mr. Bean, and Alas Smith and Jones.
The Channel Four Show was a sketch comedy television show written by and starring Gary Stevenson and Mel Smith. Originally called The ITV Show for its first four series from 1977 to 1981 during its time on ITV 1, when Channel 4 was launched in 1982 the show was broadcast for nine more seasons on Channel 4 between 1982 and 1991.
