British comedy bloopers for a Monday morning

If you’ve just finished a Sunday night marathon of British comedy viewing wherever you reside, I feel certain that you are well aware of all that goes into the production leading up to broadcast and what you see as the final product that fits neatly into that 26:46 time frame. Maybe not everything from the […]

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Doctor Who and the Home Movie Roadshow

Just a quick follow-up to yesterday’s post concerning the series, Home Movie Roadshow that’s currently running on BBC Two. Who’d of thought, but It seems as though the Reliance Mercedes dealership in Chingford was quite the hotbed of activity on one fateful day in 1975. Former Doctor Who, Jon Pertwee, and the Who-mobile came to […]

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Monty Python – early home video discovered

You just think programs like America’s Funniest Home Videos or full-blown channels such as YouTube are new and original ideas. Not so, say Dan Cruickshank and Kirsty Wark, who are out to prove that shooting a video and showing it off to the public isn’t a new thing. Beginning this week, on BBC Two, Home Movie […]

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High praise for The Rev

Getting press and any accompanying critical acclaim is not always the recipe for a successful British comedy series, but in the case of one of the newest in the BBC Two line-up, The Rev, it certainly doesn’t hurt when you can also count on the someone “higher up” amongst your fan base. Dr. Rowan Williams, […]

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A British comedy world w/out Python?

One can only imagine, if even only for a brief moment, what our available British comedy viewing choices would be today had the BBC acted on their early feelings regarding Monty Python’s Flying Circus. According to this article in theTelegraph, documents obtained last year under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that BBC management found […]

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An IT Crowd U.S. remake? Why, grandfather, why?

Well, it has been several weeks since my last rant against U.S. producers trying to re-make British comedy genius. Please don’t insert “But, look at The Office…” here. As I’ve said repeatedly, it’s a short list with The Office, Steptoe and Son and Till Death Do Us Part. Not bad for over 40 years of […]

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Dame Judi 'sends in the clowns' at Royal Albert Hall

You might recall our recent post on the upcoming tribute to Stephen Sondheim by Dame Judi Dench that was to occur at the BBC Proms this past Saturday night at Royal Albert Hall. She described her part in the tribute as “hugely exciting but daunting“. After seeing the clip below of the performance, I’m reminded […]

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Dawn French on her newest project, Roger and Val Have Just Got In

He’s a botanist at a local garden centre. She’s a food technology teacher. The he is Alfred Molina and the she is Dawn French. The two star in the newest addition to the BBC Two british comedy line-up beginning this coming Friday titled Roger and Val Have Just Got In. It’s not “laugh out loud […]

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Roy Clarke discusses the last of Last of the Summer Wine

As we reported here earlier this summer, the world’s longest running situation comedy on television, Last of the Summer Wine, is coming to a close in the UK this coming Sunday, 1 August. Transmission is scheduled to begin on many U.S. public television stations as early as November 2010. How does one begin to bring to […]

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