‘Hotel Boss’ sets out to find the next Basil Fawlty

Just when you thought it might be safe to go back into the water, along comes something that gives you pause to where you might say to yourself….maybe not just yet. In this case, we’re talking the bane of good telly existence, the unscripted reality program. The surprising thing, IMHO, is that with a working […]

Read more

Is this Heaven? No, it’s Humphry Slocombe!

Ok, they didn’t ask ‘are you being served?’ and no one said, “I’m free” when I finally hit the front of the line recently at Humphry Slocombe in San Francisco’s Ferry Building but the evidence as to the influence on owner’s Jake Godby and Sean Vahey’s craft was abundantly clear. The vintage British sitcom Are […]

Read more

R.I.P. Caroline Aherne, co-creator/writer, star of ‘The Royle Family’

Caroline Aherne, the co-creator/writer and star of the brilliant late 90s British situation comedy, The Royle Family, has died at the age of 52. Aherne, who played Denise Royle, co-created and wrote all three series of the critically-acclaimed comedy with co-star, Craig Cash. Centered around the lives of a blue collar, television-fixated Manchester family, the Royles, comprised of family patriarch Jim […]

Read more

Basil Fawlty earns an “A” in the Science of Great Comedy

Fawlty Towers has to be the greatest 12 episodes of comedy ever. The UK version of The Office is a close second (much better, I think, than the American version, but that’s a debate for another day). In 2000, the British Film Institute selected Fawlty Towers as the best British television show. After a year-long poll looking for Britain’s Best Sitcom, the BBC […]

Read more

That's Sir Baldrick to you…

For almost 500 years, from 1485 to 1917, he was the faithful manservant whose endless supply of cunning plans never quite elevated him beyond the level of Edmund Blackadder’s rather unhygienic servant. But, last Friday, the same night that Blackadder, the second most popular British sitcom of all-time (according to the 2004 Britain’s Best Sitcom […]

Read more

Only £500 and you too can be a producer of A Brief History of Time Travel

The concept of independent film productions and/or books trying to aggregate the necessary funds amongst a world-wide fan base in exchange for certain on-screen ‘perks’ has been around in the States for some time. With a Kickstarter campaign, fans can pledge money towards a project they want to see made in exchange for stated ‘perks’ […]

Read more