London, Day 1 – British comedy brilliance, World Cup final and more….
Doesn’t get any better than this. Having just wrapped up day one shooting, we capped off the evening hitting The Mitre Pub around the corner to watch the finals of the World Cup 2010 from South Africa. **SPOILER ALERT** Unfortunately, we were in a pub filled with Holland fans so they weren’t all too thrilled with the outcome. Great experience all the same. I may actually now understand the rules of football, thanks to several very happy Spain supporters.
Shout out to folks this side of the pond (the UK side)
Just a quick thanks to Mark and everyone at the British Comedy Guide for the shout out yesterday about our upcoming British comedy writers program in production for national PBS broadcast in March 2011. Thanks, also, to all on this side of the pond that have checked out Tellyspotting this week. If you’re here for the first time, welcome, and I hope you come back often. If you have any questions for anyone we are interviewing this week, just send an e-mail to tellyspotting@kera.org. Would love to hear from you.
London, day 1
Started off today getting inside the great mind of John Howard Davies. You may or may not know 
the name, but you definitely know his work. John was producer/director for the first four seasons of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the first season of Fawlty Towers, The Good Life, Fall & Rise of Reginald Perrin, Mr. Bean and one episode of The Vicar of Dibley. In his spare time over the years, John was Head of Comedy for BBC from 1977-1982 and Head of Light Entertainment for ITV’s Thames Television.
John offered some amazing insights into the production of not only the programs listed above, but some great behind-the-scenes trivia bits such as how it was determined to set each Blackadder series in a different era, where Sybil’s laugh came from in Fawlty Towers and what it was like to tape The Good Life before the Queen.
Up next, Harold Snoad, producer/director of Keeping Up Appearances. Harold also worked on a number of BBC classics such as Dad’s Army and Are You Being Served?.
Come back tomorrow to hear just how KUA almost didn’t make it into production.
