As we inch closer to the 50th anniversary of the premiere of Monty Python’s Flying Circus in America, no self-respecting celebration would be a true celebration unless it begins where it all began…in Dallas, TX, courtesy of KERA TV, the PBS affiliate in North Texas. Thanks to Ron Devillier and Bob Wilson for having the foresight […]
Read more
Taking an unfortunate page out of the Mulberry playbook, Channel 4’s thinking-person’s comedy series, Home, has not been renewed for a third series. Sadly, it could lead one to believe that cerebral comedies are short-lived while those with a lowest common denominator storyline can continue on well past their sell-by date.
Read more
Aptly described in the British press as “Talking Heads meets Keeping Up Appearances“, the highly successful BBC Radio 4 series, Ladies of Letters, made the always dangerous leap to television back in 2010. Facing an immediate uphill challenge from the sheer fact that the radio series starred the greatness of Patricia Routledge and Prunella Scales, […]
Read more
Admittedly, there has been little, if anything, to celebrate since Monday, March 16, 2020, the day that most of America started working from home. That said, the time that it has given fans of British comedies to either revisit their favorite British […]
Read more
When production begins on The Larkins, the ITV reboot of the classic early 90s comedy drama series, The Darling Buds of May, it will do so with the addition of a former Doctor, Peter Davison to the cast. Davison will play the village vicar alongside Bradley Walsh (Doctor Who) as wheeler dealer Pop Larkin and Joanna Scanlan (Jane Eyre, The Thick […]
Read more
With the mysterious script chronicled in the book, Fawlty Towers – A Worshiper’s Companion, a lost, never-before-broadcast 13th episode of the classic British comedy, Fawlty Towers, has been discovered. Swedish author, Lars Holger Holm, admits that he viewed the mysterious 13th episode in 1999 in the London flat of an individual from the Editorial Department who worked […]
Read more
If you been with Tellyspotting as a P1 since Day 1, or if you have joined the conversation at any point over the course of the last ten years, you are probably acutely aware of my lack of tolerance for poorly done American television remakes of British television output. This holds true mostly in the […]
Read more
Easily the funniest comedy of all-time, the 12 episodes (yes, there were only 12) of Fawlty Towers are nothing short of comedy perfection comprised of brilliant line after brilliant line and unmatched to this day, some 45+ years after its premiere in 1975. Not only is it a masterclass of comedy writing and performance, the series […]
Read more
Red Nose Day has to be the single most brilliant example known to man and/or woman of how an entire country demonstrates the ability to rally around a charitable cause. To label Red Nose Day in the UK as a cultural phenomenon is doing it an injustice. It’s an institution.
Read more
These R.I.P. posts seems to be coming at an alarmingly fast rate these days and while all of them are devastating to those of us that have literally grown up on British comedy and drama, this one painfully hits home as the wonderfully brilliant Trevor Peacock has died. Known as the lovable but bumbling Jim […]
Read more