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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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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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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After having just finished screening the first Sherlock installment from the great Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, it seems only appropriate to, yet again, say that both writers are brilliant. With Moffat, you have a writer that had just a little bit else going on this past year. First, he took the helm of Doctor […]
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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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Thinking back some 12 years ago, I was fortunate enough to meet and interview Judi Dench for an earlier production, The Best of British Comedy for American Public Television. I was even more fortunate to be able to interview her a second time for the upcoming program on British comedy writers for PBS as I’m […]
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Seems fitting as we landed on this side of the pond fresh from two weeks of interviews for the March 2011 PBS special on British comedy writers that we learned Red Dwarf co-creator and co-writer, Rob Grant will present a two-day comedy writing course at The Comedy School in early October in Camden, London. Grant also […]
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There are times that BBC commissioning folks get it right and times they don’t. Mulberry is one of those “didn’t get it right” moments in British comedy history. After two wonderful seasons (13 episodes) with brilliant scripts by Bob Larbey and, then, writing partner, John Esmonde and a wonderful cast headed by Karl Howman in […]
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After having watched The IT Crowd the other night on Channel 4, I now get how really well done it is. Written by Graham Linehan, who wrote the great Father Ted and the even greater, Black Books, I had only seen a couple of episodes of season one and, to be honest, couldn’t see what […]
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LONDON – July 19, 210: It’s Sunday night. You know the drill. Whether you admit it or not, you can’t wait to settle in and cap off the weekend with your favorite British comedy programs wherever you are across the U.S. or abroad. Just so you know, I kept the tradition alive last night 5000 […]
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