It’s repetitive…it’s predictable…it continues to be brilliantly funny every year and it’s worthy of an annual mention on Tellyspotting every New Years Eve. On the surface, Dinner for One is a short British cabaret sketch from the 1920s that has become a German New Year’s tradition. Whether or not you understand the cultural significance of this, Dinner […]
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Much like watching It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Story, Tuna Christmas or, as evidenced by a recent admission, Die Hard, one of my annual Christmas traditions is to listen to John Cleese’s adaptation of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas from podcast No. 28. Never mind that there have been endless readings over the years by the likes […]
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File this one under ‘reason #(I’ve lost count)’ that I would love to live in the UK. In keeping with their long-standing tradition of airing brilliant telly on Christmas or Boxing Day, Sir David Jason hosts The Story Of Only Fools and Horses at Christmas, the 90-minute feature documentary reflecting on the show’s Yuletide episodes, including […]
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First it was Lead Balloon, now it’s Bad Move. Somehow, Jack Dee can easily make you feel like you don’t have a bad life after all. Nothing can compare to what he faces around every corner every minute of every day. Dee’s on-screen characters are a daily reminder that things could always be worse. In Bad Move, Dee’s […]
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After years of futile trench warfare, the final scene of Blackadder Goes Forth was a result of General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett (Stephen Fry) giving the order for the “big push” — which translates as a suicidal charge across the battlefield towards hundreds of German machine guns. IMHO, it’s probably one of the most powerful […]
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After 12 series, 74 episodes, 1 feature-length film and 35 years after the series premiered in 1988, it looks as if Red Dwarf will be taking a page out of the Inspector Morse/Endeavour playbook and will soon be getting the prequel treatment. RD co-creator Rob Grant revealed recently he is working on a prequel called Red Dwarf: Titan. Pretty much all […]
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It appears as though Frasier Crane has finally re-entered the building he left almost two decades ago as the long-awaited Paramount+ sequel to Kelsey Grammer’s Frasier series has begun on Paramount+ for the 10-part series. This time, however, the building is in Boston where the character had originated in Cheers but with “new challenges to face, new relationships to forge and […]
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With the fifth and final series set to transmit on BBC One beginning this Friday, Ghosts will ‘rest in peace’ this December with a Christmas special to mark the end after 5 series and 33 episodes. “It’s time to wave goodbye to the inhabitants of Button House and focus on new projects,” said ‘the Ghosts team. The Ghosts […]
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In a move that traditionally tends to defy any conceivable valid explanation, the BBC has cancelled the Ben Elton comedy Upstart Crow after three critically acclaimed and highly successful series. David Mitchell was brilliant as a young William Shakespeare which spanned three series, several specials and an incredible limited run at both the Gielgud and Apollo Theatres in […]
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After spending the last week in the UK, I had the great good fortune to be reminded on a nightly basis of the extent to which British comedy is far superior to American comedy. That point was driven home by having the opportunity to watch endless latenight broadcasts of panel shows on Dave (the home of witty-banter […]
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