Day one of the 2018 BBC Showcase in Liverpool is in the books. With 1000s of hours of content in all genres available to screen, I opted to avoid system overload and went right for the comfort zone and spent the afternoon screening comedy. The brilliant thing was to immediately see a number of familiar […]
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It’s a bit hard to grasp but Thursday marked the 30th anniversary! of Red Dwarf’s broadcast premiere on Monday, 15 February, 1988 at 9p on BBC2! Coincidently, the competition that fateful night looked a bit similar to today’s TV schedule as the premiere broadcast of the first ever episode of Red Dwarf was sandwiched in the middle of the BBC’s XV […]
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Armed with her early theatre training background from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Patricia Routledge launched her career at the Liverpool Playhouse. She spent years, professionally, on stage and in theatre (which included a 1968 ‘Best Actress in a Musical’ Tony Award for her performance in Darling of the Day) in addition to several big screen appearances including To Sir, With […]
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Almost 20 years removed from a fatal on-air shooting brought about the cancellation of his 1990s chat show Knowing Me, Knowing You, Alan Partridge (a.k.a. Steve Coogan) returns to take on the gig of a lifetime as the (temporary) stand-in co-host of an evening weekday magazine show, This Time, on BBC one. Long recognized in his […]
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In 1971, Doctor at Large, a British televison comedy series from London Weekend Television followed the misadventures of a group of newly qualified doctors. Based on a set of books by Richard Gordon and starring Barry Evans, Doctor at Large featured many actors and actresses that most British comedy fans have come to know and love in later years […]
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From the Department of Never Say Never, Martin Clunes (Men Behaving Badly, Doc Martin) is returning to the sitcom world to star in the forthcoming BBC1 comedy, Warren. The story centers around Warren Thompson, who has to move from the south to Preston when his partner Anne’s father becomes ill. Taking a page out of the […]
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Rowan Atkinson, English actor, comedian, and screenwriter turned 63 on Saturday. While best known to audiences for his work on the sitcoms Blackadder and Mr. Bean, I first stumbled upon Atkinson’s brilliant talent in the BBC2 sketch comedy series, Not the Nine O’Clock News. Airing from 1979-1982, the series featured satirical sketches on current news stories and popular culture […]
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While I’m not really sure who “they” are, they say that comedy makes for strange bedfellows. Never has this been more evident than with the long-standing habit/tradition in Germany on New Year’s Eve involving an 11-minute British comedy sketch, Dinner for One, which is also known in Germany as Der 90 Geburtstag (The 90th birthday). It seems that watching […]
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Dad’s Army, the Jimmy Perry/David Croft situation comedy about the British Home Guard during the Second World War, graced the BBC1 television airwaves for the first time in July 1968 running for 80 episodes over the course of 9 series. Royal Mail’s 2018 stamp calendar will, once again, showcase the “best of British” releasing special […]
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NBC is counting on the old adage that the 3rd time will be the charm rather that older one that says strike three and you’re out when it partners with Universal Television to create and American version of Graham Linehan’s sitcom, The IT Crowd. Unsuccessfully piloted twice before to American audiences by NBC, the network’s newest effort […]
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