While IT Crowd series creator/writer, Graham Linehan, has made his best attempt to calm any well-deserved fears by assuring adoring fans through Twitter that “we will get it right this time” and that it will retain the essence of the original show, Richard Ayoade, who played Moss in the original Channel 4 UK version, will not reprise his role as he did in NBC’s original attempt.
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Monty Python began on 5 October 1969. 47 television episodes, 5 movies, 19 albums, 3 sketch-based live stage shows, 1 Broadway/West End special, 20 books and 9 games later, Monty Python ended on 20 July, 2014 at the O2 Arena with the final performance of Monty Python Live (Mostly): One Down, Five to Go.
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Following a new Christmas Day special this coming December on PBS, Freddie Thornhill and Stuart Bixby are headed back to PBS in Summer 2015 for the second series of Vicious, the story of two aging partners who have lived together in their Covent Garden flat for 48 years. Vicious first premiered on PBS this past Summer bringing together two of the finest actors on Planet Earth, both very familiar to public television audiences, Sir’s Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi.
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Aside from John Cleese and Ricky Gervais, you can probably count on one hand when the star of a British sitcom knows when enough is enough and gets to be the one that actually pulls the plug on their own show. Unfortunately, for show creators, writers and stars, in most cases, they usually find out […]
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The British Film Institute has found two lost episodes of the ITV comedy sketch classic, At Last the 1948 Show which starred comedy legends, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Marty Feldman. The find was made by Missing Believed Wiped coordinator, Dick Fiddy, when he was invited by family members to explore the personal […]
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As if 2014 wasn’t already a busy year for Dame Maggie Smith, on Friday, October 17, the Dowager Countess was made a member of the Order of Companion of Honour in a ceremony at Windsor Castle. Ok, technically, it was actually Dame Maggie Smith that received this well-deserved honor, but it was fun to think […]
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You might remember NBC’s fatal 2003 attempt at adapting the Steven Moffat/Sue Vertue situation comedy, Coupling. I say fatal because even though there were 11 episodes produced (which is still a miniscule number of episodes for an American sitcom), it was cancelled after only 4 episodes with 7 of them having never seen the light of day to this day. 180 degrees in the other direction, however, was NBC’s re-make of Ricky Gervais’ brilliant series, The Office, which ran for 9 seasons largely due to the talents of Steve Carell, Rainn Wilson, John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer and Ed Helms.
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In addition to the abundance of regional theater readily available throughout the UK, the other bit of brilliance that makes me want to hop on the next Boeing 777 and head east is the very civilized process of continuing to develop of good comedy via BBC Radio 4, which is also home to one of […]
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Ian Fletcher, the Beeb’s Head of Values and chair of its Way Ahead Task Force, will roam the halls of the BBC for a bit longer as a second series of W1A has been commissioned but the BBC. “I am very happy to have the cameras back,” said the fictional Fletcher (played by Downton Abbey‘s […]
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The big-screen adaptation of the classic BBC wartime comedy, Dad’s Army, is drawing some of the biggest names (outside of Benedict Cumberbatch) together as they begin to assemble the cast. The feature film treatment of the Jimmy Perry, David Croft iconic British comedy has landed one of the greats with the announcement that Bill Nighy, […]
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