Described as ‘an affectionate salute to the kind of comedy program that just isn’t made any more’, Raising Laughter: How the Sitcom Kept Britain Smiling in the 1970s couldn’t come at a better time given the last 18 months of on-again/off-again/on-again pandemic lockdown. Robert Sellers’ in-depth look at the creation of British TV sitcoms between 1970 and 1979 with be […]
Read moreFollowing in the footsteps of other British situation comedies such as Fawlty Towers, Yes Prime Minister and The Vicar of Dibley, the classic British comedy, The Good Life, is set to become a stage play premiering at Theatre Royal Bath as part of their 2021 Autumn Season, beginning 7 October 2021. The timing seems so right considering the fact […]
Read moreJohn Cleese has spent the better part of five decades looking at what makes creative people so darn good at it. As one of the original founding members of the Monty Python comedy troupe and then alongside former wife Connie Booth being the creative force behind Fawlty Towers which just so happens to be, IMHO, the greatest British comedy […]
Read moreWith 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 moreIf 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 moreEasily 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 moreWith a TOH to John Cleese, we remember Michael Gwynn who momentarily fulfilled Basil's wishes of improving the class of guest that stayed at Fawlty Towers. Gwynn was one of a long line of talented actors who paid a visit to Fawlty Towers over the course of the 12 episodes (yes, there were only 12). Gwynn passed away on 29 January 1976 at the age of 59.
Read moreMackenzie Crook, the writer, director and star behind the brilliant metal-detecting sitcom The Detectorists, is beginning to hint that there may be one last sweep of the English countryside in his mind palace which might warrant getting the band back together in the not-too-distant future. The series, which finished after three series in 2017, was not only […]
Read moreFull disclosure, I didn’t need to see results of a study to tell me that The IT Crowd had the most ‘laughs per minute’ in a recent survey conducted by OnBuy.com. The U.K. online marketplace surveyed 2,325 fans and asked them to name the top 10 funniest British sitcoms of all time. That said, I will quietly […]
Read moreFrom Jimmy Anderson in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin to Ben Parkinson in Butterflies to Lionel Hardcastle in As Time Goes By, Geoffrey Palmer has been a constant fixture in our collective British comedy lives for the better part of four decades with these three series alone. Palmer, who had numerous guest roles in series such as Doctor Who, Inspector Morse, Blackadder Goes Forth, Poirot, Ashes to Ashes and Rev, had perhaps his most well-known guest starring role as Dr Price in "The Kipper and the Corpse" episode of Fawlty Towers in 1979. With a celebrated career that spanned seven decades, Palmer, who turned 93 years young in June of this year, passed away peacefully at his home on Thursday, 5 November.
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