Wendy Craig, best known for her late 70s / early 80s role as Ria Parkinson, Geoffrey Palmer’s frustrated wife and Nicholas Lyndhurst’s mother, in the Carla Lane comedy, Butterflies, is headed to Emmerdale. The 83 year-old actress will arrive in Emmerdale on Monday as the ‘fun-loving’ Maisie, the love interest of Sandy Thomas, played by 90 year-old Freddie […]
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Carla Lane, one of the first female television sitcom writers in an era dominated by her male counterparts, has died at the age of 87. Through her series, The Liver Birds, Butterflies and Bread, Lane gave women a voice while delving into serious subjects not normally dealt with in situation comedy. Her four decades of comedy established her as […]
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Carla Lane, the creator of Bread, Butterflies and The Liver Birds, has decided to return to television following a self-imposed 17-year ‘retirement’. According to the Telegraph, her new sitcom will be set in Liverpool, which was the setting for many of her most popular comedies. Since retiring, Lane has spent years running an animal sanctuary […]
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Starring Sarah Alexander (Coupling, People Like Us, Green Wing) and Neil Morrissey (Men Behaving Badly), Nathanial Parker (Merlin) and Robert Sheehan (Misfits), the new BBC comedy, Me and Mrs. Jones, produced by Hartswood Films (Sherlock, Coupling, Jekyll, Men Behaving Badly), is one to definitely keep an eye on when it premieres on 12 October on […]
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From Behind the Britcom: From Script to Screen, coming to PBS stations nationwide in March 2011, we continue our look at the making of British comedy while celebrating those that pen the programs that make up one of the most intelligent television genre’s on the planet. Over the course of producing the program, we talked […]
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Without question, when a British comedy fan is asked what it is they like about British comedy, the first answer is “…the writing“. Ask any actor or actress what it is that sets British comedy apart from the rest of television as we know it, the answer is always “…the writing“. It’s intelligent television that […]
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Some of you know, some don’t, that we are currently in production on a PBS special to air in March 2011 across the U.S. that will attempt to pay homage to what many of us feel is the number one reason as to why British comedy is brilliant – the writers. In the special, we’ll hear […]
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