David Kelly. He was Grandpa Joe Bucket in Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, rode a motorbike naked in Waking Ned Devine, starred alongside Peter O’Toole and Peter Ustinov in the Irish mini-series, Strumpet City, and played a vicar in The Italian Job. The Dublin-born actor possessed a “wicked sense of humor”, according to […]
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Hopefully, by now, you have been able to select your favorite Sherlock Holmes of all-time. We all know who you selected so, to be clear, you’re in good company if you selected Benedict Cumberbatch. However, it’s been pointed out by several readers that Dr. Watson wants a little equal time. As with the Sherlock rankings, […]
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While wishing everyone a Happy New Year and prosperous 2012, I wanted to remember some ‘friends’ the world of comedy lost in 2011. Over the past several years, those of us involved in the production of a number of British comedy retrospective specials for PBS have had the incredible good fortune to spend quality time […]
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This gem comes from Shaun Usher over at Letters of Note, a Manchester site dedicated to the seeking out fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos. To the British comedy world, there is none more ‘fascinating’ that this accompanying 1974 memo graphic supplied by Sam Ward. While we knew of this story through several interviews […]
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Wallander III in production From the watchful eye of tellyspotting reader, Patty Winter, comes a report of Sir Kenneth being spotted filming scenes for an upcoming episode of Wallander for series III, entitled “Dogs of Riga”, at the Riga Centra Market in Latvia, along with co-star Ingeborga Dapkunaite. Wallander, the BBC mini-series stars the greatness […]
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Since the beginning of time, well, at least since 1946 when Pinwright’s Progress premiered on the BBC, the British sitcom has always saluted the labor force. After Pinwright’s Progress, the evolution of how the situation comedy dealt with the workforce really took off. Up next in the mid-50’s was Hancock’s Half Hour where Tony Hancock seemed […]
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And Now for Something Completely Different Touting his Olympic experience, former Monty Python and Fawlty Towers star, John Cleese, finds himself in the Czech Republic this week where he will become the face of the Czech Republic Olympic Team in all advertising leading up to the London 2012 games. Cleese, who says that the Czech […]
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There are only a handful of individuals that any one of us crosses paths with, either directly or indirectly, who have an impact on so many lives. John Howard Davies was one such individual. You may not know the face, unless you happen to have a DVD of the 1948 classic David Lean film, Oliver […]
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With sincere apologies to the supreme German, Dirk Nowitski, I get Germany being crowned the least funniest country in the world in a recent international survey conducted by Badoo.com. But….how in the world can Britain be listed as the #4 least funny? Never mind the fact that Britain finished more boring than America, how about […]
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