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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Harry Beck was a London Underground employee who, basically, decided that the physical locations of the mostly underground stations were irrelevant to travelers of the day whose main desire is to know how to get to one station from another. It was the topology of the railway mattered. His uncommissioned idea was make clearer design […]
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Somehow, I had the strange feeling as I was beginning to write this that I was starting the lyrics to Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (you know, “It was 20 years ago today that Sgt Pepper taught the band to play…”). Ok, not quite, but it WAS 10 years ago today that the world (well, […]
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You may have heard, recently, that the Pythons will lend their voices to the upcoming film, A Liar’s Autobiography, an animated 3D movie based on the memoir of the late Python member, Graham Chapman, who died in 1989. Chapman’s own voice will be pulled from his original reading of his autobiography of the same name. Interestingly, […]
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It started out innocently enough as the story of, one, Brian Cohen, born on the same day as, and next door to, Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, in truly probably the first recorded instance of ‘separated at birth‘, Brian was immediately mistaken for the Messiah. Produced, written and starring the brilliant minds of Monty Python, Life of […]
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Over the past several months there seems to have been a number of well-deserved programs revisiting classic British comedy series such as the celebration of the 30th anniversary of A Bit of Fry and Laurie, a look at the early days of Morcambe and Wise and the return of Ronnie Corbett in The One Ronnie. For my […]
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Every so often, you run across a site on ‘the internets’ that you just have to share. This particular site came to our attention recently when we were taping the host segments at TC8 in BBC Television Centre with Moira Brooker (Judy, As Time Goes By) and Philip Bretherton (Alistair, As Time Goes By) for the […]
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British comedy has seen a number of changes over the years. Whether it takes the form of stand-up, sketch or situation comedy, it’s all comedy that draws on the past and the roots of comedy in general. One can’t help but think of the comedy troupes like Monty Python, The Goodies and The Young Ones […]
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In London Sunday, taping the host portions of the upcoming PBS special, Behind the Britcom: From Script to Screen at BBC Television Centre. The cool thing is that we are taping in Studio TC8 which was home to the likes of Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, The Good Life, Keeping Up Appearances, Are You Being Served and […]
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