Category: Sitcoms

  • Hewitt – The British Answer To Seinfeld
    Hewitt – The British Answer To Seinfeld

    Inevitably, during the late 1990s, British broadcasters were looking for something a bit like Seinfeld. When BBC Two launched Rhona, The Stage asked the eponymous star: So am I right in thinking British Seinfeld?‘We have more of a Seinfeldian interest,’ she says carefully. The Real Rhona, Ben Dowell, The Stage, Thursday 20th July 2000 Then…

  • Big-Mouth Billy
    Big-Mouth Billy

    There’s a line on page 73 of Proctology: A Bottom Examination which reads: Rik also made a corporate video in 1988, but his was for John Cleese’s Video Arts production company. Managing Problem People: Behavioral Skills For Leaders was directed by Charles Crichton (who directed A Fish Called Wanda), and was written by Stephen Fry.…

  • Did Alan Partridge Nearly Buy Mrs Warboys’ House?
    Did Alan Partridge Nearly Buy Mrs Warboys’ House?

    Let’s preface this nonsense with two things. First, in universe, of course Alan didn’t. He was looking at a house in Norfolk, and Mrs Warboys lives somewhere else. Second, I always presumed that the house viewing scene from A Room With An Alan was shot on location. But on the DVD commentary track, Armando Iannucci…

  • Warden Walters
    Warden Walters

    The final joke of Bomb, the fourth episode of The Young Ones, never gets the laugh I think it deserves. It’s not a bomb, it’s an egg the plane has laid. I wonder if the noise of the baby plane has been mixed too loud and drowns out the laugh. Anyway, here’s Rick’s exclamation when…

  • Bootle Saddles
    Bootle Saddles

    Yesterday, whilst looking at clippings about ‘Allo ‘Allo, the last line of this review jumped out at me. I am constantly amazed by all the gaps in my sitcom knowledge. Bootle Saddles is a new one to me. It was written by Ray Mansell & Paul Benn, and aired on BBC Two in the autumn…

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  • Proctology: A Bottom Examination
    Proctology: A Bottom Examination

    For a long time now I’ve been wanting to write an old-fashioned programme guide. One you can hold in your hand and thumb through, make notes on, spill coffee on. So I did. Proctology: A Bottom Examination is my deep dive into Bottom, the hit BBC Two sitcom starring Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson. That’s…

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  • Re-Casting Keanu
    Re-Casting Keanu

    Keanu Reeves is 56. That makes him eight years older than Clive Dunn was when he was first cast in Dad’s Army. But don’t panic, Clive Dunn was always playing much older characters than his own age. Keanu Reeves is 56. That makes him seven years older than Stephanie Cole was when she was first…

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