Category: Comedy
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ITV Comedy Is Condemned By Its Own Research (1976)
Whilst researching something else, I came across this article from The Stage, dated Thursday 28th October 1976. Imagine having to sit and listen to this report being delivered, a report you yourself commissioned. The perception of ITV comedy as being lesser to the BBC has been about for the longest time it seems. It’s why…
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Ever Decreasing Clippings
For a sitcom that reunited Richard Briers with the writers of The Good Life, and one which had pretty good ratings from the off (later monster ones), Ever Decreasing Circles arrived on BBC screens in January of 1984 with surprisingly little fanfair. In a packed page of previews in the Burton Daily Mail, the day…
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Come Back Mrs Noah USA?
Come Back Mrs Noah was a sitcom by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft, who wanted to make a space sitcom before everyone else started doing it, after the huge success of Star Wars. Given carte blanche, they wrote a vehicle for Mollie Sugden. Here’s how the pilot was received in December of 1977 by Kenneth…
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Fawlty Towers: Too Much Of A One-Man Show
Fawlty Towers was announced in The Stage on Thursday 24 August 1975, amidst a cluster of ex-Python production news. I suspect the Chapman project mentioned was Out Of The Trees, which he co-wrote with Douglas Adams. It’s likely that the Palin show became Ripping Yarns. With Q6, Briers in the Barry Took adapted One-Upmanship, and…
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Rik Mayall On Countdown
No, not that Countdown, alas. This is an appearance from Rik Mayall and Ben Elton on the Australian network ABC. It was a music magazine show, with theme music by Brian May. Rik and Ben were promoting their tour.
