Category: Comedy
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Kathy Burke Clippings
I had a little lament the other evening, that it’s such a shame Kathy Burke never appeared in The New Statesman. She would have been equally wonderful as a slick Tory backbencher, or a Labour frontbencher. Here’s an early review of Kathy’s work – a performance in the play Ghosts. In 1989, Maureen Paton is…
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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.…
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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…
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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…
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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…