Frost on Sketch Shows
Mar 13, 2013Sir David Frost traces the development of the sketch show over the last fifty years, from variety theatre to primetime television.
Documentary
Geoff Posner
Recently added
How The Young Ones Changed Comedy
May 26, 2018This documentary explores the legacy of one of the most notorious British sitcoms of all time. Launching alternative comedy onto our screens, the show made household names of its performers and writers and proved to be a huge influence, despite the BBC reportedly being baffled by what they'd commissioned back in 1982. Never before had a flagship comedy show contained so much violence, depravity and anarchy - it was a shot across the bow to mainstream comedians that things would never be the same again.
Documentary
The Making of 'The Young Ones'
Oct 29, 2007A look back at the making of the insane sitcom and the impact it caused.
Documentary
Introducing Tony Ferrino: Who and Why? A Quest
Mar 01, 1997In depth interview special with Steve Coogan's spoof Portuguese musical megastar Tony Ferrino
TV Movie
The One Ronnie
Dec 25, 2010One of Britain's most enduring and best-loved comics, Ronnie Corbett, turned 80 in December 2010. In this brand new comedy sketch show, the octogenarian comic legend appears alongside some of the biggest names in British comedy, in sketches featuring everything from a superannuated super-hero to a stage-struck dog. Add in a sprinkling of one-liners and a brand new Ronnie monologue in the famous chair for the must-see comedy of the festive season.
Comedy
Steve Coogan: The Man Who Thinks He's It
Oct 01, 1999Recorded live at The Palace Theatre in Manchester. All his favourite characters appear - Alan Partridge, Paul and Pauline Calf, Tony Ferrino, Ernest Moss and the irritating Duncan Thicket.
Comedy
The Diamond Jubilee Concert 2012
Jun 03, 2012In the presence of HM the Queen and the royal family, an array of stars from the last sixty years of rock, pop and classical music perform on a spectacular stage built around the Queen Victoria Memorial, right in front of Buckingham Palace. Hit songs and show-stopping performances are promised, with hosts including Rob Brydon, Miranda Hart, Lenny Henry and Lee Mack. Proceedings conclude with HM the Queen lighting the National Beacon.
Music
The Best of French & Saunders
Aug 05, 2002A compilation of all the best sketches from Britain's favourite female comedy double-act. They are all here - the music numbers, Hollywood spoofs, the uncannily perceptive mickey-taking of our various - and particularly female - obsessions, and much, much more.
Paul Calf's Video Diary
Dec 30, 1993Lager lout and philosopher Paul Calf records his video diary over New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Accompanied by his friends Fat Bob and Roland and his sister Pauline, he staggers through two days of drinking, fighting and failed sex, in desperate pursuit of his ex-girlfriend, Julie.
Little Britain Live
Nov 13, 2006The many hilarious characters of Little Britain are taken to the stage in this brilliant live performance by Matt Lucas and David Walliams.
Comedy
Filth!
Apr 24, 1994In the late Eighties, there had been a series of comedy concerts (modelled on the Amnesty International “Secret Policeman’s Ball series”) to raise both awareness and raw cash for HIV/AIDS charities. The series was called Hysteria to reflect the hysteria (and downright untruths) surrounding the issue of HIV/AIDS. The last one of these had been in 1989, so in 1994, Pozzitive set out to revive the idea of a fundraiser with “Filth!” a night of comedy and music at the Sadlers Wells theatre, on Sunday 24 April. In fact, so many comedians and writers said “yes” to the idea, that we hit on the notion of doing two shows in one evening back to back. The first show was hosted by Lynn Ferguson and Arthur Smith, the second show by Mark Lamarr. Artists involved in the show included Tom Robinson, Steve Coogan, Spitting Image, Eddie Izzard, Jo Brand, Jeremy Hardy and Ben Elton.
Comedy
Filth!
Apr 24, 1994In the late Eighties, there had been a series of comedy concerts (modelled on the Amnesty International “Secret Policeman’s Ball series”) to raise both awareness and raw cash for HIV/AIDS charities. The series was called Hysteria to reflect the hysteria (and downright untruths) surrounding the issue of HIV/AIDS. The last one of these had been in 1989, so in 1994, Pozzitive set out to revive the idea of a fundraiser with “Filth!” a night of comedy and music at the Sadlers Wells theatre, on Sunday 24 April. In fact, so many comedians and writers said “yes” to the idea, that we hit on the notion of doing two shows in one evening back to back. The first show was hosted by Lynn Ferguson and Arthur Smith, the second show by Mark Lamarr. Artists involved in the show included Tom Robinson, Steve Coogan, Spitting Image, Eddie Izzard, Jo Brand, Jeremy Hardy and Ben Elton.
Comedy
Catherine Tate's Nan
Jan 04, 2014Catherine Tate returns with one of her most beloved characters in a half-hour special following the life and hilarious antics of a potty-mouthed granny. When Nan's kitchen tap breaks, she visits the council to arrange to get it fixed. Whilst there, she causes mayhem and upset.
Comedy
Well known performers accompanied by 12,000 selected members of the public on the lawn of Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen's Golden Jubilee.
Music
Sir Norbert Smith, a Life
Nov 03, 1989a spoof TV documentary film (a "mockumentary") charting the life and career of the fictitious British actor Sir Norbert Smith.
Comedy
Marcus Brigstocke: Planet Corduroy
Nov 26, 2007Recorded at the Shaw Theatre in London, this is the first DVD released by the award-winning stand-up comedian Marcus Brigstocke. The show is sprinkled with Brigstocke's idiosyncratic brand of liberal politics and satirical humour, with issues ranging from climate change, religious extremism, immigration and loans companies to compensation culture, women’s magazines, The EU and David Blaine - and his own battle against his middle class roots.
Comedy
Victoria Wood - Live
Nov 13, 1997Over half a million people packed into over 200 venues throughout the country during 1997 to see her best show ever. This tour included an unprecedented fifteen night sell-out run at the Royal Albert Hall, which the media hailed as the best stand-up show of the decade. With her cheek, charm and dazzling wordplay, she reduced her audience to a state of delerium. Recorded during her record-breaking tour, Victoria Wood Live is your opportunity to see the queen of humour at her most brilliant.
Comedy
Victoria Wood - Live
Nov 13, 1997Over half a million people packed into over 200 venues throughout the country during 1997 to see her best show ever. This tour included an unprecedented fifteen night sell-out run at the Royal Albert Hall, which the media hailed as the best stand-up show of the decade. With her cheek, charm and dazzling wordplay, she reduced her audience to a state of delerium. Recorded during her record-breaking tour, Victoria Wood Live is your opportunity to see the queen of humour at her most brilliant.
Comedy
Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast
Dec 25, 1992A television comedy special broadcast on BBC One on Christmas Day 1992. Sketches, stand-up comedy and songs combine to create the latest daytime show to be hosted by a popular husband-and-wife team. There are tips on female problems like seriously split ends, calorie reports, keep-fit with Jolly Polly, Agony Uncle Gerard's phone-in and Britain's first four times daily soap, set in a cosy corner of a shopping mall.
TV Movie
Milton Jones - Lion Whisperer
Nov 21, 2011Milton Jones, - you know the weird bloke with the shirts from Mock the Week. As well as star of the Michael McIntyre Roadshow, and the voice of 9 series for Radio 4 (including The Very World of Milton Jones and Another Case of Milton Jones) and all sorts of other radio and telly as well. Awards too. Well it s his new show with new stuff, not in his last show. Youtube him or something....
Comedy
Milton Jones Live - On The Road
Nov 24, 2013
Madness the Pilot
Jan 01, 1970The ska band is elected as the new British government and they move the cabinet to Camden.
Music
The Angina Monologues
Dec 10, 2010Victoria Wood takes to the stage with an all female bill for a night of comedy in support of The British Heart Foundation to help raise awareness of heart disease in women.
Comedy
Blackadder: The Lost Pilot
Jun 15, 2023Sir Tony Robinson takes a journey back in time to find out where Blackadder really began, and to uncover the story of the previously-unseen pilot episode.
Documentary
Blackadder: The Lost Pilot
Jun 15, 2023Sir Tony Robinson takes a journey back in time to find out where Blackadder really began, and to uncover the story of the previously-unseen pilot episode.
Documentary
The Tony Ferrino Phenomenon
Jan 01, 1997Tony Ferrino performs in a programme dedicated to his brilliant career as the Eurovision star from Portugal performs music and dance numbers with special guests.
Comedy
Pauline Calf's Wedding Video
Dec 29, 1994Spoof video diary. Steve Coogan takes on the roles of downtrodden Paul and the vivacious blonde Pauline Calf, who finally gets herself up the aisle with the man of her dreams. Even a punch-up in the toilet can't spoil her special day.
The Tony Ferrino Phenomenon
Jan 01, 1997Tony Ferrino performs in a programme dedicated to his brilliant career as the Eurovision star from Portugal performs music and dance numbers with special guests.
Comedy
Dick Whittington: The ITV Pantomime
Jan 01, 2002An adaptation of the folktale about a lonely boy, his beloved cat, and the hard decisions that come with their adventures.
Comedy
Des hautes plaines écossaises aux terres du Pays de Galles en passant par les cités londoniennes, la série dresse un portrait au vitriol du Royaume-Uni et de ses habitants. Le tout à travers de nombreux personnages plus excentriques les uns que les autres, interprétés par Matt Lucas et David Walliams, les créateurs de la série.
Comedy
Des hautes plaines écossaises aux terres du Pays de Galles en passant par les cités londoniennes, la série dresse un portrait au vitriol du Royaume-Uni et de ses habitants. Le tout à travers de nombreux personnages plus excentriques les uns que les autres, interprétés par Matt Lucas et David Walliams, les créateurs de la série.
Comedy
Dinnerladies is a BBC sitcom written by and starring Victoria Wood that chronicles the antics of a group of workers in a canteen in the north of England. Bren tries to maintain a semblance of order in amongst the chaos, while dealing with the canteen supervisor, slightly sex-obsessed cancer sufferer Tony. Dolly and Jean are the bickering menopausal older women, always at odds but best friends beneath it all. Then there's thick-as-two-short-planks Anita, and the terminally uninterested Twinkle, more concerned with having a good time than anything else. Making up the motley crew are military man handyman Stan, all rules and regulations, and ditzy Philippa, who never seems to get anything right.
Comedy
Dinnerladies is a BBC sitcom written by and starring Victoria Wood that chronicles the antics of a group of workers in a canteen in the north of England. Bren tries to maintain a semblance of order in amongst the chaos, while dealing with the canteen supervisor, slightly sex-obsessed cancer sufferer Tony. Dolly and Jean are the bickering menopausal older women, always at odds but best friends beneath it all. Then there's thick-as-two-short-planks Anita, and the terminally uninterested Twinkle, more concerned with having a good time than anything else. Making up the motley crew are military man handyman Stan, all rules and regulations, and ditzy Philippa, who never seems to get anything right.
Comedy
Little Miss Jocelyn is a British TV sketch comedy written by and starring Jocelyn Jee Esien. The show is made up of studio sketches and hidden camera footage in which unsuspecting members of the public become part of a sketch. The series ran for 2 series from 22 August 2006 until its cancellation on 14 February 2008. 12 episodes aired whilst a 13th episode was never broadcast for unknown reasons but is featured as a bonus extra on the Series 2 DVD.
In 2007, Esien featured in Girls Aloud and Sugababes' Comic Relief video for "Walk This Way", where she puts a parking ticket on Ewen Macintosh, a reference to the character Jiffy from the show Little Miss Jocelyn.
Comedy
TLC is a darkly surreal farce-like sitcom set in a fictional NHS hospital called South Middlesex where coffee is traded like drugs and pretty much everyone has a personality problem. It was first broadcast on the BBC on 11 November 2002 and ran over six episodes until 16 December. There were some very mixed opinions on the show among both critics and viewers, but it achieved decent ratings and featured an excellent comedy cast including Richard Griffiths, Alexander Armstrong and The League of Gentlemen's Reece Shearsmith. The series was released on DVD in the UK on 29 October 2007.
The show never confirms what "TLC" stands for, although it is presumed to be a sarcastic reference to the widely used abbreviation for "Tender Loving Care", but could equally refer to the alternative yet related abbreviation "Total Lack of Concern".
Coogan's Run was a 1995 UK TV series featuring Steve Coogan as a series of odd characters living in the fictional town of Ottle. It was written by various people including Coogan, Patrick Marber, David Tyler, Graham Linehan, Arthur Mathews, Geoffrey Perkins and Henry Normal. The series consists of six self-contained stories, although Coogan's characters from the other episodes in the series make occasional cameo appearances.
Drama
Harry Enfield's Television Programme was a British sketch show starring Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. It was first broadcast on BBC Two in 1990 in the Thursday 9 pm slot, which became the traditional time for alternative comedy on television. Enfield was already an established name due to his 'Loadsamoney' character, but the series gave greater presence to his frequent collaborators Paul Whitehouse and Kathy Burke – so much so, that in 1994 the show was retitled Harry Enfield and Chums.
Comedy
Victoria Wood was a series of six one-off situation comedies written by and starring Victoria Wood in 1989, who took a break from sketches, two years after her very successful and award winning series Victoria Wood As Seen on TV. Wood appeared as "Victoria", a fictionalised version of herself, in all six episodes - in The Library it was said that she "worked in TV" and in Over To Pam characters appeared to recognise her celebrity and in the final episode, Staying In, she was taken to a party to perform as a comedienne and was expected to go through her stand-up 'routine'. Her character often broke the 'fourth wall' of TV and spoke directly to the camera, but not in every episode.
Bored with the sketch format and with a yearning to recapture previous success as a playwright, Wood came up with six individual sitcoms as a compromise. She admitted to finding the writing difficult. Though Wood was written as the central character, other lead parts were written with specific actresses in mind, like Julie Walters and Una Stubbs. "I want people to like me and the people who play my friends, and not everybody else" she said. Screenonline says of the shows "Modest in ambition and scale but rich in wit and acuity, the six playlets showcase Wood's eye for human foibles and her distinctively eccentric characters.".
Comedy
A British comedy series starring comedian Victoria Wood with Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge. The show was televised on BBC Two between 1985 and 1987 and included sketches that became famous in the United Kingdom; these included one-offs like Two Soups and regular features such as Acorn Antiques, as well as musical performances by Wood including her most well-known number, The Ballad of Barry and Freda.
The show was created when Wood was enticed away from rival television station ITV in 1984. She wrote the whole programme and also the synopsis of it for listings magazine the Radio Times. The series has led to spin-off script books, video tapes and DVDs.
Comedy
A British comedy series starring comedian Victoria Wood with Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge. The show was televised on BBC Two between 1985 and 1987 and included sketches that became famous in the United Kingdom; these included one-offs like Two Soups and regular features such as Acorn Antiques, as well as musical performances by Wood including her most well-known number, The Ballad of Barry and Freda.
The show was created when Wood was enticed away from rival television station ITV in 1984. She wrote the whole programme and also the synopsis of it for listings magazine the Radio Times. The series has led to spin-off script books, video tapes and DVDs.
Comedy
Saturday Live was a British television comedy and music show broadcast by Channel 4 from 1985 to 1987, and in 1988 as Friday Night Live. Influenced by the American show Saturday Night Live, it was produced by Paul Jackson.
The series made stars of Ben Elton, Harry Enfield, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, and featured appearances by Patrick Marber, Morwenna Banks, Chris Barrie, Emo Philips, Craig Ferguson, Craig Charles and many others. The show featured comic duo Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall in their act The Dangerous Brothers.
All episodes were transmitted live, although some material was pre-recorded. Recordings of shows were edited into compilation repeats, retitled Saturday Almost Live.
The show was succeeded by Friday Night Live, a shorter and slightly more tightly-formatted show with Elton as the permanent host, which ran for a single series in 1988. The show's titles consisted of reforming clay animations, highly comparable to early MTV idents.
Comedy
