• Dawn French on her newest project, Roger and Val Have Just Got In

    Dawn French on her newest project, Roger and Val Have Just Got In

    He’s a botanist at a local garden centre. She’s a food technology teacher. The he is Alfred Molina and the she is Dawn French. The two star in the newest addition to the BBC Two british comedy line-up beginning this coming Friday titled Roger and Val Have Just Got In. It’s not “laugh out loud […]

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  • Sherlock vs. Doctor Who – you decide

    Sherlock vs. Doctor Who – you decide

    Recently on BBC Newsnight, Steven Moffat talked about two characters he’s spent a lot of time with over the past year, Sherlock and Doctor Who. Moffat called Sherlock Holmes, not the traveling Time Lord, the “single best fictional character ever created.” In describing the difference between the two characters, Moffat said: “They’re also sort of opposites. I […]

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  • Roy Clarke discusses the last of Last of the Summer Wine

    Roy Clarke discusses the last of Last of the Summer Wine

    As we reported here earlier this summer, the world’s longest running situation comedy on television, Last of the Summer Wine, is coming to a close in the UK this coming Sunday, 1 August. Transmission is scheduled to begin on many U.S. public television stations as early as November 2010. How does one begin to bring to […]

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  • 165 Eaton Place in the 21st Century

    165 Eaton Place in the 21st Century

    “This is not a remake but a completely new version, set in a different era with a whole new cast of characters.” That quote, in itself, from Piers Wenger, head of drama at  BBC Wales, makes me really wish it was 2011 already when the new Upstairs Downstairs comes to PBS’ Masterpiece series to celebrate their […]

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  • BBC Proms 2010 – from Doctor Who to Judi Dench

    BBC Proms 2010 – from Doctor Who to Judi Dench

    Seems appropriate to follow up our last two posts with both a look back and a look ahead at the BBC Proms which is currently the happening event at Royal Albert Hall now through Saturday, 11 September 2010. Most recently, Doctor Who and the Daleks invaded Royal Albert Hall on Saturday, 24 July and Sunday, […]

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  • Sherlock in the 21st Century

    Sherlock in the 21st Century

    Not since we all witnessed the end of the David Tennant era and beginning of the Matt Smith era on Doctor Who has there been as much viewer anticipation for a series premiering in the UK. Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Hawking, Small Island) and Martin Freeman (The Office, Hitchhikers Guide). It premiered this past Sunday on […]

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  • Dame Judi Dench – no need to say anything else

    Dame Judi Dench – no need to say anything else

    Thinking back some 12 years ago, I was fortunate enough to meet and interview Judi Dench for an earlier production, The Best of British Comedy for American Public Television. I was even more fortunate to be able to interview her a second time for the upcoming program on British comedy writers for PBS as I’m […]

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  • "Audience matters…" – Stephen Fry

    "Audience matters…" – Stephen Fry

    Stephen Fry, who many have tagged as the 21st century Oscar Wilde, told the Radio Times in an interview that came out just as we were leaving the UK that the BBC needs to start giving the viewing public a little credit. Fry stated, “I think programmes only work if they matter to you, because […]

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  • British comedy writing 101 with Red Dwarf's Rob Grant

    British comedy writing 101 with Red Dwarf's Rob Grant

    Seems fitting as we landed on this side of the pond fresh from two weeks of interviews for the March 2011 PBS special on British comedy writers that we learned Red Dwarf co-creator and co-writer, Rob Grant will present a two-day comedy writing course at The Comedy School in early October in Camden, London. Grant also […]

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