With the mysterious script chronicled in the book, Fawlty Towers – A Worshiper’s Companion, a lost, never-before-broadcast 13th episode of the classic British comedy, Fawlty Towers, has been discovered. Swedish author, Lars Holger Holm, admits that he viewed the mysterious 13th episode in 1999 in the London flat of an individual from the Editorial Department who worked […]
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Even though it was 1975, it seems like it was just yesterday that I was standing in line at the Esquire Theatre in Dallas for the ‘world premiere’ of this unknown film called Monty Python and the Holy Grail. After about an hour in line, they handed each of us coconuts and moved us inside. […]
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Even though they had me at ‘starring Patrick Stewart’, the fact that the new Starz scripted comedy series, Blunt Talk, comes from the mind palace of series creator Jonathan Ames (Bored to Death), who will also executive produce along with Seth MacFarlane, Tristram Shapeero and Stephanie Davis, is all the more reason to check it […]
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I may be in the minority here, but one of my most favorite British situation comedies of all-time is Open All Hours. Written by Roy Clarke (Last of the Summer Wine, Keeping Up Appearances) and starring comedy legends Ronnie Barker and David Jason, Open All Hours ‘premiered’ in 1973 as a last-minute addition to Barker’s comedy anthology series, Seven […]
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More often than not, fortunately or unfortunately, the story lines of the brilliant British situation comedy, W1A, are far too close to reality and, in some cases, frighteningly accurate. For instance, how many out there have suffered through meetings like this… In the case of W1A, the comedy which stars Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville as BBC […]
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The telecast raised over £78 million pushing the overall 30-year fundraising efforts of Comic Relief to a massive £1 billion and some change.
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Not long after Monty Python’s Flying Circus premiered on KERA-TV in Dallas, one of my earliest memories of watching British comedy on public television was to ‘religiously’ watch Dave Allen at Large. A somewhat non-descript sketch comedy series featuring an intellectually brilliant Irish comedian that sat in a high bar stool with a seemingly bottomless glass of […]
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Figuratively, not literally, it’s been a rough decade for the characters that Ben Miller has played so brilliantly. In Worst Week of My Life, Ben’s character, Howard Steel, made it standard practice to put himself in absolutely dreadful situations and proceed to make things worse by trying to either put things right or explain what […]
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Forty years ago this month, in a scene reminiscent of the Beatles’ first trip to America, four members of the Monty Python comedy troupe landed at Dallas’ Love Field and were mobbed by adoring fans. The troupe had just flown in from LA where Monty Python and the Holy Grail had just been screened for the first time to […]
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As everyone seems to be jumping on the ‘Throw-Back Thursday‘ (a.k.a. #TBT) bandwagon these days, I figured why not Tellyspotting! Every week (on Thursdays, of course), I will try to come up with something that will either be a fun reminder of British television of the past or introduce you to something new that you […]
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