One of the few upsides of this past week of sub-zero temperatures, loss of electricity for millions of people and the possibility of broken pipes in our collective futures, is the opportunity to send good wishes for a very happy birthday to the brilliant Dame Patricia Routledge, who turned 92 on Wednesday. While Hyacinth would […]
Read more
What innocently started out as a play by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields (i.e. Mischief Theatre) has quietly turned into a go-to binge watch series during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Play That Goes Wrong was followed up with two Mischief Theatre television specials, an adaptation of Peter Pan Goes Wrong (performed by Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society) and a sequel titled A Christmas […]
Read more
Rowan Atkinson turns 66 today. Thankfully, for us, the comedic genius chose to put neither his degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Newcastle University nor his degree of MSc in Electrical Engineering from The Queen’s College, Oxford to use. His true calling became more clear after gaining national attention as member of The Oxford Revue at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976.
Read more
Fresh off a quiet but rather ‘challenging’ Christmas Day celebration, Mr. Bean turns his efforts on New Year’s Eve, hosting a party with his friends Rupert and Hubert, fully equipped with party hats, music and some homemade snacks and drink. Unfortunately for Mr. Bean, his neighbor is throwing a bit more lively NYE party. Not to be deterred, Mr. Bean goes in search of that elusive New Year’s Day bargain!
Read more
While I’m not really sure who “they” are, they say that comedy makes for strange bedfellows. Never has this been more evident than with the long-standing habit/tradition in Germany and around the world on New Year’s Eve involving an 11-minute British comedy sketch, Dinner for One, which is also known in Germany as Der 90 Geburtstag (The 90th birthday). […]
Read more
As the UK emerged from a month long ‘fire break’ (i.e. lockdown) earlier this month only to find itself headed to a much more restrictive lockdown with the recent introduction of a new virus, David Tennant and Michael Sheen are prepping for a second series of Staged which, these days, seems more like a documentary than a comedy as they attempt to survive given the restrictions and shutdowns due to the still-ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Read more
Mackenzie Crook, the writer, director and star behind the brilliant metal-detecting sitcom The Detectorists, is beginning to hint that there may be one last sweep of the English countryside in his mind palace which might warrant getting the band back together in the not-too-distant future. The series, which finished after three series in 2017, was not only […]
Read more
In 1979, the idea for Life of Brian came about when members of Monty Python were promoting their previous film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Eric Idle joked that their next project would be called “Jesus Christ: Lust For Glory”, and his fellow Python realized that no one had ever made a comedy about […]
Read more
No reason to post this other than we all need a bit of a laugh today as we begin to close the book on 2020! As Silly Walks signs encouraging people to make the Ministry of Silly Walks proud as they venture out on their daily walk are popping up around the world there is […]
Read more
Upstart Crow — “Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow: A Lockdown Christmas 1603”, will echo real events of the 17th Century, when the plague – or black death – hit Europe in a series of waves spanning hundreds of years. Although the nature of the disease and its transmission were not known and misunderstood, isolation and social distancing were employed to combat the outbreaks. Sound a little bit familiar?
Read more