48 posts tagged “comedy”

Does Death at a Funeral (with Matthew Macfadyen and Keeley Hawes) seriously need an American remake? Hollywood says yes.

   I can understand why some things need to be remade, but surely the original crosses the Atlantic rather well? I realize it has an English director, but he was Miss Piggy for years and has directed plenty of US films.

For your enjoyment. I couldn’t believe the whole episode was on Google Video.

The British and the Americans are separated by a common language. Ellen Degeneres and Hugh Laurie—yes, he of Jeeves and Wooster, The Black Adder, and some medical drama (only kidding)—compare British and American slang in this clip from Degeneres’s show. I have to say I scored zero on the American slang (never heard of any of these terms!), but got the English ones. Perhaps we are not as influenced by American television as much as we think.

   I know Ellen’s surname has an intercapital but to someone in the British Commonwealth, that looks really weird for a person’s name. A trade name, maybe, but a person’s name?

From YouTube, a tribute to Mrs Slocombe’s pussy, especially since Twitter has inexplicably blocked the hashtag (while happily letting in far coarser language). Enjoy this collection, and I am unanimous in that.

I was at a friends’ home today and Robert told me about this film, Bon Cop, Bad Cop. The premise is that a body is found on the ‘Welcome to Ontario’ sign, and both Ontario and Québec cops have to investigate the crime as the victim is in both provinces. Plenty of swearing in this clip and there are words I heard for the first time:

At one point, it seemed Keeley Hawes was getting cast in receptionist roles. There was The Avengers movie with Ralph Fiennes and Sean Connery; and this pre-Tipping the Velvet Channel Five comedy, Hotel!, which had nothing to do with Arthur Hailey. Watch out instead for the stunning Lysette Anthony (who would be in her mid-30s at this point, but wow), Pakistani actor Athar Malik, better known as Art Malik, playing a terrorist again (he was a Mujahadin warrior in The Living Daylights and the villain in True Lies), and Lee Majors as the President (who probably doesn’t need much of an introduction). Some good sight gags, much in the vein of the Zucker movies.

There were a few episodes of British sitcom The Detectives that I like and remember well. One of them saw Briggs (Robert Powell) and Louis (Jasper Carrott) go undercover in the Paradise Club, with Leslie Grantham and Leon Herbert reprising their roles from The Paradise Club drama. Inexplicably, there’s so little relating to The Paradise Club on YouTube—this clip from The Detectives is among the very few bits and pieces.

One of my favourite Benny Hill sketches—probably because I was a fan of The New Avengers, which was still on telly when this parody aired. Watch out for Jackie Wright as Mike Gambit! (This was originally preceded by a TV awards’ announcement, where Patrick Macnee wins best actor over Tiddles the Wonder Cat.)

Disgracefully, I don’t think Last of the Summer Wine airs in New Zealand any more, at least not on terrestrial TV. (The last series aired here was the first one without Bill Owen, from memory.) Someone has uploaded some episodes on to YouTube which I had not seen before—it was lovely seeing it again. I knew Burt Kwouk from the early James Bond (Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice) and Pink Panther films had joined the cast but didn’t know Brian Murphy (Man about the House, George and Mildred) had.
   And for those who think the British have short TV series, this is the world’s longest running sitcom. The following is a 2007, 28th “season” episode. For the youngsters, Peter Sallis is the voice of Wallace in Wallace & Gromit and, in my mind, irreplaceable.
   Roy Clarke, who I believe has written all the episodes, has no end of ideas. They are as funny now as they were 10 and 20 years ago.

   I understand this is HM the Queen’s favourite TV show.

It wasn’t that long ago that this clip plain could not be found on the internet. Thank goodness someone put up one of Saturday Night’s funniest early clips.