It's not all Monty Python, A celebration of British and Irish comedy.

Joanna Lumley wasn't known for comedy. She was a Bond girl and then hit fame as Purdey in the cult show The New Avengers, (absolutely nothing to do with the Marvel group of the same name.)



For a while she was a sex symbol up there with Farah Fawcett Majors. It was pretty much at the same time. I was at school and I remember having my ear bent on numerous occasions about their attributes.

Anyway Lumley was not seen as a comedy actor. That was until Ruby Wax put her on her show. This is Lumley's second appearance, her first was in a mockumentary style investigation into a washed up actress. Unfortunately some people thought it was real.

In this she plays a washed up down at heels version of herself, and her comic performance is so good it caught Jennifer Saunders' eye.

I had to include one of my favs....John Oliver lampooning a Syrian Monster:

https://youtu.be/DSFdGv2QI8E

I think John is glorious, thank you Great Britain...we are keeping him.

The Postman's best attempts at avoiding Hyacinth

(Keeping Up Appearances)

Adrian Edmonson and Rik Mayall were best friends, having met at university. Ade Edmonson is also married to Jennifer Saunders. Dawn French is married to Lenny Henry.

Jennifer Saunders and Ade Edmonson were in a comedy series called Happy Families in which an aging aristocratic matriarch commands her grandson to find his lost sisters and bring them home. Saunders played the parts of all the daughters and the matriarch, while Ade Edmonson played the brother charged with tracking them down.

It featured all of the usual suspects from British comedy at the time. In my opinion Rik Mayall puts his finest performance as a sexually frustrated,perverted Nazi French priest outraged by the behaviour of the Bohemian artist Delacroix, especially all the nubile young ladies flocking to him.



I saw Rik Mayall doing standup around this time. I laughed so much I was in agony and remember wishing he'd just stop for a minute so I could recover. I have never had that with anyone else.

Ben Elton was a very influential figure at this time. He wrote the above, co wrote The Young Ones and Blackadder, (not the 1st series.) and starred in his own show The Man From Auntie. He also wrote numerous novels and collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber in writing a West End musical.

Here he is talking about Benny Hill.



And here he sends up Hill, (and himself,) brilliantly in one of Harry Enfield's shows.

After leaving Not The Nine O Clock News Rowan Atkinson went on to star in The Blackadder, an historical pastiche of various Shakespearean history plays.



It wasn't bad, but Rowan Atkinson didn't enjoy writing as much as acting so when the next series was due to be commissioned Ben Elton and Richard Curtis took over the writing.

The character of Blackadder changed, he wasn't the nerdy Mr Bean lite character from the first season. He was no longer the stupid one reliant on his servant to come up with ideas. He was smart, but surrounded by idiots. The series ran for another three seasons, and would have had a fourth had it not been for Rik Mayall's The New Statesman which covered the same ground.

However, there have been numerous specials, and every time Comic Relief comes along Blackadder tends to be in there somewhere.

Here are clips from seasons 2-4 and the Christmas special.

Back together again after ten years divorced, how lovely.

Who writes your stuff?

I do, I admit I don't always check that I'm up to date, but at least people seem to like my contributions.

Ben Elton also worked with Rowan Atkinson in The Thin Blue Line, a comedy about the police.

Here, a camp young policeman is considering going to a pub after hours. Only he refers to it as 'Coming out.'

When the inspector hears he tries to be sympathetic.

Getting a bit more up to date, Ben Elton is writing Upstart Crow, a comedy based on the life of Shakespeare. It's very much in the tradition of Blackadder.



The best thing about it is Spencer Jones' performance as Kempe, he basically does Ricky Gervais. It's hard finding a clip and this one is half size, the players appear at about 4.30. Btw,Ricky Gervais is not happy with this portrayal, he can dish it out OK, but he can't take it himself.

As mentioned before a fifth season of Blackadder was never written because of Rik Mayall's The New Statesman. In the fifth season Blackadder was to be a corrupt Tory MP, however, it was felt it was too much like Alan B'stard.

Both Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie were in the last sketch. They also had their own show, A bit of Fry and Laurie.



Before Hugh Laurie moved to America to do serious drama and Stephen Fry became the host of QI they also starred in Jeeves and Wooster, based on the books by PG Wodehouse.

Much of British comedy doesn't play well here in the States.

Difficulty with accents, not knowing what certain things are (British using a different word, like calling a cookie a biscuit)

I tried to get into Are You Being Served. Never quite did.

Then there was Mr.Bean. Didn't know what to think of it.

For eventual sheer torture, there were more than 20 years of Keeping Up Appearances. After the fourth or fifth run, it became somewhat monotonous...though some episodes maintained themselves. It sort of fell into (for me) the same category as Frasier. Frasier ran blocks of 4 episodes,Monday to Friday for quite a a few years. Some episodes are still worthy of a watch. Most are not.


Mention earlier of Peter Cook. I may be one of the few who actually can recall the show.

Well, the series premiere.

The female (American) character places a listing in Help Wanted.

When Cook's character arrives at the door, he is rather confused with the American woman.

Turns out she had listed herself as 'an English Major'.

Yup, Cook thought it meant a gentleman who was an English Major. The female had merely majored in English when in college.
I knew then the show was doomed. When that is the lead-off humor, you just know it's going to be bad.

That is a truly terrible gag. I just can't get it. I think Peter Cook was the funniest man that ever lived. He is my number one top comedian, but he never cracked America, while James Corden did.

And Russell Brand.

Not off topic, more of a side topic. Reginald D Hunter is really big over here, not so much back home.

Yeah, I don't get the fascination with Russell Brand. He's just seems like a stick figure making sounds. (that's how I find him)

A little while back on Netflix I took a chance at a Scottish comedy, Still Game. It's funny enough to hold my attention and usually gives me a laugh or three.

It also told me how to pronounce Irn Bru. I had no idea it was Iron Bru.
I'd pronounced it as Urn..

I actually enjoyed 'Are you being served', Young Mr. Grace "You've all done very well", Mrs Slocom "and I am unanimous in that", Captain Peacock, Mr. Humphries and the others. It wasn't laugh till you cry funny like BlackAdder, but it was funny in an old fashioned sort of way.

When it first came out I was a kid and I liked it, but not any more. I particularly disliked Wendy Richards, ( Miss Brahms,) who after applying for the role of sexy landlady Angie Watts landed the role of frumpy housewife Pauline Fowler on Eastenders went on to attack the alternative comedy that had relegated her to soaps.

Mollie Sudgen also starred as the Mother in Carla Lane's The Liver Birds, a comedy about two young women sharing a flat in Liverpool. Like Are You Being Served, it wasn't my cup of tea, but if you like Mollie Sugden you may well enjoy it.

One central figure in British TV comedy was Harry Enfield. He started off doing stand up with developed personas, his most popular one was Stavros, a Greek kebab store owner. His first TV show was a mixture of different character driven sketches. When he was first asked what it was like he compared it to Dick Emery.

Dick Emery was a similar comic from my childhood. His comedy is a bit hit and miss, unfortunately like a lot of stuff from that time too much of it was centred around laughing at women's tits and crude stereotypes.

Having said that, there's plenty of wheat among the chaff in this sketch which featured most of his characters.



By the time of Harry Enfield's programme, things had moved on, instead of poking fun at mincing stereotypes the humour focusses on the 'well meaning' father's awkwardness towards his gay son.

Part of C4's remit was to provide programmes for minority audience. That was when Desmond's was created. This was a first for the UK, a cast that was almost exclusively Afro Caribbean. And it's very good, just as popular with white people as the intended audience.

The BBC brought out Goodness Gracious Me, a sketch show featuring four Asian comedians. The name came from a song popular in the 6os about an Indian doctor.

All four went on to do well, and all are still working. This is probably their most famous sketch and parodies brilliantly drunken white people going out for a curry when the pubs have shut.