Show, don’t tell
The immense talent behind Father Ted and The IT Crowd is Graham Linehan. His recent appearance at the Edinburgh International Television Festival saw the creator of Moss and Father Dougal give a “masterclass” (a word he doesn’t like) in the art of sitcom writing. The Guardian’s John Plunkett has very kindly paraphrased the…
Coastline
News from the Environment Agency finally proves that everyone is after the raft of free benefits that the British Government hands out without blinking to asylum seekers and minorities. The only reason the coastline is under threat from erosion from the sea is that mermaids are trying to get into the country to…
Hi, I’m Les Sex
Hello, my name is Leslie Essex, and I’m an adult movie cameraman. That’s right, I film pornos. And let me tell you, all those guys that say its dull, boring, unglamorous, uninteresting and what have you – they’re lying, mostly likely married. Oh don’t get me wrong, it can be a long shoot…
Crabladder or Bust
I referred some time ago to my own short-lived experience as a stand-up comic after entering the BBC’s Young Talent competition in 1999/2000 (can’t remember which). The material on offer by me was around 95% original, with only the shoehorning of a good joke in at the end possibly jarring slightly. There I…
Rebranding exercise
Here’s a short sketch I wrote recently which no doubt needs some work, as well as a bit of a punchline… ADVERTISING AGENCY MEETING ROOM. PICTURES OF PEGS AND CHARTS AND ACTUAL PEGS AND PEOPLE WITH LAPTOPS AND MORE CHARTS AND BROCHURES. 1st adman: Our client, Rosalie Hearne, has been successfully been manufacturing…
Canoeing Home for Christmas
[singlepic=59,320,240,,right]With the news that the canoe couple John and Anne Darwin have been sentenced to six years, it stirred a scene of a presumed-dead father paddling across the Atlantic to see his sons in time for Christmas, feigning amnesia. While Quintessential Comedy in no way condones money laundering – we don’t even have…
Record Breaking Failure
Not so much comedy as insanely optimistic, the a fundraising effort for the North East Air Ambulance resulted in an attempt to break the world record for girls in bikinis in one place failing miserably on Sunday July 20th, on the cold and frigid location of Redcar seafront in North Yorkshire.A paltry 320…
Top comedy writers?
When I tune into a new comedy series written by an established name, I expect to be entertained. So when I spot the name David Renwick, Simon Nye, John Sullivan – perhaps Richard Curtis, Ben Elton, Rowan Atkinson and even Steven Moffat – I expect to be entertained. Now of course not everyone…
I Really Love the Muppet Show
As far as transatlantic comedy goes, it really hasn’t ever been any funnier than The Muppet Show. Jim Henson’s amaxing creations had been entertaining kids around the world in the educational Sesame Street before ATV supremo Lew Grade offered Henson a deal that would see the show filmed at Elstree in England, networked…
Round the Horne!
As radio comedies go, there are three which seem to remain popular and outsell all of the other BBC audio comedy releases. One of these is Round the Horne. Comprising of Kenneth Williams, Bill Pertwee, Hugh Paddick and Betty Marsden, Round the Horne was expertly held together by languid straight man Kenneth Horne. …
