News

The comedy maestro Paul Whitehouse continues his celebration of the sketch show genre with an exploration of the 1980s. This era saw a wave of alternative comedians burst onto the screens, reflecting the turbulence of the new decade. In the 1980s, Oxbridge dominated the comedy landscape, with shows like Not The Nine O’Clock News combining […]

Paul Whitehouse’s Sketch Show Years: The 1980s...

Jason Clarke plays the youngest Kennedy brother, self-pityingly facing prosecution and trying to salvage his political career, in this over-lenient film

“I learned a great lesson from Chappaquiddick … don’t drive over narrow bridges when you’re pissed out of your mind.” This gag from the BBC’s 1970s sketch show Not the Nine O’Clock News, with Griff Rhys Jones playing a sombre Ted Kennedy, perfectly encapsulates his cynicism and self-pity. It seems to me more apposite than this lenient movie about Chappaquiddick, which now belatedly appears in the UK, starring Jason Clarke as Kennedy, scripted by first-time feature writers Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan, and directed by John Curran.

While driving back in darkness from a party at Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts in July 1969, Kennedy’s car went off a narrow bridge into the water. Kennedy swam clear, but his passenger drowned: Mary Jo Kopechne, a woman who had...

Alex Westthorp Apr 5, 2019

For its 40th anniversary, we revisit Roald Dahl's classic series that kept us guessing and inspired some modern anthology greats...

Tales Of The Unexpected was an anthology series of imaginative and compelling dramas each with a "twist in the tale" produced for the ITV network by Anglia Television. Anthology series on British television had been decidedly sci-fi orientated, hitherto, with the BBC series Out Of The Unknown (1965-71) capitalizing on the imported success of the granddaddy of them all, Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone. The story has it that Anglia's Drama supremo Sir John Woolf had a chance meeting with Roald Dahl, master of macabre tall stories, at a Christmas party in 1976. Dahl asked Woolf, "How would you like to make a television series of my stories?" Woolf immediately saw the potential and commissioned Dahl to adapt some of his best stories for a series...

Desperate Housewives star Teri Hatcher is among the celebrities to have signed up for a charity version of The Great British Bake Off. Hatcher, who also starred in James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, is joined by the likes of Spandau Ballet's Martin Kemp and Not The Nine O'Clock News star Griff Rhys Jones in The Great Stand Up To Cancer Bake Off for Channel 4. The show, which airs later this year, forms part of a range of programming by the British broadcaster to raise…...

BBC Two is 50 - the British Broadcasting Corporation's second eldest child hits the half-century mark today - Sunday, April 20.

Picking out the greatest shows from five decades of broadcasting seems like a near-impossible task, but never say that Digital Spy is easily cowed. These are - in our humble opinion - the channel's finest ever offerings.

BBC Two is 50: The Hour, Bottom and more shows to bring back

The rules are as follows: shows like Red Dwarf that originated on BBC Two are eligible, but shows better associated with another channel are not - say Top of the Pops, which aired on BBC One for the majority of its run but shifted to the sister channel for its final episodes.

Oh, and we're talking only original commissions - so no Us imports either. But even that barely narrows it down, so if you think there are any glaring omissions,...

It's been a whopping 30 years since Spitting Image first hit our screens on ITV in 1984. The satirical puppet show quickly became one of the most-watched shows of the 1980s and early 1990s.

I wasn't able to fully appreciate the series when it was first on TV. When I watched it in the early '90s as a child, I found it funny mainly because of the silly puppets, even if I didn't quite understand what was going on. But in retrospective viewings, it still holds up as a genuinely hilarious satire of politics, entertainment, sport and general UK culture of the era.

It's quite incredible to think that Spitting Image hasn't been on air since 1996. To put that into perspective, the Spice Girls had only just been unleashed, Tony Blair hadn't been elected yet, and Lorde had only just been born.

As a show that is heavily reliant on topical...

Mel Smith - I've Sort of Done Things: BBC 2, 9.45pm

Rebecca Front narrates a celebration of the life and career of actor, writer and director Mel Smith, who died in July at the age of 60. His comedy partner Griff Rhys Jones, Not the Nine O'Clock News creator John Lloyd and screenwriter Richard Curtis are among those talking about his work both in front of and behind the camera.

Last Tango in Halifax: BBC One, 9pm

Gillian wakes up in a panic after remembering last night's confession, although her stepsister's reaction surprises her. Caroline, however, soon has problems of her own to worry about when pregnant girlfriend Kate is rushed to hospital. Has she lost the baby? Last in the current series.

Trollied Christmas Special: Sky 1, 9pm

Gavin invites Julie over for Christmas dinner. She is excited at the prospect of a smooch under the mistletoe - so much so...

The teenager whose illness is a moving highlight of the director's Christmas documentary is now on the mend

No one who watches Kevin Macdonald's new documentary film will forget the scene: standing at the hospital bedside of his desperately sick grandson on Christmas Day last year, 90-year-old Bill Reid, a former second world war pilot, has only one wish. He asks for the chance to see his entire family together again next Christmas Day. And it seems that, a year on, his wish has been granted.

The sickroom vignette – which shows 20-year-old Will Pope's efforts to speak, as he lies, surrounded by his relatives and attached to life-support machines – forms a key moment in Macdonald's latest cinematic collage, Christmas in a Day, about the British approach to the festive season. The Oscar-winning director, who made The Last King of Scotland and Touching the Void, has put together footage...

Testosterone levels are cranked up to 200mph for Sam Peckinpah's road movie about macho men, with silly names (Rubber Duck, Love Machine) driving big trucks. As Not the Nine O'Clock News put it, they like trucking and they like to truck (“And if you don't like trucking tough luck”). Kris Kristofferson plays the curt trucking cowboy being pursued by Ernest Borgnine's deranged sheriff. If you pine for Cb radios and unreconstructed behaviour, then hop on board for this energetic slice of cult rebellion from 1978. You copy?...

Tributes have been paid to Sir David Frost, who has died suddenly at the age of 74.

During his lengthy career, Frost was at the forefront of major changes in broadcasting and used his skill, creativity and persistence to provide viewers with some of the most memorable moments in television - and in some cases, world history.

Digital Spy looks back at six ways in which Sir David Frost made his mark on broadcast media below.

1. That Was the Week That Was (TW3)

That Was the Week That Was - or TW3, as it was often known - made politicians and the establishment fair satirical game in the early 1960s at a time when the Profumo affair was dominating headlines. Commissioned by the BBC, Frost was chosen to anchor the programme by its creator Ned Sherrin.

TW3 lampooned the class system, Britain's waning influence on the world stage (as in the clip below) and foreign affairs,...

The director reveals he is a 'great fan' of the Us standup comic. Meanwhile, Geri Halliwell looks set to star in her own TV comedy show and London's Glee Club isn't happy

This week's comedy news

Woody Allen has been talking to the New York Times about his desire to make a film with standup comic Louis Ck. The latter has a small role in Allen's forthcoming feature Blue Jasmine, but the part isn't "commensurate with his talent", says Allen. "[So] when I finished this picture, I went into my room and thought, what would be a fun picture? My first thought was: can I come up with something that I could do with Louis Ck? … Some day, I will get something that we could do together, because I do think it would be fun. I'm such a great fan of his."

Elsewhere in Hollywood, Mike Myers in hatching a directorial...

Comedian, actor, writer and director who came to prominence in satirical TV sketch show Not the Nine O'Clock News

Mel Smith was once upstaged by a talking gorilla. He was playing a zoologist in a sketch on his hit comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News and the gorilla suit contained Rowan Atkinson. "When I caught Gerald in 68 he was completely wild," said Smith. "Wild?" retorted the gorilla. "I was absolutely livid!"

If the gorilla had the best line, Smith had the more expressive countenance, mugging with a deadpan virtuosity rarely seen since Oliver Hardy in his pomp. That face – as hangdog as his childhood hero Tony Hancock's – made Smith, who has died of a heart attack aged 60, one of the most recognisable of postwar British comedians.

Smith's face was only part of his fortune. He was a writer and editor of some of the most redoubtable British TV...

London, July 21: British comic Mel Smith has passed away after suffering a heart attack. He was 60.

According to Smith's agent, Michael Foster, the actor died at his home on Friday, the BBC reported.

Smith, who is famous for the sketch shows 'Alas Smith and Jones' and 'Not The Nine O'clock News', was a great pal of co-star Griff Rhys Jones with whom he set up the independent TV Company, Talkback Productions.

Rhys Jones, who was friends with Smith for over 35 years, described his late friend as a "brilliant actor".

Foster announced the demise in a statement on behalf of Smith's wife, Pam and said that Smith, comedian.

Best known for roles in Alas Smith and Jones and Not the Nine O'Clock News, the comic also reached No 3 in the music charts

The classic image of Mel Smith was head to head in conversation with Griff Rhys Jones, discussing anything from politics to sex, on Alas Smith and Jones.

Sometimes, in variety show or charity events, either the part of Smith or Jones was played by a celebrity. The show was broadcast from 1984-89 as Alas Smith and Jones and from 1989-98 as Smith and Jones.

Here Smith and Rhys Jones discuss the 60s and the Beatles.

In 1986, Smith parodied the monotonous broadcast of the football results, which were an essential and lengthy part of many news broadcasts at the time.

Smith's career was launched alongside that of Jones, Rowan Atkinson, Pamela Stephenson and Chris Langham in Not the Nine O'Clock News, which ran from 1979-82. It featured...

News Den Of Geek 20 Jul 2013 - 14:44

The writer, actor and director Mel Smith has died at the age of 60.

Some really sad news to report. The actor, writer and director Mel Smith has died, at the age of 60. The news has now been officially confirmed by the BBC. A heart attack is believed to be the cause of his death.

Smith sprung to fame in the groundbreaking and hugely influential Not The Nine O'Clock News, and then he joined up with Griff Rhys-Jones for a long running and fruitful partnership, the highlight of which being Alas Smith And Jones. The pair's monologues were so popular, they even become part and parcel of the annual build up to the F.A. Cup Final. They also joined together for the movie of Tom Sharpe's Wilt.

Smith co-wrote and starred in the movie Morons From Outer Space too, and he made...

Mel Smith has died at the age of 60. The comedian's agent Michael Foster confirmed he suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep yesterday (19.07.13). Mel was known for his professional partnership with Griff Rhys Jones, and together the pair produced and starred in sketch show 'Not The Nine O'Clock News'. The duo also set up their own company and talent agency - Talkback Productions - which created the likes of 'Smack The Pony', 'Da Ali G Show' and 'I'm Alan Partridge'. Fellow comedian Stephen Fry joined friends and colleagues in paying tribute to the late star, who he described as a ''kind,...

Mel Smith has died at the age of 60. The comedian's agent Michael Foster confirmed he suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep yesterday (19.07.13). Mel was known for his professional partnership with Griff Rhys Jones, and together the pair produced and starred in sketch show 'Not The Nine O'Clock News'. The duo also set up their own company and talent agency - Talkback Productions - which created the likes of 'Smack The Pony', 'Da Ali G Show' and 'I'm Alan Partridge'. Fellow comedian Stephen Fry joined friends and colleagues in paying tribute to the late star, who he described as a ''kind,...

Interview Rachel Bowles 28 Mar 2013 - 08:00

We spoke to wonderful TV writer David Renwick about bringing back Jonathan Creek, scrapped sitcoms, One Foot in the Grave and more...

Working in television writing since the seventies, and with a string of well-loved hits behind him including Not the Nine O'Clock News, One Foot in the Grave, and of course, Jonathan Creek, we spoke to David Renwick about bringing Creek back to the BBC, walking away from projects, and killing off Victor Meldrew...

So onto Jonathan Creek, first of all I was going to ask you about the three other episodes that have been announced for later this year...

Hopefully, hopefully.

Hopefully? Is it still dependant on something?

Well it might not happen if I fail to write something good. I shouldn’t be spreading doom and gloom and doubt and insecurities, although that’s my role! We hope to go into...

Armando Iannucci has confirmed that the current run of The Thick of It will "definitely" be the last. The show has run for four series with a pair of specials between the second and third, and the final episode of the current run will air this weekend. Iannucci told The Guardian: "It's definitely the last series. I've known from past experience to never say never. "I don't think it's going to change politics. In terms of comedy hopefully it will inspire someone in the same way that I remember listening to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or watching Not the Nine O'Clock News (more)...

Will children reared on CGI fall for felt-and-foam animals and bad puns? Ellen E Jones on the lasting genius of the Muppets

The Jim Henson Company studio lot on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles is one of the few remaining original lots in Hollywood. As if to acknowledge its history – it was built in 1917 and was originally the home of Charlie Chaplin's production company – a 12-foot statue of Kermit the Frog dressed as Chaplin's Tramp stands atop the gatehouse, tipping his bowler hat towards the Sunset Strip. Behind Kermit, in the Tudor-style bungalows where Modern Times was filmed, something even more exciting is happening; the unveiling of the first theatrically released Muppets film for more than a decade, since 1999's Muppets from Space.

The new Muppets movie is all about reclaiming past glories. In depicts the titular puppets disbanded and their studio in a state of bad repair,...

Fans of British television comedy will have grown up with the unique wit and physical presence of Rowan Atkinson. Emerging from sketch show Not The Nine O'Clock News, he partnered with writer Richard Curtis (Four Weddings And A Funeral, Love Actually) to create Edmund Blackadder, the effeminate, awkward bastard son of a fictional King Richard IV in the popular sit-com The Black Adder. The real genius came in the second season when Ben Elton was brought on as co-writer, Atkinson moved into a solely acting role and his character transformed into a smart, cynical Elizabethan lord, who was confidante to the Queen and surrounded by imbeciles he could bully and kick in the backside. After four seasons, the hugely successful series did what all good...

The Thick of It star hasn't worked since he was arrested on child pornography charges in 2005. Now he's back with a terrific performance in a new low-budget British film, and he says he just wants to get past the lies that have been told about him and do more acting

To be perfectly honest, Chris Langham's new film was the last thing on my mind when this interview was first arranged. The drama of his private life has eclipsed his identity as an actor so entirely that I barely gave the film a thought – except to wonder whether it would ever be possible to watch him again without being distracted by memories of the scandal that banished him from our screens. What cinematic tale could ever hope to compete with the true story of Langham's crime and punishment? If an actor can't persuade his audience to suspend disbelief, then...

A child star as Oliver Twist, he became a key figure in epoch-making TV comedy

'Please, sir – I want some more." Rationing was still in force when, under the eye of David Lean's camera, a thin, pale eight-year-old boy named John Howard Davies raised his gruel bowl and dared to request a second serving. That image of Davies in Oliver Twist (1948) spoke to the mood of the moment – suggesting the sort of deprivation that postwar Britain was attempting to legislate out of existence. One scene called for Davies, who has died of cancer aged 72, and his fellow child actors to look on enviously as the bigwigs of the workhouse devoured a great pile of pastries, hams and chicken. The astonished expressions are genuine. None of these boys had ever seen food like it.

The film's production company, Cineguild, had launched a national campaign to secure a talented unknown for the title role.

No knighthoods for tabloid-backed stars, but Sheila Hancock, David Suchet and composer Howard Goodall make the list

Despite the best efforts of the tabloid press, there were no knighthoods for either Bruce Forsyth or Simon Cowell, but veteran actors Sheila Hancock and David Suchet were both awarded CBEs, as was the composer and broadcaster Howard Goodall. Representatives of the arts and media make up 7% of the honours list.

Harriet Walter, best known as a classical actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company – most recently as Cleopatra opposite Patrick Stewart's Antony and as Friedrich Schiller's Mary Stuart in the West End and on Broadway – is made a dame, 11 years after becoming a Cbe. Reacting to her award, Walter said: "I have reservations about some parts of the honours system. I fear it's not very fair and I think there are lots of people not recognised who should be." But she...

Pamela Stephenson has admitted that her children are embarrassed by her sexy Strictly Come Dancing routines. The Not The Nine O'Clock News star topped the judges' leaderboard on Saturday, scoring 35 for a raunchy rumba. However, the 60-year-old said that the younger members of her family were not so keen on her latest routine. "My grandson is apparently not too happy with the boobs and the short skirts. he's been watching through clenched fists," she told It Takes Two. "But the biggest problem (more)...

Some of us with an interest in seeing media and political figures brutally and ceaselessly mocked on television have long wondered when Britain, supposedly the world's #1 exporter of cutting-edge humorous programming, was going to find its match for our own Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Britain, after all, is responsible for such Daily Show forerunners as Not the Nine O'Clock News and The Day Today, yet through the madness of the past decade no British counterpart to the Stewart/Colbert throne of political mockery has emerged, and in a reversal of the usual trend, the two American shows are beamed overseas. Now, however, Channel 4 has decided to rectify this grievous oversight, with its new 10 O'Clock Live, due to air early next year. A trailer can be found here. Few substantive details about the program are currently available, but it...

Pamela Stephenson has revealed that EastEnders' Scott Maslen has had a mishap with the Strictly Come Dancing tanning machine. The Not The Nine O'Clock News star claimed that Maslen was suffering from a case of "two toned sack" following the backstage incident. Writing in a Guardian blog about her experiences on the BBC reality show so far, Stephenson said: "I started with the spray tan. My initial resistance - my children have begged me to avoid turning orange - lasted a mere 10 days, before I entered the backstage misting booth like a lamb to the slaughter. I awoke next morning with the smell of baked vinyl emanating from my skin. "But for others it was worse. Fellow contestant Scott Maslen revealed that he mistakenly put his disposable g-string on back-to-front and one of his testicles fell out; he now has (more)...

NBC's "The Office" is a remake of BBC's "The Office." It feels howlingly stupid to write this because it is assumed (rightly) that everyone knows this already. The reason everyone knows this has a lot to do with things that would probably take too much time to unpack in a Seriously Random List, like the heightened awareness among today's TV watchers of how their sausage is made as well as the surge in popularity and accessibility of foreign television thanks to DVDs and online streaming. But the takeaway is that there are and have been plenty of series that have found success here in the U.S. that were based on British shows, which is how this list came together. If you never knew that some of these shows were remakes, now you can impress and potentially bore people at parties. (If you already knew that each of these was a remake,...

Mark Gatiss has revealed that he was influenced to become a comedy writer and performer by the Monty Python team and Rowan Atkinson. Speaking on Radio 3's Private Passions, the League Of Gentleman star gave special credit to the classic vinyl recordings of their work. Gatiss said: "From the beginning my interest and bent were towards Monty Python, Not The Nine O'Clock News - the record albums particularly. "Back in the days before ready access to TV repeats or even films, those albums, the Python albums, were absolutely (more)...

The first half of The Day Of The Triffids was a ratings hit for BBC One last Monday (December 28), according to early figures. The remake, which starred Dougray Scott and Joely Richardson as survivors of an attack from carniverous plants, averaged 6.1m (26.9%) for the channel between 9pm and 10.30pm. It comfortably beat ITV1's John Hurt drama An Englishman In New York, which averaged a disappointing 2.21m (9.7%) over the same period. BBC Two even fared better than ITV1, taking 2.63m (11.6%) for retrospective programme Not Again: Not The Nine O'Clock News. Also between 9pm and 10.30pm, Channel 4's The Greatest Songs Of The Noughties averaged 1.09m (4.8%). Five aired four episodes of CSI from 9pm, seen by respective audiences of 1.17m (5.1%), 993k (5%), 783k (6.3%) and 603k (9%). Earlier, a rerun of the Top Gear Bolivia (more)...

Two Ronnies and Spitting Image writer Laurie Rowley has died, aged 68. Rowley, who also penned work for Not The Nine O'Clock News, Hale and Pace and Alas Smith & Jones, is survived by his wife Joyce and children Leslie and Johanne. Clive Anderson, who worked with the writer on scripts for his chatshow, told The Guardian: "[Laurie] did a good line in jokes, old and new, about baldness and hair loss, an area in which he was always slightly ahead of me. "To younger writers, he laid down all sorts of rules about gag writing. Don't use numbers: the (more)...