Short And To The Point

No, not me for I am around six foot one* and have a tendency to ramble like billio. I refer, of course, to that form of the comedic arts most commonly referred to as "The Sketch". So here, for your viewing pleasure and in no real particular order, are some that I particularly like.

The Fast Show
The Fast Show, created by Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson, was conceived to be sketches with just punchlines, cutting all the chaff and getting straight to the funny. I always enjoyed these ones from Paul Whitehouse as Rowley Birkin, QC, mainly for the feeling that there is actually a bit of a thread to the randomness in there somewhere if you listen hard enough...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BKRZTalEys

Big Train
Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews turned their hand back to sketches following the immense success of Father Ted (they'd initially started off as sketch writers for Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones before writing for Alexei Sayle) and came up with brilliantly absurd sketches for their show Big train. I like the simplicity of this one - just another mundane office argument....



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKH9ECC_Qa4


Harry And Paul
Paul Whitehouse once again (I'm a big fan of his), this time back with his old partner Harry Enfield. Harry and Paul started out doing sketches together on Harry Enfield's Television Programme in the days prior to The Fast Show and have recently reunited to do the comedy thing once again. Their latest series was hit and miss but, when it hit, it was with gems such as this one which manages to be sinisterly filthy and yet utterly silly:-



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duyzK2Ff-oY


Fry And Laurie
These two were a perfectly matched double act and their love of wordplay and nonsense shines through in this trip to a hardware store...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-QoGKj6YQM


Mr Show
I've recently discovered this one thanks to David Cross' appearances on Arrested Development (which is one of the finest comedies of recent years). As with a lot of sketch shows, it is hit and miss but it's worth sticking with for sketches like this one:-



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWTREcSFEqI


Monty Python
Well, I wasn't going to let a sketch blog slip past without a Python mention, was I? As soon as I was old enough to start appreciating "grown-up" comedy, my folks got me into these... and started me down the path of the lifelong comedy obsessive. To be honest, I struggled to pick out one for special attention so here - have some Cheese Shop:-



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0


And the last word on this sketch-based blog will go to our guest speaker, the Reverend R Sleeker. Blessings be upon you all.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRwfwYGTPd8




* You metric types will have to work that out for yourselves