Mr Don And Mr George
I talked about Absolutely when I covered off sketch shows a while back. The spin-off-from-a-sketch-show is not unheard of - The Fast Show gave us Ted & Ralph, Grass and Swiss Toni, Harry Enfield gave us Kevin And Perry Go Large and a French And Saunders sketch gave us Absolutely Fabulous. This spin off follows the surreal adventures of Don McDiarmid and George McDiarmid (no relation) and, much like the sketches it span off from, was characterised by daft wordplay and silly sight gags (so definitely my sort of thing). It also has some pleasing episode titles like "You Can Run But You Can't Hide Your Legs", "There's Been A Thing" and "You've Eaten My Future". It only lasted for one series of six episodes which is probably why it doesn’t feature on many people’s radar.
Fairly Secret Army
I’ve always been a fan of David Nobbs’ work with The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin and A Bit Of A Do both being favourites. This is effectively a spin-off from Reggie Perrin in all but name given the main character played by Geoffrey Palmer, Harry Kitchener Wellington Truscott, is a remaned version of Reggie’s brother-in-law Jimmy. It’s not necessarily laugh out iud funny but, as always, Palmer is a delight to watch throughout. I can see why this one doesn’t get much attention nowadays - given that Tuscott is setting up (albeit laughably) a right wing army, it’s probably not a show that would go down well in the current climate, especially as they don’t exactly get their comeuppance in the end.
Interesting Fact:- The script editor on the first series was John Cleese; prior to this, David Nobbs had turned down the opportunity to work on a Fawlty Towers spin off series about Manuel.
The Mary Whitehouse Experience
This was really the show that was initially responsible for stand up comedy becoming something that was performed in stadiums in this country as it launched the careers of David Baddiel and Rob Newman , the first comedians to sell out a show at Wembley Stadium. This lead to comedy being dubbed the “new rock and roll” and arguably the popularisation of stand up as stadium event. However, very few people seem to talk about The Mary Whitehouse Experience these days. Of course, it wasn’t just Newman and Baddiel - Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis rounded out the cast. The show was a mix of stand up and sketches and was endlessly quoted during my school days (revealing my age there).
So there are a few shows that I enjoy that don’t get a lot of press and attention anymore. Time to switch it up next time with something completely different and really rather silly (but that isn’t Monty Python as, ironically, that wouldn’t be completely different around here).
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