I just watched some BBC gold. two episoded of what I really love. One "Waiting For God" and "As Time Goes By". There is another one that I have not seen for some time and I can't remember the name but it is about a social climber named "Bucket" pronounced "Bouquet". I am a fan of the supposed dry English humor.
I expect to go straight to hell...........at least I won't have to spend time making new friends.
If you want a recommendation, based on the above, try Doc Martin, very funny in a dry/understated way, with a wonderful grumpy lead character (Martin Clunes).
It's set in the same area as my house in the UK.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
I like all of the ones that have been mentioned so far, (except that I'm not really a fan of As Time Goes By.... I like Judi Densch and Geoffrey Palmer, but that show doesn't even really qualify as a "comedy" in my book...it's basically a soap opera with an occasional joke thrown in.)
Overall I'm a huge fan of a lot of British comedies...especially those that were made in the 70's 80's and 90's (if the stuff on BBC America is any indicator of what's being made now, the earlier ones were far superior)
There's a PBS channel out here that has shown a lot of Brit Coms, so I've seen a number of them....
Here are some good ones, in addition to the ones that have already been mentioned:
Yes Minister/ Yes Prime Minister
The Blackadder Series (there are four different series, and a couple of specials)
The Thin Blue Line (Another Rowan Atkinson vehicle with a great supporting cast)
A Bit of Frye and Laurie (comedy skits...absolutely hysterical)
Jeeves and Wooster
Allo Allo
Goodnight Sweetheart
The Vicar of Dibley
French & Saunders (another skit show, with Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders From Absolutely Fabulous)
Absolutely Fabulous
Chef!
Posh Nosh (a send up of cooking shows)
My Hero
To The Manner Born (another one that's a little heavy on the soap opera side)
Bless Me Father
The Brittas Empire (An underrated show that starred Chris Barrie...Arnold Rimmer from Red Dwarf)
Only Fools And Horses
One Foot In The Grave
You can find scenes, (or in some cases complete episodes) of most of these shows on You Tube.
Last edited by Lord Jim on Sun Oct 10, 2010 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The rise and fall of Reginald Perrin.
Garth Marrenghi's Darkplace.
Human Remains
Look Around You
I'm Alan Partridge
Brass Eye.
Drop the dead donkey
The day today..
But lets not forget the three greatest comedies to come out of the UK are, in reverse order;
3. Black Books.
2. Father Ted.
1. Fawlty Towers.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
I'd offer to burn and mail any of the comedy series we have here, but unfortunately we're on the PAL system, not NTSC.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
With some free software available online you can rip and burn "youtube" to DVD for playing on home DVD players.
Quality is a bit arse, but it's one way of getting "Posh Nosh".
I can point you at the best software if you want.
Meanwhile, here's a sample, for those who have not seen it.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
The first time I saw Posh Nosh, (It's only about 10 minutes long so the PBS channels just toss it in as filler..it's never on the schedule) I knew it was a put on, but I didn't know if "Simon" and "Minty" were an actual couple or comedy team...
The chemistry between Arabella Weir and Richard Grant is fantastic...
He's got the stereotype of the snotty, upper class, self absorbed decadent gay boy tyrant who only married because "mummy insisted" nailed to a tee....
And she plays the social climbing, "married above her station" willing to put up with any abuse air head to perfection....
For such a short show with so few episodes, it really packs an enormous amount of well crafted dry humor.
I was surprised to learn that this is the only thing they've ever done together; I had thought they might be a comedy team like Nichols and May....
Let me know if your DVD player can play either Mpegs or AVI.
If it can, I'll burn you as much Posh Nosh as I can get off "youtube" and mail them.
I could probably do them as DVD, but the quality would be less good, and I'm not sure if I can do NSTC format.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”