With current events at the forefront of the American imagination these days it brought me to mind of the great topical comedy programs of years past. Today we have the likes of Saturday Night Live and Politically Incorrect tackling the issues of the day but the following classic British telly shows took current events comedy to a new level that our home grown efforts simply can't match. If only I could get them on Satellite or pop them into my trusty DVD player...
Topical Comedy Wish list:
That Was The Week That Was
Early and massively influential series starring David
Frost that elevated television news satire to an art, in fact is virtually
created the genre. Inspired by the equally influential stage show Beyond the
Fringe, TW3 brought Britain’s sharpest wits into unsuspecting
living rooms across the UK creating quite a stir ion the process. Each episode
easily provided a week’s worth of tea time and cocktail party
fodder while making stars of both host David Frost and the entire
ensemble cast which included the likes of Kenneth Cope, Bernard
Levin, Roy Kinnear and William Rushton.
As good as the performers were the real strength of TW3 lay
in it’s staff of writers, a group that included , Dennis Potter (The
Singing Detective), John Cleese (Monty Python), and playwrights
Peter Shaffer and Kenneth Tynan. So incisive were TW3’s sketches
that the BBC decided to shelve the series for the entirety of the 1964 General
Election Year.
The TW3 formula was successfully translated to America a couple of years later with Frost himself joining the Henry Fonda hosted series midway through it’s run. Frost would follow-up the TW3 phenomenon with another group of fine comedic performers ( the Two Ronnie's - Barker and Corbett) and wunderkind comedy writers for The Frost Report – those writers would end up becoming) and the founding members of Monty Python’s Flying Circus (all but Terry Gilliam) and Marty Feldman.
Not the Nine O’clock News
While not quite as upper-middle brow as TW3, and willing to focus on more general topics, Not the Nine O’clock News was a brilliant sketch comedy program, which made stars of the likes of future Blackadder/Mr. Bean Rowan Atkinson as well as Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones and Pamela Stephenson. As with TW3 the writers made all the difference with such future masters of the art as Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral), Guy Jenkin, , Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s Guide) Ruby Wax, Clive Anderson (Whose Line is it Anyway?), Nigel Planer (The Young Ones) and Andy Hamilton to, quite literally, name just a few.
