Let’s get one thing settled - the Olympics are always taken very seriously, but back in the day the Monty Python team showed the world just how silly they really are…

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Clip of the Day!

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This is what Comedy Connections are all about - never mind fanciful canon-busting nonsense like The Liver Birds, as funny as a cold fish pie, give us more like this!

Next Friday sees the Michael Palin and Terry Jones spoof Boy’s Own adventure serial Ripping Yarns given the Comedy Connections treatment, pitting the superb Tomkinson’s School Days and Roger of the Raj against the various other post-Python projects.

Ripping Yarns is a rarity - classic comedy that is rarely repeated (unlike Fawlty Towers, for instance) . For those unfamiliar with the works - which featured Palin in starring roles and but left Jones firmly behind the cameras - here’s a brief episode list.

First Series

1.”Tomkinson’s Schooldays” (1913) (repeat of pilot with series title sequence added)
2.”The Testing of Eric Olthwaite” (1934)
3.”Escape from Stalag Luft 112 B” (1917)
4.”Murder at Moorstones Manor” (1926)
5.”Across the Andes by Frog” (1927)
6.”The Curse of the Claw” (1926)

Second Series

1. “Whinfrey’s Last Case” (1913)
2. “Golden Gordon” (1935)
3. “Roger of the Raj” (1914)

Comedy Connections airs Friday 8th August 22:35 - 23:15 BBC One, and repeated Saturday 9th August, 23:00 - 23:40 on BBC Two.

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Catherine Tate’s recent success as Donna Noble in Doctor Who and her subsequent move to the land of high-profile theatre roles is just one ina series of examples of comics “going straight”.

We’ve got former standup Alan Davies who became Jonathan Creek and is now an ear-biting regular on QI; Peter Kay has appeared in Coronation Street and Doctor Who - neither wholly serious dramas, but neither comedies; Michael Palin starred in The Missionary; Julie Walters effortlessly switches between comedy and straight drama; William Shakespeare was equally at home with tragedy as he was with comedy. Which brings us to the crunch - comedy gets lambasted because it isn’t considered as worthy as day-to-day drama, tragedy or even action.

The examples above however easily prove that comedy - probably the most accessible of all dramas - is far from being the least important quality in an actor’s range, and could even be the most vital weapon in an actor’s armoury.

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At long last, the page you’ve been waiting for!

The original version of Quintessential Comedy featured the first in a series of articles and essays about comedy. Kicking it off was a piece on Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which finally (!) I’ve reproduced here…

Dipping back to the past, remembering the things we saw and did is almost always done through rose-tinted glasses. The same is certainly true of comedy. Looking back at popular sitcoms of the day such as Please Sir! or Man About the House leaves a bitter taste in the mouth, and while Love Thy Neighbour might be a true depiction of the age, it’s modern revisionism to claim that it was cleverer than anyone ever knew at the time. (more…)

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On of the most wonderful bits of comedy dialogue I’ve ever come across is the wonderfully constructed Monty Python sketch by Eric Idle, Travel Agent.

While the best interpretation of this is probably the live version (most notably the one performed at The Hollywood Bowl) the version in the second series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus is perfectly good. It concerns a potential tourist, Mr Smoketoomuch, (Eric Idle as a man who cannot pronounce the letter “c”) which enters a travel agent’s and embarks on a superbly frank monologue about foreign holidays. Despite being recorded in 1970, it seems nothing has changed…

Essentially a two hander, Mr Bounder is the travel agent, played by Michael Palin. The following exchange is particularly memorable: (more…)

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