Specials (E:1)
2010
This Is Jinsy is a British comedy series. The pilot first aired on 1 March 2010 on BBC Three. The programme is about the bizarre residents of the fictional island of Jinsy and based on the island of Guernsey, where the two writers are from. The show was written by Chris Bran and Justin Chubb who also play the leading roles. Although the pilot episode was made for the BBC, the full series of eight episodes was picked up by Sky Atlantic. The first series began airing with a double bill on 19 September 2011 and ended on 31 October 2011. A second series was screened in January 2014.
2010
2011
2014
Maid Marian and her Merry Men is a British children's sitcom created and written by Tony Robinson and directed by David Bell. It began in 1989 on BBC One and ran for four series, with the last episode shown in 1994. The show was a partially musical comic retelling of the legend of Robin Hood, placing Maid Marian in the role of leader of the Merry Men, and reducing Robin to an incompetent ex-tailor. The programme was much appreciated by children and adults alike, and has been likened to Blackadder, not only for its historical setting and the presence of Tony Robinson, but also for its comic style. It is more surreal than Blackadder, however, and drops even more anachronisms. Many of the show's cast such as Howard Lew Lewis, Forbes Collins, Ramsay Gilderdale and Patsy Byrne had previously appeared in various episodes of Blackadder alongside Robinson. Like many British children's programmes, there is a lot of social commentary sneakily inserted, as well as witty asides about the Royal family, buses running on time, etc. Many of the plots spoofed or referenced film and television shows including other incarnations of Robin Hood in those mediums.
Maid Marian and Her Merry Men
1989
5
Catterick, aka Vic and Bob in Catterick, is a surreal 2004 BBC situation comedy in 6 episodes, written by and starring Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, with Reece Shearsmith, Matt Lucas, Morwenna Banks, Tim Healy, Mark Benton and Charlie Higson. The series was originally broadcast on BBC Three and later rerun on BBC2. Reeves has said that the BBC do not want another series of Catterick, though he may produce a spin-off centring on the DI Fowler character. Catterick is arguably Vic and Bob's darkest and most bizarre programme to date, balancing their typically odd, idiosyncratic comedy with some genuinely dark scenes. It plays like a darkly comic road movie, albeit full of Vic and Bob's bizarre, often inscrutable and frequently silly humour. Catterick is probably Vic and Bob's most uncompromising show since their notorious and frequently baffling 1999 sketch series Bang Bang, It's Reeves and Mortimer, from which most of the characters are taken. It is in some ways stylistically similar to their short film The Weekenders first broadcast in 1992 on British television as part of Channel 4's "Bunch of Five" series. The series is named after Catterick in North Yorkshire, Britain's largest army base. It is about 10 miles away from Darlington where Vic Reeves grew up. It is also about 20 miles away from Middlesbrough where Bob Mortimer grew up.
Catterick
2004
6
The big-collared comic gives his own spin on TV clips from recent programmes, plus contributions from a set of regular characters
Harry Hill's TV Burp
2002
6
Shooting Stars is a British television comedy panel game broadcast on BBC Two as a pilot in 1993, then as 3 full series from 1995 to 1997, then on BBC Choice from January to December 2002 with 2 series before returning to BBC Two for another 3 series from 2008 until its cancellation in 2011. Created and hosted by double-act Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, it uses the panel show format but with the comedians' often slapstick, surreal and anarchic humour does not rely on rules in order to function, with the pair apparently ignoring existing rules or inventing new ones as and when the mood takes them.
Shooting Stars
1993
7
A British sketch comedy series with the shows being composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines.
Monty Python's Flying Circus
1969
8
Black Books centres around the foul tempered and wildly eccentric bookshop owner Bernard Black. Bernard’s devotion to the twin pleasures of drunkenness and wilful antagonism deepens and enriches both his life and that of Manny, his assistant. Bearded, sweet and good, Manny is everything that Bernard isn’t and is punished by Bernard relentlessly just for the crime of existing. They depend on each other for meaning as Fran, their oldest friend, depends on them for distraction. Black Books is a haven of books, wine and conversation, the only threat to the group’s peace and prosperity is their own limitless stupidity.
Black Books
2000
8
15 Storeys High is a critically acclaimed British sitcom, set in a tower block. The main characters are Vince Clark, a misanthropic, cynical recluse played by Sean Lock, and Errol Spears, Vince's exact opposite and whipping boy, played by Benedict Wong.
15 Storeys High
2002
8
Disillusioned after a long career at Sunshine Desserts, Perrin goes through a mid-life crisis and fakes his own death. Returning in disguise after various attempts at finding a 'new life', he gets his old job back and finds nothing has changed. He is eventually found out, and in the second series has success with a chain of shops selling useless junk. That becomes so successful that he feels he has created a monster and decides to destroy it. In the third and final series he has a dream of forming a commune which his long suffering colleagues help bring to reality. Unfortunately that also fails and he finds himself back in a job not unlike the one he originally had at Sunshine Desserts.
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
1976
8
Spaced: the anti-Friends, in that it examines the lives of common 20 somethings, but in a way that is more down to earth and realistic. Here we have Daisy and Tim; two 'young' adults with big dreams just trying to get by in this crazy world. They are thrown together in a common pursuit of tenancy, which they find by posing as a couple. The house has a landlady and an oddball artist living there. The series explores the ins and outs of London living.
Spaced
1999
7
Vic Reeves Big Night Out is a British cult comedy stage show and later TV series which ran on Channel 4 for two series in 1990 and 1991, as well as a New Year special. It marked the beginnings of the collaboration between Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer and started their Vic and Bob comedy double act. The show was later acknowledged as a seminal force in British comedy throughout the 1990s and which continues to the present day. Arguably the most surreal of the pair's work, Vic Reeves Big Night Out was effectively a parody of the variety shows which dominated the early years of television, but which were, by the early 1990s, falling from grace. Vic, introduced by Patrick Allen as "Britain's Top Light Entertainer and Singer", would sit behind a cluttered desk talking nonsense and introducing the various segments and surreal guests on the show. Vic Reeves Big Night Out is notable as the only time in their career where Vic solely took the role of host, while Bob was consigned to the back stage, appearing every few minutes as either himself or as a strange character. The two received equal billing in the series credits. On 3 October 2007, the first episode was re-broadcast on More4 as part of Channel 4 at 25, a season of classic Channel 4 programmes shown to celebrate the channel's 25th birthday.
Vic Reeves Big Night Out
1990
6
Whoops Apocalypse is a six-part 1982 British sitcom by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, made by London Weekend Television for ITV. Marshall and Renwick later reworked the concept as a 1986 film of the same name from ITC Entertainment, with almost completely different characters and plot, although one or two of the original actors returned in different roles. The series has a big cult audience, and copies of videos are heavily sought after. The British budget label Channel 5 Video released a compilation cassette of all six episodes edited together into one 137-minute chunk in 1987. In 2010 Network DVD released both the complete, unedited series and the movie on a 2-DVD set entitled Whoops Apocalypse: The Complete Apocalypse.. John Otway also recorded a song called "Whoops Apocalypse", which was used as the theme song for the film. He occasionally performs it live.
Whoops Apocalypse
1982
7
A young and idealistic Doctor Stephen Daker arrives at Lowlands University to work at the Health Centre, but has to cope with an eccentric set of colleagues.
A Very Peculiar Practice
1986
8
The League of Gentlemen is a British comedy television series that premiered on BBC Two in 1999. The show is set in Royston Vasey, a fictional town in Northern England based on Bacup, Lancashire. It follows the lives of dozens of bizarre townspeople, most of whom are played by three of the show's four writers—Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton, and Reece Shearsmith—who, along with Jeremy Dyson, formed the League of Gentlemen comedy troupe in 1995. The series originally aired for three series from 1999 until 2002 followed by a film in 2005. A three-part revival mini-series was broadcast in December 2017 to celebrate the group's 20th anniversary.
The League of Gentlemen
1999
7
Surreal sitcom with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. A series of anarchic affairs featuring the uninvited lodgers and guests that cause chaos and disruption in their home.
House of Fools
2014
6
Steven Toast, an eccentric middle-aged actor with a chequered past, spends more time dealing with his problems off stage than performing on it.
Toast of London
2013
7
Snuff Box is a BBC Three British dark comedy starring and written by Matt Berry and Rich Fulcher with additional material by Nick Gargano. It first aired on Monday 27 February 2006. Both actors use their real names for their main characters. Berry plays a hangman, and Fulcher his assistant. The majority of the programme is set in a "gentlemen's club for hangmen", although the show is also interspersed with sequences of sketches, often featuring different characters. Berry and Fulcher met whilst working together on another BBC Three comedy, The Mighty Boosh. The series 1 DVD was released on 16 June 2008. On 11 October 2011, Severin Films released the series on DVD with a bonus CD of music and other exclusive extra features in the North American market.
Snuff Box
2006
7
Twisted and original sketch show from the minds of Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews, starring Simon Pegg, Kevin Eldon and Mark Heap.
Big Train
1998
7
Ideal
2005
8
Richie Richard (socially awkward, sexually inexperienced) and Eddie Hitler (carefree alcoholic ) are two social outcasts living on the dole. Trapped together in a squalid flat in Hammersmith, London they are perpetually skint, bored and sexually frustrated. They spend their days scheming, bickering, and being nasty and sadistic to each other.
Bottom
1991
7
Stone Quackers revolves around two mischevious slacker ducks, Whit and Clay, along with their friends Barf and Dottie, plus the authority Officer Barry. They get into surreal misadventures, ranging from accidentally placing a bomb near an event where Officer Barry gets an award, to an odd homage to David Lynch's Blue Velvet.
Stone Quackers
2014
6