The blog returns! And with it a new series begins. I have always had a great love for Shakespeare and so I thought that I would feature some of his most memorable speeches performed by a variety of great actors, to see if we cannot discern something new from his words. Upon The King (Henry […]
Royal Variety Performances
To mark the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, I thought it might be appropriate to post about the Royal Command (Variety) Performance. It is a televised variety show held annually in the United Kingdom to raise money for the Royal Variety Charity (of which King Charles III is life-patron). It is attended by senior members […]
Comic Songs (48)
The Rutles were a rock band that performed visual and aural pastiches and parodies of the Beatles. This originally fictional band, created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes for a sketch in Idle’s mid-1970s BBC television comedy series Rutland Weekend Television, later toured and recorded, releasing two albums that included two UK chart hits. The […]
Comic Songs (38)
The Two Ronnies is a British television comedy sketch show starring Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. It was created by Bill Cotton and aired on BBC1 from April 1971 to December 1987. The usual format included sketches, solo sections, serial stories and musical finales. The two Ronnies met in 1963 at the Buckstone Club in […]
Comic Songs (35)
Victoria Wood was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director. Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano. Much of her humour was grounded in […]
Comic Songs (31)
The Wombles are fictional pointy-nosed, furry creatures created by Elisabeth Beresford and originally appearing in a series of children’s novels from 1968. They live in burrows, where they aim to help the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in creative ways. Although Wombles supposedly live in every country in the world, Beresford’s stories are primarily […]
Comic Songs (28)
As the 1960’s came to a close a new comedic force arose in the form of “Monty Python” They were a British surreal comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series. The Python phenomenon developed […]
Comic Songs (20)
Peter Sellers was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show, featured on a number of hit comic songs and became known to a worldwide audience through his many film roles, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther series. English filmmakers […]
Comic Songs (17)
Our purveyor of comedic songs today comes from an unlikely source. Bernard Bresslaw was an English actor. He is best known as a member of the Carry On film franchise. Bresslaw also worked on television and stage, did recordings and wrote a series of poetry. During the late 1950’s he suprisingly had a series of […]
Comic Songs (15)
The Goon Show was a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from May to September 1951, was titled Crazy People; subsequent series had the title The Goon Show. The show’s chief creator and […]