External links
- A Look Back At The Nineties Radiohaha: the online encyclopaedia of contemporary British radio comedy
- A Look Back at the Nineties episode listing
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A Look Back At The Nineties was a British comedy radio series first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1993. Presented by Brian Perkins, the 5 episodes were a spoof look back at the years 1995 to 1999 from the standpoint of New Year's Eve 1999. Each 30 minute episode covered one year.
The writers were Mark Burton, John O'Farrell and Pete Sinclair, who also appeared performing various impersonations. Other appearances included Rory Bremner, Steve Coogan, Jack Dee, Chris Barrie, Kate Robbins and Griff Rhys Jones.
The programme won several awards including the Sony Gold for comedy. A second series was broadcast in 1994 under the title A Look Back At The Future, looking back at the years 2001, 2005, 2010, 2021, 2025 and 2099 from the standpoint of New Year's Eve 2099.
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Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom created and written by Roy Clarke and originally broadcast by the BBC from 1973 to 2010. It premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse on 4 January 1973, and the first series of episodes followed on 12 November 1973. From 1983 to 2010, Alan J. W. Bell produced and directed all episodes of the show. The BBC confirmed on 2 June 2010 that Last of the Summer Wine would no longer be produced and the 31st series would be its last. Subsequently, the final episode was broadcast on 29 August 2010. Since its original release, all 295 episodes, comprising thirty-one series—including the pilot and all films and specials—have been released on DVD. Repeats of the show are broadcast in the UK on BBC One, Gold, Yesterday, and Drama. It is also seen in more than twenty-five countries, including various PBS stations in the United States and on VisionTV in Canada. Last of the Summer Wine is the longest-running comedy programme in Britain and the longest-running sitcom in the world.
Whose Line is it Anyway? is a short-form improvisational comedy television series, created by Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson, presented by Clive Anderson, and produced for Channel 4 between 23 September 1988 and 4 February 1999. The programme's format was on a panel of four performers conducting a series of short-form improvisation games, creating comedic scenes per pre-determined situations made by the host or from suggestions by the audience. Such games include creating sound effects, performing a scene to different television and film styles, using props, and making up a song on the spot. The programme originally began as a short-lived BBC radio programme, before the concept was adapted for television.
Gordon Angus Deayton is an English actor, writer, musician, comedian, and broadcaster. He was the original presenter of the satirical panel game Have I Got News for You and the host of British panel show Would I Lie to You? from 2007 to 2008, and a regular cast member of the David Renwick sitcom One Foot in the Grave from 1990 until 2000. He also played George Windsor in the final three series of Waterloo Road.
Jonathan Stephen Ross is an English broadcaster, film critic, comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He presented the BBC One chat show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross during the 2000s, hosted his own radio show on BBC Radio 2 from 1999 to 2010, and served as film critic and presenter of the Film programme. After leaving the BBC in 2011, Ross began hosting his comedy chat show The Jonathan Ross Show on ITV. Other regular roles have included being a panellist on the comedy sports quiz They Think It's All Over (1999–2005), being a presenter of the British Comedy Awards, and being a judge on the musical competition show The Masked Singer (2020–present) and its spin-off series The Masked Dancer (2021–present).
Hancock's Half Hour was a BBC radio comedy, and later television comedy series, broadcast from 1954 to 1961 and written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock, with Sidney James; the radio version also co-starred, at various times, Moira Lister, Andrée Melly, Hattie Jacques, Bill Kerr and Kenneth Williams. The final television series, renamed simply Hancock, starred Hancock alone.
Douglas Rodger Naylor is an English comedy writer, science fiction writer, director and television producer.
Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere special of the same name. The series follows three couples experiencing the ups-and-downs of romance, originally Adam Williams and Rachel Bradley, Pete and Jenny Gifford and Karen and David Marsden. As the original series progressed, the Giffords divorced and Pete married Jo Ellison, whilst Karen and David also separated, forming relationships with Mark Cubitt and Robyn Duff.
The Vicar of Dibley is a British sitcom which originally ran on BBC One from 10 November 1994 to 1 January 2000, and then intermittently from 25 December 2004 to 23 December 2020. It is set in a fictional small Oxfordshire village called Dibley, which is assigned a female vicar following the 1992 changes in the Church of England that permitted the ordination of women.
Vic and Bob, also known as Reeves and Mortimer, are a British double act consisting of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer. They have written and starred in several comedy programmes on British television since 1990, with Reeves having made his first TV appearance in 1986.
Susan Elizabeth Perkins is an English actress, broadcaster, comedian, presenter and writer. Originally coming to prominence through her comedy partnership with Mel Giedroyc in Mel and Sue, she has since become best known as a radio broadcaster and television presenter, notably of The Great British Bake Off (2010–2016), Insert Name Here (2016–2019) and Just a Minute on BBC Radio 4.
Patrick Sharpin, known professionally as Pat Sharp, is an English radio, television presenter and DJ. In the UK, he is known mainly for his work on the children's ITV programme Fun House, and his extensive radio career. In mainland Europe, he was better known in the 1980s as one of the Sky Channel's VJs and for presenting Coca-Cola Eurochart Top 50 and Nescafé UK Top 50.
Nebulous is a post-apocalyptic science fiction comedy radio show written by Graham Duff and produced by Ted Dowd from Baby Cow Productions; it is directed by Nicholas Briggs. The series premiered in the United Kingdom on BBC Radio 4. Set in the year 2099 AD, the show focuses on the adventures of the eponymous Professor Nebulous, director of operations for the eco-troubleshooting team KENT (the Key Environmental Non-Judgmental Taskforce) as they combat various catastrophes and try to set the world back on the right path following a worldwide environmental disaster known as "The Withering". As well as being a parody of a number of famous science fiction programmes, including Doctor Who, Quatermass and Doomwatch, Nebulous is considered a cult radio programme, attracting a number of guest appearances from famous actors.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy radio series written by Douglas Adams. It was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Radio 4 in 1978, and afterwards the BBC World Service, National Public Radio in the US and CBC Radio in Canada. The series was the first radio comedy programme to be produced in stereo, and was innovative in its use of music and sound effects, winning a number of awards.
The Royal Canadian Air Farce was a comedy troupe that was active from 1973 to 2019. It is best known for their various Canadian Broadcasting Corporation series, first on CBC Radio and later on CBC Television. Although their weekly radio series ended in 1997 and their television series ended in 2008, the troupe produced annual New Year's Eve specials on CBC Television until 2019. CBC announced that, due to budgetary constraints, the special scheduled to air on December 30, 2019 would be the final in the series.
Just a Minute is a BBC Radio 4 radio comedy panel game, hosted by Sue Perkins since 2021. For more than fifty years, with a few exceptions, the programme was hosted by Nicholas Parsons. Throughout that time, Parsons appeared on every show, though occasionally as a panellist rather than as chairman. Following Parsons' death, Perkins assumed the host's chair permanently, starting with the 87th series. Just a Minute was first transmitted on Radio 4 on 22 December 1967, three months after the station's launch. The programme won a Gold Sony Radio Academy Award in 2003.
Newsjack was a British satirical sketch show which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra between 2009 and 2021. It was hosted by Miles Jupp, Justin Edwards, Romesh Ranganathan (2014), Nish Kumar (2015-2016), Angela Barnes (2017-2018) and Kiri Pritchard-McLean (2019-2021). It was first broadcast on 4 June 2009. The series was notable for having an "Open door" policy on writing, advertising itself as "the scrapbook sketch show written entirely by the Great British public" meaning that unsolicited writers without contract to the BBC could send in material. The show was designed to give new writers an opportunity to get material broadcast. It was hoped by the people behind the show that it would be a modern version of Week Ending, an earlier sketch show which also accepted material the same way. Most shows were recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House.
Little Crackers is a British Christmas comedy-drama that was broadcast on Sky1. It consists of a series of short films featuring stars of British and Irish comedy, including Stephen Fry, Catherine Tate, Chris O'Dowd, Kathy Burke, Victoria Wood, and Bill Bailey. According to Sky Television, the show marked the start of their biggest investment in British comedy during Sky1's twenty-year history. The success of the first series led Sky to renew the show for a second series, which began airing on 18 December 2011. The comedians involved in the second series included Harry Hill, Sheridan Smith, Sanjeev Bhaskar, John Bishop, Shappi Khorsandi and Jack Whitehall.
Make 'Em Laugh is an Irish comedy studio series hosted by Gay Byrne who had just retired from presenting The Late Late Show - which after The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson in the USA ended, became the longest-running live studio chat show on broadcast TV. The clip show aired for one series in 1999 and featured Byrne taking a look at some classic comedy moments from the RTÉ Archives. The idea was initially developed by EP John Masterson who brought in established comedy producer and writer Billy (Magra) McGrath to drive the content. Ironically Magra/McGrath had performed on The Late Late Show in 1981 as Ireland's 1st alternative comedian but the show was wiped. The title and the title music were derived from the song performed by Donald O’Connor in the classic Hollywood movie 'Singin' in the Rain'. In the year's Top 20 'most-watched Programmes of the Year poll Make "Em Laugh was at No.7 which amplified both the popularity of the series and also Gay Byrne's legendary box office appeal. This series spawned a plethora of similar TV ideas trawling the RTE Archives with the latest copycat idea still airing in 2019 hosted by Pat Shortt. Late McGrath went on to become RTE's 1st ever Commissioning Editor of Entertainment (2000-2002) before emerging as one of Ireland's most successful format creators and, with his company Sideline Productions, Ireland's biggest radio comedy producer.
Taskmaster is a British comedy panel game show created by comedian and musician Alex Horne and presented by both Horne and Greg Davies. In the programme, a group of five celebrities – mainly comedians – attempt to complete a series of challenges, with Horne acting as umpire in each challenge, and Davies judging the work and awarding points based on contestants' performances. The concept for the programme was first created by Horne for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2010; he later secured a deal with Dave to adapt it for television, with the first episode premiering in 2015. After the ninth series in 2019, the programme was acquired by Channel 4, who commissioned six new series to be broadcast over the following three years.