After Hours is a 2015 comedy drama broadcast in November 2015 on British broadcaster Sky 1. It is directed by Craig Cash, produced by Jellylegs and stars Jaime Winstone, Ardal O'Hanlon and John Thomson. It was written by Molly Naylor and John Osborne and is the first script they wrote for television. The theme tune was recorded by Babyshambles and is a cover of the Velvet Underground song "After Hours". The show is mostly known for its eclectic soundtrack which features bands such as the Pixies, The Smiths, Los Campesinos!, Hefner, Gorkys Zygotic Mynci, Bearsuit, Damon Albarn, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Modest Mouse.
The show follows an eighteen-year-old boy Willow (James Tarpey) and how he learns to cope after being dumped by his girlfriend Jasmine (played by BAFTA winner Georgina Campbell). He meets Lauren (Winstone), who invites him to join her and her friend Ollie (Rob Kendrick) on a late night radio show they broadcast from her boat. They play songs many people have never heard before, as well as artists like The Smiths, Tom Waits and The Pixies. Their radio show provides the soundtrack to the sitcom. At first Willow's mum and dad (Susan Cookson and O'Hanlon) disapprove, but they are won over by the infectious personalities of the two radio presenters.
It is the first ever television appearances of James Tarpey, Fergus van Gelder and Laura Woodward and reunites John Thomson and Craig Cash, who worked together in the 1990s. There are cameos by Caroline Aherne, Hollie-Jay Bowes, and Jaz Martin.
The show is available to watch on Now TV in the United Kingdom and on Amazon Prime in the United States of America and Australia.
Ardal O'Hanlon is an Irish comedian, actor, and author. He played Father Dougal McGuire in Father Ted (1995–1998), George Sunday/Thermoman in My Hero (2000–2006), and DI Jack Mooney in Death in Paradise (2017–2020). His novel The Talk of the Town was published in 1998.
Craig Joseph Charles is an English actor, comedian, DJ, and television and radio presenter. He is best known for his roles as Dave Lister in the science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf and Lloyd Mullaney in the soap opera Coronation Street (2005–2015). He presented the gladiator-style game show Robot Wars from 1998 to 2004, and narrated the comedy endurance show Takeshi's Castle. As a DJ, he appears on BBC Radio 6 Music.
Father Ted is a sitcom created by Irish writers Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews and produced by British production company Hat Trick Productions for British television channel Channel 4. It aired over three series from 21 April 1995 until 1 May 1998, including a Christmas special, for a total of 25 episodes. It aired on Nine Network and ABC Television in Australia, and on TV2 in New Zealand.
Anthony John Hancock was an English comedian and actor.
A British sitcom or a Britcom is a situational comedy programme produced for British television.
The Wind in the Willows is a classic children's novel by the British novelist Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. It details the story of Mole, Ratty, and Badger as they try to help Mr. Toad, after he becomes obsessed with motorcars and gets into trouble. It also details short stories about them that are disconnected from the main narrative. The novel was based on bedtime stories Grahame told his son Alastair. It has been adapted numerous times for both stage and screen.
Are You Being Served? is a British television sitcom that was broadcast from 1972 to 1985. It was created and written by David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd. Croft also served as executive producer and director. Michael Knowles and John Chapman also wrote certain episodes. Produced by the BBC, the series starred Mollie Sugden, Trevor Bannister, Frank Thornton, John Inman, Wendy Richard, Arthur Brough, Nicholas Smith, Larry Martyn, Harold Bennett and Arthur English.
Valerie June Carter Cash was an American country singer and songwriter. A five-time Grammy award-winner, she was a member of the Carter Family and the second wife of singer Johnny Cash. Prior to her marriage to Cash, she was known as June Carter and continued to be credited as such even after her marriage. She played guitar, banjo, harmonica, and autoharp, and acted in several films and television shows. Carter Cash was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame in 2009.
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.
The Royle Family is a British sitcom produced by Granada Television for the BBC, which ran for three series from 1998 to 2000, and specials from 2006 to 2012. It centres on the lives of a television-fixated Manchester family, the Royles, comprising family patriarch Jim Royle, his wife Barbara, their daughter Denise, their son Antony and Denise's fiancé David.
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 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.
Caroline Mary Aherne was an English actress, comedian, writer and director. She was best known for performing as the acerbic chat show host Mrs Merton, in various roles in The Fast Show, and as Denise in The Royle Family (1998–2012), a series which she co-wrote. She won BAFTA awards for her work on The Mrs Merton Show and The Royle Family.
John Patrick Thomson is an English comedian, narrator and actor best known for his roles in The Fast Show, Men Behaving Badly, Cold Feet, 24 Hour Party People, The Brothers Grimsby and Coronation Street.
Craig Cash is an English comedian, actor, voice actor, director and BAFTA award-winning writer and producer. His best known works are in the television shows The Royle Family, The Fast Show, The Mrs Merton Show, Early Doors, Sunshine and most recently The Café, Rovers and After Hours. Cash took over from his Royle Family co-star Caroline Aherne as the narrator of Channel 4's Gogglebox after her death in 2016.
Arthur Smith was an American musician, composer, and record producer, as well as a radio and TV host. He produced radio and TV shows; The Arthur Smith Show was the first nationally syndicated country music show on television. After moving to Charlotte, North Carolina, Smith developed and ran the first commercial recording studio in the Southeast.
Geoff Barron Lloyd is an English radio presenter, television host, podcast host and writer, best known for his talk radio and music shows. He is married to comedian Sara Barron and hosts the Firecrotch & Normcore podcast with her.
Cold Feet is a British television pilot directed by Declan Lowney. It stars James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale as Adam and Rachel, a couple who meet and fall in love, only for the relationship to break down when he gets cold feet. John Thomson, Fay Ripley, Hermione Norris and Robert Bathurst appear in supporting roles. The programme was written by Mike Bullen, a BBC radio producer with little screenwriting experience, who was tasked with creating a one-off television production that would appeal to middle-class television audiences, who the executive producer Andy Harries believed were underepresented on British television.
Dad's Army is a British television sitcom about the United Kingdom's Home Guard during the Second World War. It was written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft, and originally broadcast on BBC1 from 31 July 1968 to 13 November 1977. It ran for nine series and 80 episodes in total; a feature film released in 1971, a stage show and a radio version based on the television scripts were also produced. The series regularly gained audiences of 18 million viewers and is still shown internationally.
John Osborne writes books, scripts and stories for Radio 4. He co-created the Sky 1 comedy drama After Hours. He is based in Norwich, United Kingdom and studied at the University of East Anglia.
Molly Naylor is a scriptwriter, poet, performer and director from Cornwall, UK. She studied at the UEA, graduating in 2009, and remained living in Norwich for several years 'because it's so delightful' before moving to Sheffield. She is the co-creator of Sky One comedy After Hours.