Career
Born in Lowestoft, Marshall attended Fen Park School and then Lowestoft Grammar School, and afterwards Borough Road College where he studied mathematics and psychology. Around the same time, he worked regularly on Radio 4's Week Ending , together with David Renwick, Douglas Adams, Alistair Beaton, John Lloyd, Simon Brett and others. Shortly afterwards he began writing The Burkiss Way with David Renwick and John Mason (who later dropped out to go to acting school). Renwick and Marshall remained scriptwriting partners for many years.
Brought by Humphrey Barclay to London Weekend Television, originally to repeat his 'nursery slopes comedy' Do Not Adjust Your Set with End of Part One , Marshall and Renwick went on to write a series of television satires, including Whoops Apocalypse , Hot Metal and If You See God, Tell Him — the latter originally for Channel 4, but postponed for several years when the channel refused to let them direct it, and finally ending up at the BBC later.
They also experimented with a type of neo-Vaudeville style in The Steam Video Company for Thames Television, ultimately ending up at the BBC, writing, with Alexei Sayle, Alexei Sayle's Stuff . Along the way they also wrote the screenplay for a film version of Whoops Apocalypse and adapted Tom Sharpe's novel Wilt for a film of the same title.
After a tentative and unsuccessful attempt at solo writing with Sob Sisters at Central Television, Marshall found long-lasting success BBC One's 2point4 children , adding to it Health and Efficiency and later, Dad . He also found time to adapt Alexei Sayle's short story "Lose Weight, Ask Me How" for the series Spinechillers , in which Sayle also starred.
Having also contributed to Agatha Christie's Poirot on ITV, he next wrote drama with the telefantasy series Strange for Saturday nights on BBC One. However, due to scheduling issues, a one-year gap between the pilot episode and the series and the BBC's decision not to repeat the pilot before the series began, the series failed to find a large audience in its Saturday night slot and was not recommissioned for a second run.
For many years Marshall avoided publicity of any kind, explaining that "it's very bad for you" and cited his major influences as "Alfred Hitchcock and Walt Disney... which explains a lot." In 2005, he had a small cameo appearance on-screen in an episode of David Renwick's comedy-drama Love Soup on BBC One, alongside Renwick himself, as members of a sitcom script-writing team. He also appeared as a member of the critics panel on several editions of BBC 7's "Serious About Comedy" in 2006–7.
He later began a new collaboration with Rob Grant, producing directing and writing the Radio 4 Series "The Quanderhorn Xperimentations" - and also the novel version published by Gollancz. He and Rob Grant launched a Radio 4 sketch Series "The Nether Regions" as writer/performers in October 2019.
Dad is a BBC1 sitcom that ran for 13 episodes over two series and a Christmas special. Described by the BBC as a 'generation-gap comedy', it centered on the trials and tribulations of Alan Hook and his father Brian. Alan would often find himself getting increasingly frustrated with the endeavours of his father, whilst the world seemed to be forever against him.
Janet Ravens is an English actress and impressionist, known for her voice work on Spitting Image and Dead Ringers.
Alexei David Sayle is an English actor, author, stand-up comedian, television presenter and former recording artist. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement in the 1980s. He was voted the 18th greatest stand-up comic of all time on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups in 2007. In an updated 2010 poll he came 72nd.
Robert Grant is an English comedy writer, television producer and co-creator of the Red Dwarf comedy franchise. Since Red Dwarf, Grant has written two television series, The Strangerers and Dark Ages, and four solo novels, his most recent being Fat. During his career Grant has been involved in two distinct writing partnerships: the first with Doug Naylor, and the second and most recent with Andrew Marshall.
Chesney and Wolfe, were a British television comedy screenwriting duo consisting of Ronald Chesney and Ronald Wolfe. They were best known for their sitcoms The Rag Trade, Meet the Wife (1963–1966), On the Buses (1969–1973) and Romany Jones (1972–1975). When their partnership began in the mid-1950s, Chesney was already known to the public as a harmonica player.
The Burkiss Way is a BBC Radio 4 sketch comedy series, originally broadcast between August 1976 and November 1980. It was written by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, with additional material in series 1 and 2 by John Mason, Colin Bostock-Smith, Douglas Adams, John Lloyd, Tom Magee Englefield and Liz Pollock.
David Peter Renwick is an English author, television writer, actor, director and executive producer. He created the sitcom One Foot in the Grave and the mystery series Jonathan Creek. He was awarded the Writers Guild Ronnie Barker Award at the 2008 British Comedy Awards.
Whoops Apocalypse is a six-part 1982 television 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.
John Sparkes is a Welsh actor and comedian. He portrayed Barry Welsh, presenter of the HTV Wales series Barry Welsh Is Coming. He has also had major roles in Naked Video, Absolutely, Fireman Sam, Shaun the Sheep, and Jeff Global's Global Probe, and is the narrator of the children's television show Peppa Pig.
Carnival Film & Television Limited, trading as Carnival Films, is a British production company based in London, UK, founded in 1978. It has produced television series for all the major UK networks including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, and Sky, as well as international broadcasters including PBS, A&E, HBO and NBC. Productions include single dramas, long-running television dramas, feature films, and stage productions.
Alexei Sayle's Stuff is a British television comedy sketch show which ran on BBC2 for a total of 18 episodes over 3 series from 1988 to 1991.
Caroline Milmoe is an English stage, film and television actress best known for playing Julie in the first two series of Carla Lane's Liverpool-based BBC sit-com Bread and Lisa Duckworth in ITV's long-running soap opera Coronation Street.
Dennis Wilfred Davies, known professionally as Richard Davies, was a Welsh actor. He was probably best known for his performance as the exasperated schoolmaster Mr. Price in the popular LWT situation comedy Please Sir!. He used a broad Welsh accent for much of his work, but had used other accents to play a wide range of characters, in addition to several Welsh stereotypes.
Owen Brenman is an English actor best known for his role as next-door neighbour Nick Swainey in the multi-award-winning BBC sitcom One Foot in the Grave, which ran for ten years (1990–2000) and was written by David Renwick. He subsequently played Heston Carter in the BBC drama series Doctors from 2008 to 2018.
End of Part One is a British television comedy sketch show written by David Renwick and Andrew Marshall; it was made by London Weekend Television. It ran for two series on ITV, from 1979 to 1980 and was an attempt at a TV version of The Burkiss Way. The first series concerned the lives of Norman and Vera Straightman, who had their lives interrupted by various television personalities of the day. The second series was mainly a straight succession of parodies of TV shows of the time, including Larry Grayson's Generation Game and Nationwide. After being absent for the entire season, Norman and Vera make a surprise reappearance at the end of the final episode.
Felicity Jane Montagu is an English actress. She is best known for playing Lynn Benfield, the long-suffering assistant of Alan Partridge.
Hot Metal is a British sitcom produced by London Weekend Television about the newspaper industry, that aired for two series on the ITV network in 1986 and 1988, along with a special episode for Comic Relief in 1989, that was broadcast on BBC One. Written by David Renwick and Andrew Marshall, it is very much a continuation in style from their previous sitcom Whoops Apocalypse!. It was produced by Humphrey Barclay Productions for LWT. After its original transmission, the series was repeated in 1988 on Channel 4 and in 2022 on Forces TV.
Ormiston Denes Academy is a secondary school with academy status located in the northern outskirts of Lowestoft in the English county of Suffolk. It has around 1000 students aged 11 to 16.
Alexei Sayle's Merry-Go-Round is a comedy sketch show which ran on BBC2 for a total of 6 episodes over one series in May and June 1998. Edgar Wright directed the series.
Quanderhorn is a science fiction comedy radio series written by Andrew Marshall and Rob Grant. The first series was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Radio 4 in 2018, and a second in 2020. The series has elements that pastiche Nigel Kneale's Professor Bernard Quatermass.
