Big Bad World | |
---|---|
Created by | Joe Tucker Lloyd Woolf |
Written by | Joe Tucker Lloyd Woolf Rose Heiney Kevin Cecil Andy Riley Jon Purkis |
Directed by | Sandy Johnson Tristram Shapeero |
Starring | Blake Harrison Rebecca Humphries David Fynn Seann Walsh James Fleet Caroline Quentin Scarlett Alice Johnson |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 1 |
No. of episodes | 8 |
Production | |
Executive producers | Ben Farrell Andrew Newman |
Producer | Kate Daughton |
Running time | 22 minutes approx |
Production company | Objective Productions |
Release | |
Original network | Comedy Central |
Original release | 21 August – 9 October 2013 |
Big Bad World is a British television sitcom which first aired on Comedy Central in 2013. Created by Joe Tucker and Lloyd Woolf, it stars Blake Harrison as Ben, a directionless, young graduate who returns to his home town of Great Yarmouth after leaving university. [1] [2] [3] [4]
No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | "Episode 1" | Sandy Johnson | Joe Tucker & Lloyd Woolf | 21 August 2013 | |
Ben returns home from university to find that his parents have knocked down the wall between their bedroom and his. He intends to find work abroad, but changes his plan when he bumps into his ex-girlfriend Lucy. He thinks he can win her back, despite finding out that she is in a relationship with a policeman, who proposes to her in the pub in front of him and his friends. | |||||
2 | "Episode 2" | Sandy Johnson, Tristram Shapeero | Joe Tucker & Lloyd Woolf | 28 August 2013 | |
Ben starts an unpaid graduate internship at his local pub and attempts to prove Lucy's love for him. | |||||
3 | "Episode 3" | Sandy Johnson | Joe Tucker, Lloyd Woolf & Jon Purkis | 4 September 2013 | |
Oakley attempts to celebrate his birthday with a day of carefully scheduled activities. However, his friends various preoccupations make this an increasingly difficult endeavour. | |||||
4 | "Episode 4" | Sandy Johnson | Joe Tucker & Lloyd Woolf | 11 September 2013 | |
Ben takes a stand against pub chef Dean over his frequent dry-humping of him, leading to Ben being falsely accused of sexual harassment in the workplace and having to attend a one-day course about it. A rumour spreads that Ben is gay. Beth improves her chugging performance by flirting with and giving fake phone numbers to new male donors. When one of them men tells her that the number does not exist, she gets a new SIM card in order to have a number to give the men. A mix-up results in her unintentionally telling all the men that she is in the pub, leading to several of them turning up there at the same time. Ben hides her in the walk-in fridge. | |||||
5 | "Episode 5" | Sandy Johnson | Rose Heiney | 18 September 2013 | |
Beth starts seeing an environmental activist called Sandy and Ben bets her that they will break up within the week. Meanwhile, Eggman suffers a life crisis and Oakley tries to rebuild him in his own image. | |||||
6 | "Episode 6" | Sandy Johnson | Kevin Cecil & Andy Riley | 25 September 2013 | |
To earn some extra cash, Ben volunteers for medical testing. Oakley introduces the gang to his new girlfriend - "Aunty" Pat - and Eggman is keen to impress local music journalist, J.J. Savage. | |||||
7 | "Episode 7" | Sandy Johnson | Rose Heiney | 2 October 2013 | |
Ben angles for a promotion at the pub and is given the task of managing a bring-and-buy sale. But the local crowd prove less than ready for his bohemian vision of a pop-up market. | |||||
8 | "Episode 8" | Sandy Johnson | Joe Tucker & Lloyd Woolf | 9 October 2013 | |
Beth wins 'Chugger of the Year' and invites Ben to the award ceremony in glittering Norwich. However, Ben is in a bind when he finally manages to win a date with Lucy on the same night. |
The show received a generally positive critical reaction with some mixed reviews. The Guardian praised the series as "a surprisingly engaging original series from Comedy Central UK" [5] and "a funny take on the challenges of adulthood". [6] The Metro said of episode 1, "So far, so promising. Harrison is adept at the whole man-child thing and he's surrounded by a convincing bunch of slacker, lives-going-nowhere mates, for whom a trip to Chelmsford is the height of excitement” [7] and later praised the show as "a clever and funny insight into graduate life". [8]
Criticising the show as being "marred by some unnecessarily post-Partridge moments", the Radio Times nevertheless said, "Big Bad World sparks into life when it stops trying too hard and forges its own path. Ben and Beth are easy to warm to, while Scarlett Johnson expertly cuts a diabolically fluffy figure as femme fatale Lucy." [9] DIY magazine praised the opening episode's "innate watchability", commenting that "Making us care for characters is no mean feat and creators Joe Tucker and Lloyd Woolf seem to have a plan to make us fall for Ben and his merry band of men and women. A few more episodes in to allow for everyone to settle in and it’s fair to say that the future is promising for Big Bad World." [10]
Sir Quentin Saxby Blake, is an English cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and children's writer. He has illustrated over 300 books, including 18 written by Roald Dahl, which are among his most popular works. For his lasting contribution as a children's illustrator he won the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. From 1999 to 2001, he was the inaugural British Children's Laureate. He is a patron of the Association of Illustrators.
Vanessa Jane Feltz is an English television personality, broadcaster, and journalist. She has appeared on various television shows, including Vanessa (1994–1998), The Big Breakfast (1996–1998), The Vanessa Show (1999), Celebrity Big Brother (2001), The Wright Stuff (2003–2005), This Morning (2006–present), and Strictly Come Dancing (2013).
Caroline Quentin is an English actress, broadcaster and television presenter. Quentin became known for her television appearances: portraying Dorothy in Men Behaving Badly (1992–1998), Maddie Magellan in Jonathan Creek (1997–2000), and DCI Janine Lewis in Blue Murder (2003–2009).
Jason Kent Bateman is an American actor, director, and producer. He is known for his roles of Michael Bluth in the Fox/Netflix sitcom Arrested Development and Marty Byrde in the Netflix crime drama series Ozark (2017–2022). He has received several awards including a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards. In 2017 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Comedy Central is a British pay television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated. This channel is specific to audiences within the United Kingdom and Ireland. The channel is aligned with the original US version of the channel. The channel started as The Paramount Channel in 1995, before rebranding as the Paramount Comedy Channel in 1997 and again as Paramount Comedy 1 in 2004 before finally becoming Comedy Central on 6 April 2009.
Reeson Wayne "Reece" Shearsmith is an English actor, writer and comedian. He is best known for being a member of The League of Gentlemen, alongside Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss, and Jeremy Dyson. With Pemberton, he later created, wrote and starred in the sitcom Psychoville, as well as the dark comedy anthology series, Inside No. 9.
William Robert Jolyon Turnbull was a television and radio presenter and journalist whose broadcasting career spanned over 4 decades. He began his career working for some radio stations including Radio Clyde and BBC Radio 4's Today. He presented BBC News 24 and BBC Radio 5 Live before taking on his most notable role as one of the main presenters of BBC Breakfast, a position he held for 15 years between 2001 and 2016. Later in his career, he presented the religious series Songs of Praise and game show Think Tank, as well as being a presenter on the radio station Classic FM.
Daniel Renton Skinner is an English actor and comedy writer, working in stage, film and television. Skinner often performs as the character Angelos Epithemiou, and is also one half of the Brian and Roger podcast.
Isobel Jane Suttie is a British musical comedian, actress, and writer. She played Dobby in the British sitcom Peep Show, and in 2013 won the gold Sony Radio Academy Award for her radio show Pearl And Dave. She also provides narration on the UK television show, Posh Pawn.
Lloyd Woolf is a British comedy actor and writer.
Alex Lanipekun is a British actor. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art but left early to join the cast of the BBC drama Spooks as journalist-cum-spy Ben Kaplan, the role for which he is best known.
Blake Harrison is an English actor. He is best known for playing Neil Sutherland in the BAFTA-winning E4 comedy The Inbetweeners and more recently as 'Medium' Dan, in the ITV sitcom Kate & Koji.
Jack Peter Benedict Whitehall is an English actor, comedian, writer, and television personality. He is known for starring as JP in the comedy drama series Fresh Meat (2011–2016) and as Alfie Wickers in the sitcom Bad Education and its spin-off film The Bad Education Movie (2015), also co-writing the latter two.
Scarlett Ingrid Johansson is an American actress. The world's highest-paid actress in 2018 and 2019, she has featured multiple times on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021. Johansson's films have grossed over $14.3 billion worldwide, making her the highest-grossing box office star of all time.
Janeane Marie Garofalo is an American comedian, actress, and former co-host on Air America Radio's The Majority Report.
Adrian Charles Edmondson is an English actor, comedian, musician, writer and television presenter. He was part of the alternative comedy boom in the early 1980s and had roles in the television series The Young Ones (1982–1984) and Bottom (1991–1995), which he wrote together with his collaborator Rik Mayall. Edmondson also appeared in The Comic Strip Presents... series of films throughout the 1980s and 1990s. For two episodes of this he created the spoof heavy metal band Bad News, and for another he played his nihilistic alter-ego Eddie Monsoon, an offensive South African television star.
Rob Delaney is an American comedian, actor, writer, and activist. He was the co-star and co-writer of the TV show Catastrophe, and has appeared in comedy films such as Deadpool 2 (2018) and Tom & Jerry (2021).
Christopher Ramsey is an English actor, comedian and presenter. After appearing in Hebburn as Jack (2012–2013), Ramsey began presenting series including I'm A Celebrity: Extra Camp (2016), Virtually Famous (2016–2017) and Stand Up Central (2017).
Joe Tucker is a British comedy writer, director and animator known for directing and co-writing the award-winning short film For the Love of God. He has also directed a number of music videos for Hot Club de Paris and, together with Lloyd Woolf, created and wrote the Sky 1 television series Parents and the Comedy Central series Big Bad World.
Badults is a British sitcom series created and starring the members of Pappy's, along with Emer Kenny, Jack Docherty and Katherine Ryan in the lead roles. Written collectively by Pappy's, the first series piloted on 23 July 2013 on BBC Three. A second and final series was commissioned by the BBC on 23 August 2013 for broadcast in summer 2014.