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.
Throughout film, television, and radio, British comedy has become known for its consistently peculiar characters, plots, and settings, and has produced some of the most renowned comedians and characters in the world.
Mark Robert Bailey, known professionally as Bill Bailey, is an English musician, comedian and actor. He is known for his role as Manny in the sitcom Black Books and for his regular appearances on the panel shows Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You, and QI, as well as for his stand-up comedy work. He plays a variety of musical instruments and incorporates music into his performances.
Dylan William Moran is an Irish comedian, writer, actor and artist. He is best known for his observational comedy, the comedy series Black Books, and his work with Simon Pegg in films such as Shaun of the Dead and Run Fatboy Run. He was also one of two lead characters in the Irish black comedy film A Film with Me in It.
Graham Linehan is an Irish comedy writer and anti-transgender activist. He created or co-created the sitcoms Father Ted (1995–1998), Black Books (2000–2004) and The IT Crowd (2006–2013), and he has written for shows including Count Arthur Strong, Brass Eye and The Fast Show. Early in his career, he partnered with the writer Arthur Mathews. Linehan has won five BAFTA awards, including Best Writer, Comedy, for The IT Crowd in 2014.
British humour carries a strong element of satire aimed at the absurdity of everyday life. Common themes include sarcasm, tongue-in-cheek, banter, insults, self-deprecation, taboo subjects, puns, innuendo, wit, and the British class system. These are often accompanied by a deadpan delivery which is present throughout the British sense of humour. It may be used to bury emotions in a way that seems unkind in the eyes of other cultures. Jokes are told about everything and almost no subject is off-limits, though a lack of subtlety when discussing controversial issues is sometimes considered insensitive. Many British comedy series have become successful internationally, serving as a representation of British culture to overseas audiences.
Peter Szymon Serafinowicz is an English actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter.
Kevin Eldon is an English actor and comedian. He featured in British comedy television shows of the 1990s including Fist of Fun, This Morning with Richard Not Judy, Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge, Big Train, Brass Eye and Jam. In 2013, Eldon appeared in his own BBC sketch series It's Kevin. He has also appeared in minor speaking roles in the HBO series Game of Thrones.
Green Wing is a British sitcom set in the fictional East Hampton Hospital. It was created by the same team behind the sketch show Smack the Pony – Channel 4 commissioner Caroline Leddy and producer Victoria Pile – and stars Mark Heap, Tamsin Greig, Stephen Mangan and Julian Rhind-Tutt. It focuses on soap opera-style twists and turns in the personal lives of the characters, portrayed in sketch-like scenes and sequences in which the film is slowed down or sped up, often emphasising the body language of the characters. The show had eight writers. Two series were made by the Talkback Thames production company for Channel 4.
Tamsin Margaret Mary Greig is a British actress and narrator. She is known for both dramatic and comedic roles. She played Fran Katzenjammer in the Channel 4 sitcom Black Books, Dr Caroline Todd in the Channel 4 sitcom Green Wing, Beverly Lincoln in British-American sitcom Episodes and Jackie Goodman in the Channel 4 sitcom Friday Night Dinner. Other roles include Alice Chenery in BBC One's comedy-drama series Love Soup, Debbie Aldridge in BBC Radio 4's soap opera The Archers, Miss Bates in the 2009 BBC version of Jane Austen's Emma, and Beth Hardiment in the 2010 film version of Tamara Drewe. In 2020, Greig starred as Anne Trenchard in Julian Fellowes' ITV series Belgravia.
Robert Darren Popper is a British comedy producer, writer, actor, and author, best known as co-creator of the mock BBC documentary Look Around You, and creator of Channel 4's sitcom Friday Night Dinner. He also wrote the books The Timewaster Letters, Return of The Timewaster Letters and The Timewaster Diaries under the pseudonym Robin Cooper.
Richard Ayoade is a British comedian, actor, writer and director. He played the role of socially awkward IT technician Maurice Moss in Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd (2006–2013), for which he won the 2014 BAFTA for Best Male Comedy Performance.
The IT Crowd is a British sitcom originally broadcast by Channel 4, written and directed by Graham Linehan, produced by Ash Atalla and starring Chris O'Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson, and Matt Berry. Set in the offices of the fictional Reynholm Industries in London, the series revolves around the three staff members of its IT department: technical genius Maurice Moss (Ayoade); work-shy Roy Trenneman (O'Dowd); and Jen Barber (Parkinson), the department head/relationship manager who knows nothing about IT. The show also focuses on the bosses of Reynholm Industries: Denholm Reynholm and later, his son Douglas. Goth IT technician Richmond Avenal, who resides in the server room, also appears in a number of episodes.
Green Wing is a surreal medical sitcom starring Tamsin Greig, Stephen Mangan and Julian Rhind-Tutt. All the episodes were written by a team of eight writers working on every episode together. The writers are Victoria Pile, Robert Harley, Gary Howe, Stuart Kenworthy, Oriane Messina, Richard Preddy, Fay Rusling and James Henry. The series was directed by Tristram Shapeero and Dominic Brigstocke. The first series consisted of nine episodes broadcast between 3 September and 29 October 2004 on Channel 4. A DVD of the series was released on 3 April 2006. The scripts of the first series entitled Green Wing: The Complete First Series Scripts were released in paperback on 22 October 2006. The first series was received well by both critics and fans. The series also won several awards including a BAFTA, two Royal Television Society (RTS) awards, and a Rose d'Or.
Belinda Anthea Stewart-Wilson is a British actress who played Polly McKenzie in The Inbetweeners.
Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! is a sitcom broadcast on BBC Radio 4, written by Steve Delaney. It features Count Arthur Strong, a former variety star who has malapropisms, memory loss and other similar problems, played by Delaney. Each episode follows the Count in his daily business and causing confusion in almost every situation. First broadcast on 23 December 2005, Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! has had eight series and four specials. In 2009 the show won the Gold Sony Radio Academy Award for comedy, the highest honour for a British radio comedy. A television adaptation, Count Arthur Strong, premiered on BBC Two in July 2013.
Campus is a semi-improvised British television sitcom. It was created by the team behind the sketch show Smack the Pony and hospital-based sitcom Green Wing, led by Victoria Pile who acts as co-writer, producer and director. It is set in the fictitious Kirke University and follows the lives of the staff, in particular the power-crazed and callous vice chancellor Jonty de Wolfe, lazy womanising English literature professor Matt Beer and newly promoted senior mathematics lecturer Imogen Moffat.
Morgana Robinson is a British comedian, impressionist, writer and actress. She has appeared in her comedy sketch programme The Morgana Show, Morgana Robinson's The Agency, House of Fools and Very Important People.
Count Arthur Strong is a BBC sitcom written by Steve Delaney and Graham Linehan. Delaney portrays the title character in the series, a stage creation of Delaney's who has also featured in the BBC Radio 4 programme Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show!
