Monty Python were a British comedy troupe formed in 1969 consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. The group came to prominence for the sketch comedy series Monty Python's Flying Circus, which aired on the BBC from 1969 to 1974. Their work then developed into a larger collection that included live shows, films, albums, books, and musicals; their influence on comedy has been compared to the Beatles' influence on music. Their sketch show has been called "an important moment in the evolution of television comedy".
The Goodies were a trio of British comedians: Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie. The trio created, wrote for and performed in their eponymous television comedy show from 1970 until 1982, combining sketches and situation comedy.
Victoria Wood was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director. Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life and included references to activities, attitudes and products that are considered to exemplify Britain. She was noted for her skills in observational comedy and in satirising aspects of social class.
The Rutles were a rock band that performed visual and aural pastiches and parodies of the Beatles. This originally fictional band, created by Eric Idle and Neil Innes for a sketch in Idle's mid-1970s BBC television comedy series Rutland Weekend Television, later toured and recorded, releasing two studio albums and garnering two UK chart hits. The band toured again from 2002 until Innes's death in 2019.
Neil James Innes was an English writer, comedian and musician. He first came to prominence in the comedy rock group the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and later became a frequent collaborator with the Monty Python troupe on their BBC television series and films, and is often called the "seventh Python" along with performer Carol Cleveland. He co-created the Rutles, a Beatles parody/pastiche project, with Python Eric Idle, and wrote the band's songs. He also wrote and voiced the 1980s ITV children's cartoon adventures of The Raggy Dolls.
At Last the 1948 Show is a satirical television show made by David Frost's company, Paradine Productions, in association with Rediffusion London. Transmitted on Britain's ITV network in 1967, it brought Cambridge Footlights humour to a broader audience.
Ant & Dec are a British television presenting duo consisting of Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly from Newcastle upon Tyne. After meeting as child actors on CBBC's drama Byker Grove, they performed together as pop musicians PJ & Duncan, the names of their characters from the series.
Warwick Ashley Davis is an English actor and television presenter. Active within the industry since he was eleven, Davis is one of the highest grossing supporting actors of all time and has the highest average gross revenue of all time. He played the title character in Willow (1988) and the Leprechaun film series (1993–2003); several characters in the Star Wars film series (1983–2024), most notably Wicket the Ewok; and Professor Filius Flitwick and the goblin Griphook in the Harry Potter film series (2001–2011).
Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus is a pair of 45-minute Monty Python German television comedy specials produced by WDR for West German television. The two episodes were respectively first broadcast in January and December 1972 and were shot entirely on film and mostly on location in Bavaria, with the first episode recorded in German and the second recorded in English and then dubbed into German.
The "Four Yorkshiremen" is a comedy sketch that parodies nostalgic conversations about humble beginnings or difficult childhoods. It features four men from Yorkshire who reminisce about their upbringing. As the conversation progresses they try to outdo one another, and their accounts of deprived childhoods become increasingly absurd.
John Du Prez is a British musician, conductor and composer. He was a member of the 1980s salsa-driven pop band Modern Romance and has since written several film scores including Oxford Blues (1984), Once Bitten, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990), and the final Carry On film, Carry On Columbus (1992). He contributed to The Wild (2006) soundtrack.
Darren John Boyd is a British actor who starred in the Sky One series Spy, for which he won BAFTA TV Award for Best Male Comedy Performance. His work in television and film spans comedy and drama.
Norman John Pace is an English actor and comedian, best known as one half of the comedy duo Hale and Pace with his friend and comic partner Gareth Hale. Both former teachers, they fronted several television programmes jointly, most notably Hale and Pace, Pushing Up Daisies, h&p@bbc and Jobs for the Boys.
Take Your Pick! is a British game show originally broadcast by Radio Luxembourg starting in 1952. The show was transferred to television in 1955, one day after the launch of ITV, where it continued until 1968. It was the first game show broadcast in the UK to offer cash prizes.
The Goodies is a British television comedy series shown in the 1970s and early 1980s. The series, which combines surreal sketches and situation comedy, was broadcast by the BBC, initially on BBC2 but soon repeated on BBC1, from 1970 to 1980. One seven-episode series was made for ITV company LWT and shown in 1981–82.
Monty Python's Flying Circus is a British surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam, who became known collectively as "Monty Python", or the "Pythons". The first episode was recorded at the BBC on 7 September 1969 and premiered on 5 October on BBC1, with 45 episodes airing over four series from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV. A feature film adaptation of several sketches, And Now for Something Completely Different, was released in 1971.
