Monkman & Seagull's Genius Guide to Britain

Last updated

Monkman & Seagull's Genius Guide to Britain
Monkman & Seagull's Genius Guide to Britain.jpg
Genre Road trip
Directed bySamuel Palmer
Presented byBobby Seagull, Eric Monkman
Country of originUnited Kingdom
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes4
Production
Executive producersSimon Dickson, Lorraine Charker-Phillips
ProducerMerle Currie
Production companyLabel1 Television Ltd
Release
Original network BBC 2
Original release17 September (2018-09-17) 
8 October 2018 (2018-10-08)
Related

Monkman & Seagull's Genius Guide to Britain is a BBC documentary series presented by Eric Monkman and Bobby Seagull, a duo who met as rivals on the quiz programme University Challenge and became friends, coauthors and radio-show co-hosts. The show is a road trip around the United Kingdom and focuses on British scientific and technological ingenuity and has a voiceover supplied by Simon Callow.

Contents

The show aired in September and October 2018 and was recommissioned for a second series which became a new series Monkman & Seagull’s Genius Adventures , which was broadcast in three 60 minute episodes in May 2020. [1]

Episodes

No.Title [2] Directed by [2] Original air date [3] UK viewers
(millions) [4]
1"England"Samuel Palmer17 September 2018 (2018-09-17)1.81

2"Wales"Samuel Palmer24 September 2018 (2018-09-24)1.58

3"Northern Ireland"Samuel Palmer1 October 2018 (2018-10-01)N/A (<1.59) [lower-alpha 1]

4"Scotland"Samuel Palmer8 October 2018 (2018-10-08)N/A (<1.69) [lower-alpha 1]

Reception

Sarah Hughes in i called the series "entertaining, eccentric, and well-informed" and praised the pair's unforced eccentricity and natural rapport. [5]

Rebecca Nicholson in The Guardian also praised the warmth and appeal of their friendship but said that the show felt a bit "skittish" by not staying at locations for long enough. [6]

In The Evening Standard , Katie Law said there was insufficient chemistry between them and that none of their observations is especially nuanced or perceptive. [7]

Notes

  1. 1 2 Not reported in the weekly top 15 programmes for four-screen viewer ratings.

Related Research Articles

<i>University Challenge</i> British quiz television series

University Challenge is a British television quiz programme which first aired in 1962. University Challenge aired for 913 episodes on ITV from 21 September 1962 to 31 December 1987, presented by quizmaster Bamber Gascoigne. The BBC revived the programme on 21 September 1994, the programme's 32nd anniversary, with Jeremy Paxman as the quizmaster. Paxman relinquished his role as host following the conclusion of the 52nd series in 2023, after which he was succeeded by Amol Rajan. In October 2022, an ITV documentary, Paxman: Putting Up With Parkinson's, explored how Parkinson's disease has impacted him and revealed that Paxman recorded his very last episode of University Challenge on 15 October 2022, which aired on 29 May 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Davis</span> English actress

Julia Charlotte L. Davis is an English actress, comedian, director and writer. She is known for writing and starring in the BBC Three comedy Nighty Night (2004–2005) and the comedies Hunderby (2012–2015) and Camping (2016), which she also directed. Davis has been noted by critics for creating boundary-pushing black comedy that centres female anti-hero characters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Tate</span> English actress, comedian and writer (born 1969)

Catherine Jane Ford, known professionally as Catherine Tate, is an English actress, comedian and writer. She has won numerous awards for her work on the BBC sketch comedy series The Catherine Tate Show (2004–2007), as well as being nominated for an International Emmy Award and seven BAFTAs. Tate played Donna Noble in the 2006 Christmas special of Doctor Who, and later reprised her role, becoming the Tenth Doctor's regular companion for the fourth series in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julian Dutton</span> British comedian

Julian Dutton is an English comedy writer and performer, principally for television and radio, whose work has won a British Comedy Award, a BAFTA, and a Radio Academy Gold Award for Best Comedy. He is the author of five books.

<i>The Syndicate</i> British television drama series

The Syndicate is a British television drama series. It was written by Kay Mellor and is broadcast on BBC One. It sees five members of a betting syndicate win the lottery. Each series follows a different syndicate. The first series is set in a Leeds supermarket; the second, a public hospital in Bradford; the third, a crumbling stately home near Scarborough; and the fourth is set between a dog kennel in Yorkshire and Monaco.

Gordon Frank Newman is an English writer and television producer. In addition to his two earlier series Law & Order and The Nation's Health, each based on his books, he is known for more recent TV series including Judge John Deed and New Street Law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Head</span> British actress

Emily Head is an English actress. Her breakout role was as Carli D'Amato in E4's sitcom The Inbetweeners and she later played Rebecca White in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale and Colette Andrews in BBC drama, The Syndicate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sara Pascoe</span> English comedian, presenter and writer

Sara Patricia Pascoe is an English actress, comedian, presenter and writer. She has appeared on television programmes including 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown for Channel 4, QI for BBC and Taskmaster for the digital channel Dave.

Diane Morgan is an English actress, comedian, television presenter, and writer. She is best known for playing Philomena Cunk on the review programme Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe (2013–2020) and in the mockumentary series Cunk on Britain (2018) and Cunk on Earth (2022). She played Kath in the Netflix dark comedy series After Life (2019–2022). Since 2016, Morgan has played Liz on the BBC Two sitcom Motherland. She also wrote and starred in the BBC Two comedy series Mandy (2019–2022).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Rinder</span> British barrister and television personality

Robert Michael Rinder better known as Judge Rinder, is a British criminal barrister and television personality. In 2014, while still a practising barrister, he began hosting the reality courtroom series Judge Rinder. In 2019, he also began hosting the Channel 4 series The Rob Rinder Verdict.

<i>Two Doors Down</i> (TV series) Scottish sitcom television series

Two Doors Down is a Scottish television sitcom, produced by BBC Studios. It was created by Simon Carlyle and Gregor Sharp, and stars Arabella Weir, Alex Norton, Doon Mackichan, Jonathan Watson and Elaine C. Smith as neighbours in a suburban street in Scotland.

<i>Strike</i> (TV series) 2017 British crime drama series

Strike is a British crime drama television programme based on the book series Cormoran Strike by J. K. Rowling under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The programme was first broadcast on BBC One on 27 August 2017, after receiving an advance premiere at the British Film Institute on 10 August 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Devil of Christmas</span> 1st episode of the 3rd series of Inside No. 9

"The Devil of Christmas" is a Christmas special of the British dark comedy anthology television programme Inside No. 9, and the first episode of the third series. It was first aired on 27 December 2016 on BBC Two. The episode was directed by Graeme Harper and written by Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. Stylistically, it took heavy inspiration from classic 1970s anthology programmes, such as Beasts, Thriller, Tales of the Unexpected and Armchair Thriller, and was filmed using authentic equipment. Pemberton intended the episode to be a recreation of this kind of classic programming, with critics characterising it as a homage, pastiche or loving parody.

Eric Monkman is a Canadian academic and television personality based in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bobby Seagull</span> Mathematics teacher and television presenter

Jay Bobby Seagull is an English mathematics teacher, broadcaster and writer. He appeared on the television programme University Challenge in 2017, and in 2018 on Monkman & Seagull's Genius Guide to Britain. His second book, The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers, was published in 2018.

<i>Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil</i> British TV series or programme

Inside Europe: Ten Years of Turmoil is a three-part documentary broadcast on BBC Two in early 2019. It covers matters affecting the European Union in the 2010s, and in particular Brexit, the European debt crisis and the European migrant crisis.

<i>Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing</i> British television show

Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing is a factual entertainment television show featuring friends Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse, both comedians. The show features Mortimer and Whitehouse reflecting on life after their shared major heart problems, while on a fishing trip to various locations around Britain. The series was first broadcast on BBC Two in 2018 and has been recommissioned every year since. An hour-long Christmas special was added from 2020 onwards The fifth series started on 9 September 2022. In 2023 a further two series were announced; the six episodes of series 6 will air in 2023 with series 7 being expanded to 8 episodes in 2024.

<i>Monkman & Seagulls Genius Adventures</i> Television series

Monkman & Seagull's Genius Adventures is a BBC documentary series presented by Eric Monkman and Bobby Seagull, a duo who met as rivals on the quiz programme University Challenge and became friends, coauthors and TV and radio show cohosts. The show is a follow on from their 2018 series Monkman & Seagull's Genius Guide to Britain, it is a road trip around the United Kingdom, time-travelling through a key 150 years from the Industrial Revolution to the Victorian era. The show aired in 2020 with a voiceover supplied by Simon Callow.

Lucia Ella Keskin, also known as Chi with a C, is an English comedian, actress, and writer. She began her career posting skits and videos on YouTube, before making appearances in comedy series including Big Boys and Sneakerhead. In 2023, she wrote and starred in her own BBC sitcom Things You Should Have Done.

Kit Monkman is an artist and filmmaker known for his work with KMA and for directing the experimental feature film, Macbeth (2018).

References

  1. "BBC - BBC Two commissions Monkman & Seagull for second series - Media Centre". www.bbc.co.uk.
  2. 1 2 "BBC Two - Monkman & Seagull's Genius Guide to Britain - Episode guide". BBC. Retrieved 4 June 2019.
  3. "BBC - Programme Information - Media Centre". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 1 May 2019.
  4. "Four Screen Dashboard". BARB. See relevant channel and week(s). Retrieved 14 May 2019.
  5. Hughes, Sarah (17 September 2018). "Monkman and Seagull's Genius Guide to Britain is entertaining, eccentric, and well-informed". inews.co.uk.
  6. Nicholson, Rebecca (17 September 2018). "Monkman and Seagull's Genius Guide To Britain review – nice enough, but where's the brainy swagger?". The Guardian via www.theguardian.com.
  7. "Monday's best TV: Monkman and Seagull's Genius Guide to Britain". Evening Standard. 17 September 2018.

Monkman & Seagull's Genius Guide to Britain at BBC Online OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg