Sir Terence David John Pratchett was an English author, humorist, and satirist, best known for his 41 comic fantasy novels set on the Discworld, and for the apocalyptic comedy novel Good Omens (1990) which he wrote with Neil Gaiman.
Sir Anthony Robinson is an English actor, author, broadcaster, comedian, presenter, and political activist. He played Baldrick in the BBC television series Blackadder and has presented many historical documentaries, including the Channel 4 series Time Team and The Worst Jobs in History. He has written 16 children's books.
The Unseen University (UU) is a school of wizardry in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy novels. Located in the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork, the UU is staffed by mostly indolent and inept old wizards. The university's name is a pun on the Invisible College, and many aspects of the university are references to Oxford and Cambridge University. The exploits of the head wizards of the Unseen University are one of the main plot threads in the long-running fantasy series, and have played a central role in 13 novels to date, as well as the four supplementary Science of Discworld novels and the short story, A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices.
Chris Barrie is a British actor and comedian. He worked as a vocal impressionist on the ITV sketch show Spitting Image (1984–1996) and as Lara Croft's butler Hillary in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) and Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003). Barrie starred as Arnold Rimmer in 13 series of the sci-fi space comedy Red Dwarf between 1988 and 2020, and as Gordon Brittas in seven series of the BBC leisure centre sitcom The Brittas Empire (1991–1997).
The Young Ones is a British sitcom written by Rik Mayall, Ben Elton, and Lise Mayer, starring Adrian Edmondson, Mayall, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan, and Alexei Sayle, and broadcast on BBC Two for two series, first shown in 1982 and 1984. The show focused on the lives of four dissimilar students and their landlord's family on different plots that often included anarchic, offbeat, surreal humour. The show often included slapstick gags, visual humour and surreal jokes sometimes acted out by puppets, with each episode also featuring a notable selection of guest stars and musical numbers from various performers.
The Comic Strip are a group of British comedians who came to prominence in the 1980s. They are known for their television series The Comic Strip Presents..., which was labelled as a pioneering example of the alternative comedy scene. The core members are Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson and Jennifer Saunders, with appearances by Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane, Alexei Sayle and others.
Susan Sto Helit, once referred to as Susan Death, is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy novels. She is the granddaughter of Death, the Disc's Grim Reaper, and has a number of his abilities. She appears in three Discworld novels: Soul Music, Hogfather, and Thief of Time. Being both human and supernatural, Susan is frequently and reluctantly forced away from her attempts at normal life to do battle with malign supernatural forces or to take on her grandfather's job in his absence. Death tends to rely on her in his battles against the Auditors of Reality, particularly in situations where he has no power or influence. As the series progresses, she also begins to take on roles educating children, so that, as Pratchett mentions in The Art of Discworld, she has "ended up, via that unconscious evolution that dogs characters, a kind of Goth Mary Poppins".
Hogfather is the 20th Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, and a 1997 British Fantasy Award nominee. It was first released in 1996 and published by Victor Gollancz. It came in 137th place in The Big Read, a BBC survey of the most loved British books of all time, making it one of fifteen books by Pratchett in the Top 200.
Death is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and a parody of several other depictions of the Grim Reaper. He is a black-robed skeleton who usually carries a scythe. His jurisdiction is specifically the Discworld itself; he is only a minion of Azrael, the universal Death. Pratchett explores human existence through his depiction of death, which became more sympathetic throughout the series.
Filthy Rich & Catflap is a BBC sitcom produced in 1986 and broadcast in 1987. The series featured former The Young Ones co-stars Nigel Planer, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson as its three titular characters. It was written by Ben Elton, and produced and directed by Paul Jackson, with film sequences directed by Ed Bye. The show's music was written by Peter Brewis. One series consisting of six half-hour episodes was produced. Despite the continuity announcer saying that the show would return the following year, only one series was ever made due to a fall-out between Mayall and Elton over creative control.
Richard Coyle is an English actor. He portrayed the lead role of Father Faustus Blackwood in Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and Jeff Murdock in the sitcom Coupling.
Brian Paul Conley is an English actor, comedian, singer and television presenter. Conley has been the host of The Brian Conley Show, as well as presenting the Royal Variety Performance on eight occasions. In his 40-year television career, he has starred in multiple award-winning television sitcoms including Time After Time and The Grimleys. In the West End, he has played the lead role in musicals such as Me and My Girl, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Hairspray, Oliver!, The Music Man, Barnum and Jolson for which he was nominated for a prestigious Laurence Olivier Award. As a musician, he has released five albums, including Brian Conley Sings, Let the Good Times Roll, and Stage to Stage. He has won numerous awards in his career including The National Television Award for Most Popular Comedy Performer, Best Live Performer in Manchester Evening News and a British Comedy Award.
Indira Anne Varma is a British actress and narrator. Her film debut and first major role was in Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love. She is known for her television roles, such as playing Niobe in the BBC and HBO series Rome (2005–07), Suzie Costello in the BBC series Torchwood (2006), Zoe Luther in the BBC series Luther (2010), Ilsa Pucci in Human Target (2010–11), and Ellaria Sand in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2014–2017). In September 2016 she began starring in the ITV/Netflix series Paranoid as DS Nina Suresh.
The Grimleys is a comedy-drama television series set on a council estate in Dudley, West Midlands, England in the mid-1970s. It was first broadcast by Granada TV for ITV in 1999, following a pilot in 1997, and concluded in 2001 after three series.
Terry Pratchett's Hogfather is a 2006 two-part British Christmas-themed fantasy comedy television miniseries adaptation of Hogfather by Terry Pratchett, produced by The Mob, and first broadcast on Sky1, and in High Definition on Sky1 HD, over Christmas 2006. First aired in two 1.5-hour episodes on 17 and 18 December 2006 at 20:00 UTC, it was the first live-action film adaptation of a Discworld novel. In 2007, the two episodes were rerun on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day respectively on Sky One and Sky1 HD.
Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic is a fantasy-comedy two-part British television adaptation of the bestselling novels The Colour of Magic (1983) and The Light Fantastic (1986) by Terry Pratchett. The fantasy film was produced for Sky1 by The Mob, a small British studio, starring David Jason, Sean Astin, Tim Curry, and Christopher Lee as the voice of Death. Vadim Jean both adapted the screenplay from Pratchett's original novels, and served as director.
Unseen Academicals is the 37th novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. The novel satirises football, and features Mustrum Ridcully setting up an Unseen University football team, with the Librarian in goal. It includes new details about "below stairs" life at the university. The book introduces several new characters, including Trevor Likely, a street urchin with a wonderful talent for kicking a tin can; Glenda Sugarbean, a maker of "jolly good" pies; Juliet Stollop, a dim but beautiful young woman who might just turn out to be the greatest fashion model there has ever been; and the mysterious Mr Nutt, a cultured, enigmatic, idealistic savant. According to the publisher, Transworld, the "on sale" date for the hardback was 1 October 2009 although the official publication date is 8 October 2009. Bookshop chain Borders included a small set of exclusive Discworld football cards with each book.
Discworld is a comic fantasy book series written by the English author Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat planet balanced on the backs of four elephants which in turn stand on the back of a giant turtle. The series began in 1983 with The Colour of Magic and continued until the final novel The Shepherd's Crown, which was published in 2015, following Pratchett's death. The books frequently parody or take inspiration from classic works, usually fantasy or science fiction, as well as mythology, folklore and fairy tales, and often use them for satirical parallels with cultural, political and scientific issues.
The Watch is a fantasy police procedural television programme inspired by the Ankh-Morpork City Watch from the Discworld series of fantasy novels by Terry Pratchett. The series, developed by BBC Studios for BBC America, premiered on 3 January 2021 and was released on BBC iPlayer on 1 July 2021.
Ed Hime is a British screenwriter and playwright, best known for his work with the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.
