Roll Over Beethoven | |
---|---|
Genre | Sitcom |
Written by | Laurence Marks Maurice Gran |
Directed by | Derrick Goodwin (eps. 1–6) Nic Phillips (eps. 7–13) |
Starring | Liza Goddard Nigel Planer Richard Vernon |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 1 |
No. of episodes | 13 |
Production | |
Executive producer | Allan McKeown |
Producer | Tony Charles |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Production company | Central Independent Television |
Release | |
Original network | ITV |
Picture format | 4:3 |
Audio format | Mono |
Original release | 25 February – 27 May 1985 |
Roll Over Beethoven is a British television sitcom produced by Central Independent Television and transmitted on the ITV network in 1985. [1]
Written by the duo Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, the series starred Nigel Planer as millionaire pop star Nigel Cochrane, who turns life in a sleepy Surrey village upside down when he purchases the manor house, installing a recording studio in his new home and planning to record his first solo album there. He enlists the help of local piano teacher Belinda Purcell (Liza Goddard) to help him master the keyboard. An unlikely friendship – then romance – develops between the two as they collaborate on the album, much to the disapproval of Belinda's father, retired schoolmaster Oliver (Richard Vernon). As the series progresses, Nigel briefly leaves to go on a promotional tour of the album, while Belinda develops her talent for composing by working on an album of her own.
ITV screened all thirteen episodes in one go with a week's break in April 1985, but Roll Over Beethoven was in fact recorded in two separate production blocks. The first six episodes were directed by Derrick Goodwin, whilst Nic Phillips took over for episodes 7–13. [2]
In The Confessional with Stephen Mangan broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Nigel Planer revealed that he chose to go on tour rather than doing a second series of Roll Over Beethoven, bringing an abrupt end to the program.
Craig Joseph Charles is an English actor, comedian, television and radio presenter. He is best known for his roles as Dave Lister in the science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf and Lloyd Mullaney in the soap opera Coronation Street (2005-2015). He presented the gladiator-style game show Robot Wars from 1998 to 2004, and narrated the comedy endurance show Takeshi's Castle. As a DJ, he appears on BBC Radio 6 Music.
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.
Nigel George Planer is a British actor, writer and musician. He played Neil in the BBC comedy The Young Ones and Ralph Filthy in Filthy Rich & Catflap. He has appeared in many West End musicals, including original casts of Evita, Chicago, We Will Rock You, Wicked, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He has also appeared in Hairspray. He won a BRIT award in 1984 and has been nominated for Olivier, TMA, WhatsOnStage and BAFTA awards.
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.
Dawn Roma French is a British actress, comedian, presenter and writer. French is known for writing and starring on the BBC comedy sketch show French and Saunders with her best friend and comedy partner, Jennifer Saunders, and played the lead role as Geraldine Granger in the BBC sitcom The Vicar of Dibley. She has been nominated for seven BAFTA TV Awards and won a BAFTA Fellowship with Saunders in 2009.
Richard Michael Mayall was an English actor, stand-up comedian and writer. He formed a close partnership with Ade Edmondson while they were students at Manchester University and was a pioneer of alternative comedy in the 1980s.
Phillip Christopher Jupitus is an English stand-up and improv comedian, actor, performance poet, cartoonist and podcaster. Jupitus was a team captain on all but one BBC Two-broadcast episode of music quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks from its inception in 1996 until 2015, and also appears regularly as a guest on several other panel shows, including QI and BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
Liza Tarbuck is an English actress, comedian, and television and radio presenter.
Richard Gilbert Emery was an English comedian and actor. His broadcasting career began on radio in the 1950s, and his self-titled television series ran from 1963 to 1981.
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.
Belinda Lucy Lange, known professionally as Belinda Lang, is an English actress. She is known for playing Liza in the ITV sitcom Second Thoughts (1991–94), and Bill Porter in the BBC sitcom 2point4 Children (1991–99). Her theatre credits include London productions of the Noël Coward plays, Present Laughter (1981), Blithe Spirit (1997), and Hay Fever (2006). Her radio/audio credits include voicing narrator Madeleine in the podcast Wooden Overcoats.
Richard Evelyn Vernon was a British actor. He appeared in many feature films and television programmes, often in aristocratic or supercilious roles. Prematurely balding and greying, Vernon settled into playing archetypal middle-aged lords and military types while still in his 30s. He is perhaps best known for originating the role of Slartibartfast in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Other notable roles included Edwin Oldenshaw in The Man in Room 17 (1965–67), Sir James Greenley, alias "C" in The Sandbaggers (1978–80) and Sir Desmond Glazebrook in Yes Minister (1980–81) and its sequel series Yes, Prime Minister (1987).
Michael Cochrane is an English actor.
Louise Elizabeth Goddard professionally known as Liza Goddard, is an English television and stage actress, best known for her work in the 1970s and 1980s.
Second Thoughts is a British comedy television programme that ran from 3 May 1991 to 14 October 1994. It was broadcast on the ITV network and made by the ITV company LWT. It was followed by a sequel, Faith in the Future. Second Thoughts followed the lives of two middle-aged divorcees, Bill MacGregor and Faith Greyshott, from very different backgrounds trying to develop a relationship, despite the pressures pulling it apart.
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.
Miles Hugh Barrett Jupp is an English actor, singer, and comedian. He began his career as a stand-up comedian before playing the role of the inventor Archie in the children's television series Balamory. He also played John Duggan in The Thick of It, Nigel in the sitcom Rev, and appeared on many comedy panel shows. In September 2015, Jupp replaced Sandi Toksvig as the host of The News Quiz on BBC Radio 4.
The Adventures of William Tell is a British swashbuckler adventure series, first broadcast on the ITV network in 1958, and produced by ITC Entertainment. In the United States, the episodes aired on the syndicated NTA Film Network in 1958–1959.
Just a Minute is a BBC Radio 4 radio comedy panel game, hosted by Sue Perkins since 2021. For more than 50 years, with a few exceptions, the programme was hosted by Nicholas Parsons. Throughout that time, Parsons appeared on nearly every show, occasionally as a panellist rather than as chairman. Following Parsons' death in 2020, Perkins assumed the host's chair permanently, starting with the 87th series. Just a Minute was first transmitted on Radio 4 on 22 December 1967, three months after the station's launch. The programme won a Gold Sony Radio Academy Award in 2003.
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.