Bottom is a British sitcom created by Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson that ran for three series on BBC2 from 1991 to 1995. It focuses on Richard "Richie" Richard (Mayall) and Edward Elizabeth "Eddie" Hitler (Edmondson), two unemployed, crude, and perverted flatmates living in Hammersmith, London, who aspire to better themselves. Bottom became known for its chaotic, nihilistic humour and violent slapstick comedy. In 2004, Bottom was ranked 45th in a BBC poll for Britain's Best Sitcom.
Jennifer Jane Saunders is an English actress, comedian, singer, and screenwriter. Saunders originally found attention in the 1980s, when she became a member of The Comic Strip after graduating from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama with her best friend and comedy partner, Dawn French. With French, she co-wrote and starred in their eponymous sketch show, French and Saunders, for which they jointly received a BAFTA Fellowship in 2009. Saunders later received acclaim in the 1990s for writing and playing her character Edina Monsoon in her sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.
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 BBC2 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.
Christopher Papazoglou, known professionally as Christopher Ryan, is a British actor best known for his roles as Mike The Cool Person in the BBC comedy series The Young Ones, Dave Hedgehog in the BBC comedy series Bottom, Tony Driscoll in the BBC comedy series Only Fools and Horses, and as Edina Monsoon's ex-husband Marshall Turtle in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. He has also appeared as the McKendrick twins in One Foot in the Grave, and in Doctor Who played the Mentor Kiv in Trial of a Time Lord in 1986 and Sontaran General Staal in 2008 and 2010.
The Pope Must Die is a 1991 British Catholic Church comedy film directed by Peter Richardson, who also wrote the screenplay with Pete Richens derived from elements of an earlier screenplay for a three-part mini-series satirising the Catholic Church, and which had been rejected by Channel 4. The film stars Robbie Coltrane as a low ranking priest who is mistakenly elected Pope, then has to avoid being assassinated by the Mafia. The film co-stars Adrian Edmondson, Annette Crosbie, Herbert Lom and Alex Rocco. The film was released by Palace Pictures with the backing of Channel 4 Films.
Richard Michael Mayall was an English actor, comedian and writer. He formed a close partnership with Adrian Edmondson while they were students at Manchester University, and was a pioneer of alternative comedy in the 1980s.
Peter Richardson is an English director, screenwriter, actor and comedian. He founded the Comic Strip troupe of performers, which showcased his double act with Nigel Planer and boosted the careers of French and Saunders, Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, and Alexei Sayle. Richardson approached Channel 4 to make a series of short, self-contained one-off comedy films with this group, which led to The Comic Strip Presents..., the majority of which featured Richardson in acting, writing and directing roles.
Bad News are a fictional English heavy metal band created for the Channel 4 television series The Comic Strip Presents.... Its members were Vim Fuego on vocals and lead guitar; Den Dennis on rhythm guitar; Colin Grigson on bass; and Spider "Eight-Legs" Webb on drums. The band continued outside the context of the TV series, with the actors eventually playing a number of live gigs as Bad News, and recording an album and a single that made the UK charts.
"GLC: The Carnage Continues" is an episode of the British television comedy series The Comic Strip Presents... broadcast on BBC2 in 1990. It parodied a Hollywood telling of the 1980s takeover of the Greater London Council by Ken Livingstone and the subsequent disbanding of that body by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, re-imagining the story as a Charles Bronson / Sylvester Stallone-style action movie. It is a spiritual successor to The Strike, which involved the creation of a Hollywood version of the 1984 miners' strike.
Eat the Rich is a 1987 British black comedy film directed by Peter Richardson, who also wrote the screenplay with Pete Richens. A co-production between Channel 4 Films, Iron Fist Motion Pictures and Michael White Productions, it features cast members from the popular television series The Comic Strip Presents....
Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door is a 1987 comedy film made for British television as part of The Comic Strip Presents... series. It was briefly screened theatrically in late 1987 and was broadcast on Channel 4 on 5 March 1988. It was released on VHS in the late 1980s, and became available on DVD when the entire Comic Strip Presents... series was released as a box set in the UK in June 2005. It has also been repeated occasionally on the Paramount Comedy Channel.
20th Century Coyote was an English comedy group noted for first uniting Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall. Formed by Lloyd Peters in March 1976 whilst studying B.A. Drama at Manchester University, this improvisatory character-led comedy troupe was to become the resident company at the Band on the Wall music venue in Manchester. Peters recruited fellow drama student Rik Mayall principally because they shared the same off-beat humour – anarchic slapstick mixed with a large dose of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Two further drama students were recruited from the year below, and, in October 1976, Adrian Edmondson joined, to appear in Coyote's first improv-based comedy entitled "Dead Funny" (1976). Six other shows followed before an Edinburgh Festival Fringe spin-off. The 40-minute live shows were self-contained narratives based on standard comedy templates, modified by improvisation and re-improvised in performance. The shows were often loud, crude and grotesque. The group was important in that its techniques and the lasting influence of character-led sketch and "improv" comedy helped shape a distinctive brand of "alternative comedy" in the 1970s and 1980s that would come to dominate the comedy mainstream.
The Strike is one of the short comedy films – written by Peter Richardson and Pete Richens, and directed by Richardson – which made up the long-running Channel 4 television series The Comic Strip Presents.... First aired in January 1988, it also received a limited theatrical release, and won the Golden Rose of Montreux for the same year.
Five Go Mad in Dorset was the first of three Five Go Mad specials from the long-running series of The Comic Strip Presents... television comedy films. It first aired on the launch night of Channel 4, and was written by Peter Richardson and Pete Richens, and directed by Bob Spiers. It was entirely filmed in Devon rather than Dorset.
The Raymond Revuebar (1958–2004) was a theatre and strip club at 11 Walker's Court, in the centre of London's Soho district. For many years, it was the only venue in London that offered full-frontal, on-stage nudity of the sort commonly seen in other cities in Europe and North America. Its huge brightly lit sign declaring it to be the "World Centre of Erotic Entertainment" made the Revuebar a local landmark.
The Supergrass is a 1985 British comedy film directed by Peter Richardson, who also wrote the screenplay with Pete Richens. The film stars Adrian Edmondson, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith Allen, Nigel Planer, Alexei Sayle, Ronald Allen, and Robbie Coltrane. The Supergrass was the first feature-length film by the 1980s alternative comedy group The Comic Strip.
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.
Springtime! is a boutique entertainment company established in the UK in 1977 and based in the United States since 1983. The company's activities encompass film, TV, radio, record and stage show production, entertainment marketing & publicity and talent management. The company has produced and marketed audio recordings, films, TV specials and music videos. It is periodically active as a record company releasing its own audio productions and acquisitions.
The Hunt for Tony Blair is a one-off episode of The Comic Strip Presents..., a British television comedy, which was first shown on Channel 4 on 14 October 2011. The 49-minute film was written by Peter Richardson and Pete Richens and presented in the style of a 1950s film noir. It stars Stephen Mangan as the former British prime minister Tony Blair, who is wanted for murder and on the run as a fugitive from justice. The film received its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Television Festival in August 2011. It first aired on Channel 4 on 14 October 2011; it received a mostly positive reaction from reviewers, and was nominated for a BAFTA award and the British Comedy Awards.
