Throughout film, television, and radio, British comedy has become known for its consistently peculiar characters, plots, and settings, and has produced some of the most renowned comedians and characters in the world.
Alistair Charles McGowan is an English impressionist, comic, actor, singer and writer best known to British audiences for The Big Impression, which was, for four years, one of BBC1's top-rating comedy programmes – winning numerous awards, including a BAFTA in 2003. He has also worked extensively in theatre and appeared in the West End in Art, Cabaret, The Mikado and Little Shop of Horrors. As a television actor, he played the lead role in BBC1's Mayo. He wrote the play Timing and the book A Matter of Life and Death or How to Wean Your Man off Football with former comedy partner Ronni Ancona. He also provided voices for Spitting Image.
The Big Impression, known as Alistair McGowan's Big Impression for the first three series, is a British comedy sketch show. It features Alistair McGowan and Ronni Ancona impersonating personalities from entertainment and sport. Four series and a number of specials were made by Vera Productions and it was first broadcast on BBC One between 2000 and 2004.
Veronica "Ronni" Jane Ancona is a British actress, comedian, impressionist and writer best known for The Big Impression, which she co-wrote and starred in and was, for four years, one of BBC One's top-rated comedy programmes, winning numerous awards, including a BAFTA in 2003. Ancona also starred in the first series of the BAFTA-winning ITV series The Sketch Show. Ancona has appeared in the BAFTA-winning Last Tango in Halifax since its creation in 2012. She is a co-director, alongside Sally Phillips and Nick Hamson, of the production company Captain Dolly.
The Sketch Show is a British television sketch comedy programme, featuring many leading British comedians. It aired on ITV between 2001 and 2004. The show was first commissioned in 2001 and was co-produced by a company owned by Steve Coogan. Despite the first series winning the BAFTA Television Award for Best Comedy, the second series was cancelled due to poor viewing figures. Lee Mack states in his autobiography Mack The Life that the final two episodes have never been broadcast.
Mark McGowan is a British street artist, performance artist, film maker and public protester who has gone by the artist name Chunky Mark and more recently The Artist Taxi Driver. By profession, McGowan is a London taxi driver and occasional University speaker and arts tutor. McGowan is known internationally for his performance art including shock art, street art and installation art, and as a stuntman, internet personality, video blogger, social commentator, social critic, satirist, political activist, peace activist, and an anti-establishment, anti-war, anti-capitalist anti-monarchist and anti-power elite protester. He has 2 kids Under the artist name "Chunky Mark", McGowan entered the mainstream news in the early 2000s for his unconventional, satirical, sometimes comedic and/or ironic, and often absurd approach to public protest and demonstration. Chunky Mark conducted hundreds of performances in the UK and dozens around the world, stirring up some international attention, further debate on what "art really is", controversy; and both support and mockery alike from intellectuals, the art world, private corporations, the police, the military, the tabloids and the public. Often McGowan has not applied for police permission beforehand.
Robin Ince is an English comedian, actor and writer, known for presenting the BBC radio show The Infinite Monkey Cage with physicist Brian Cox, and his stand-up comedy career.
Galaxy was a short-lived British satellite television channel, owned and operated by British Satellite Broadcasting.
Thomas McGowan is an American actor. He first became known for his stage career both on and off Broadway. In 1991, he was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play for his Broadway debut performance in La Bête. In 2011, McGowan was chosen to step into the role of the Wizard in Wicked on Broadway. In 2014, McGowan starred in Harvey Fierstein's original Broadway play, Casa Valentina which was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play. Since then he has appeared in the Broadway revivals of She Loves Me (2016) and Kiss Me Kate (2019).
Cringe comedy is a subgenre of comedy that derives humor from social awkwardness, guilty pleasure, self-deprecation, idiosyncratic humor, and personal distress. A type of a cringe comedy are pseudo-reality TV shows, sometimes with an air of a mockumentary. They revolve around a serious setting, such as a workplace, to lend the comedy a sense of reality.
Brian Limond (born 20 October 1974), known as Limmy, is a Scottish comedian, author, and Twitch streamer.
Cathy McGowan is a British broadcaster and journalist, best known as presenter of the 1960s pop music television show Ready Steady Go!
Charlie Hanson is a British producer and director. His award-winning work includes television shows such as Desmond's, Chef!, The Big Impression, The Sketch Show and Whites, and the 2003 feature film A Way of Life.
Alex Lowe is an English actor, comedian and voice artist. He is the creator and performer of the character Barry from Watford on Steve Wright's BBC Radio 2 show and Iain Lee's shows, as well as also being the creator and performer behind the character Clinton Baptiste, originally seen in Phoenix Nights, as whom he has since toured.
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.
The Alan Davies Show was a short-lived radio program that aired from May – June 1998. The show revolved around Alan Davies playing himself as a struggling actor, and the relationship with his best friends Kate and Murray. The series also featured British actors Kevin Eldon, Dave Lamb, Caroline Loncq, Alistair McGowan, Debra Stephenson, and Kim Wall.
Geoff Atkinson is a British comedy writer and producer.
Rósa Arianna "Rose" McGowan is an American actress and activist. After her film debut in a brief role in the comedy Encino Man (1992), McGowan achieved recognition for her performance in the dark comedy The Doom Generation (1995), receiving an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Debut Performance. She had her breakthrough in the horror film Scream (1996) and subsequently headlined the films Going All the Way (1997), Devil in the Flesh (1998) and Jawbreaker (1999).
Tony Roche is an English television, radio and film comedy writer and producer, best known as a writer of the HBO comedy Veep, the BBC Television series The Thick of It and its film spin-off In the Loop.
Macgowania is an extinct genus of parvipelvian ichthyosaur known from British Columbia of Canada.
