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 Rowan Atkinson January 13, 2006 1:03 PM

...thanks mostly to the success of Mr Bean (which, due to its lack of dialogue, was easily exported all over the world), Mr Atkinson is apparently Britain's richest comedian. Blackadder had a total of 4 series and 2 specials as far as i remember (BA's Christmas Carol and one they made for the millenium). series 1 wasn't that good, and most people say series 2 and 3 were the best. i just loved Baldrick's war poem in the 4th series - classic! one of his earlier shows, Not the Nine O'Clock News was a great show after Monty Python left the screens and came to the BBC shortly after Fawlty Towers. this also included the excellent comedy duo of Mel Smith and Griff Rys Jones, who went on to make their own sketch show called "Alas Smith And Jones" The Thin Blue Line was ok (and if you liked that, then you'll also like The Brittas Empire) but my favourite Rowan Atkinson character is Johny English. originally created for a series of credit card adverts in the 90s, English was revived a few years ago for a feature film of the same name. (links take you to the BBC Comedy Guide)  [ send green star]
 
anonymous Rowan is hysterical... January 13, 2006 9:00 PM

That man makes me laugh no matter what he is in. Watching episodes of Brittas Empire right now that I brought home from the library.  [report anonymous abuse]  [ accepted]
 
...cont. January 14, 2006 9:52 AM

sorry, i did not mean to imply that Brittas features Rowan Atkinson. Chris Barrie ("Rimmer" in Red Dwarf) is the star of that one, but the humour is similar. I recently watched Rat Race again and forgot how funny it is, i remember thinking it wasn't any good, but that's not true. Rowan plays an italian with an amusing and rare sleeping disorder (narcoleptic fits) amongst a star filled cast of characters racing to Silver City to win $2million, whilst avid gamblers bet on who will be winner. However, it is another film in which John Cleese is not funny. Possibily the last time he was any good was in A Fish Called Wanda. It just occured to me that Rowan Atkinson once did a documentary programme (or series?) about comedy, which explained how jokes are made and what makes something funny. I remember him doing several versions of "man slipping on a banana skin" to illustrate various effects of timing, humour, slapstick, etc and gradually building up to the "perfect" version which was funniest. He highlighted that comedy is a science as well as an art, which you can learn and be good at. One of the true masters of the "school of comedy", is the star and writer of The Plank, Eric Sykes, if anyone knows him. That film is a real classic. and as a final comment from my side, here is an excerpt from an old (circa 2002) interview with Ben Elton (who scripted things like Blackadder, The Thin Blue Line (TBL) and The Young Ones), which i think is quite relevant to this discussion group. Someone had trashed the Thin Blue Line and said that American comedies are better than British these days: As far as I'm concerned, TBL was very funny, which was its sole ambition. However, actually I think it dealt with a number of issues relevant to policing - race, drugs, police violence, in quite an interesting way. Perhaps you didn't get past the first episode about buying a birthday present for the Queen. Regarding Seinfeld. It is a brilliant show, as are most of the American sitcoms we see on BBC2 and Channel 4. However, there are many many crap sitcoms that we don't see. The constantly stated idea that their comedies are funnier than ours is based on the strangest evidence. We see all our stuff, and the best of theirs. They think our stuff is better than theirs for exactly the same reason. In America they ask me 'Why can't we have more comedies like you have?' There's only ever a few decent shows. In the last 5 years or so, the Americans have produced the likes of Seinfeld, Larry Sanders, Frasier and Friends. All brilliant. We produced The Royle Family, Ab Fab, The Alan Patridge sitcom - all equally brilliant. I think it's not about nationality, but about quality, and we do pretty well. Right on Ben!  [ send green star]
 
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