Britcom Goes To The Movies

Here at BritCom Goes to the Movies, we love each and every one of our listeners. That is why we’re giving you this Valentine’s present. Rob & Guy discuss their favourite British sketches of all time. To make sure there were no clashes, notes were compared before, duplicates removed, and of course, the arbitrary rule of no more than one sketch from one show per host. 

These two top-ten lists have a little something for everyone. A good mixture of styles, eras, tones, and formats. So settle in for nearly two hours of discussion of some of the greatest sketches in the history of British comedy!

Of course, there are some obvious omissions, and some of you may want to take to the socials to share your favourites or give us grief for ours. Both are encouraged! You can find links to every sketch discussed below, but of course, these are in no particular order to avoid spoilers.

Bit of a Chat - Peter Cook & Dudley Moore 

https://videopress.com/v/IBVjIA8I

⁠ Dirty Fork - Monty Python 

https://youtu.be/Z9VLwV48OHs?si=rYfeDwrAXXrrzwkc

Jackson Jeffrey Jackson - The Fast Show 

https://youtu.be/LwbJ-N8rrek?si=U0qdYsRvlkKwOF4r

Tory Conference - Not The Nine O’clock News 

https://youtu.be/qB0ZOu_EZ2M?si=lpBupRZ8w36a7Gsb

Billie Piper - Big Train 

https://youtu.be/4_3oU-Z4Vxo?si=Hva6PalUR40g82-h

Yoker - Limmy 

https://youtu.be/0YfRbNipdOg?si=ON_QecbOTrcnKXgs

Wedding Registry - Smack The Pony 

https://www.facebook.com/Channel4Homes/videos/1101703119964373/?vh=e&fs=e&mibextid=wwXIfr

Credit Card Application - Armstrong & Miller 

https://youtu.be/loaP46f8Lhw?si=7YILcGPHTANVCHxu

Vape Doms - Ellie & Natasia

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0c9983q/ellie-natasia-series-1-episode-4

Balham Gateway to the South - Peter Sellers

https://youtu.be/8RTWk9QIKS0?si=ABCE1fZbTsR3QgxG

French and Saunders - Silence of the Lambs. 

https://share.google/xvd7XeKyrdR2O0d2R

The Two Ninnies - not the 9 o clock news

https://youtu.be/IbC3Fdv5wKU?si=MPY4UulwEDyfBvZs

Adam and Joe - People Place 

https://youtu.be/s1myCos0xXI?si=Ge42ZkfXXHrTY-Xb

Goodness Gracious Me - Going for an English 

https://youtu.be/H-uEx_hEXAM?si=wG8IWxZzjWSL0KhG

Brass Eye - Oh Me Oh Myra 

https://youtu.be/wVibsNPXBx0?si=ySFCFVmy2LiMBtf_

Alistair Green - Punk Squirrel IPA 

https://youtu.be/-wP3BjTdogY?si=G_jh4OGM7Up8OMDe

The Peter serafinowicz show - Brian Butterfield diet plan

https://youtu.be/1NjTWvl8x-U?si=TSC31Jkk3JLvyFyK

Vic and Bob - BBC licence advert

https://youtu.be/xhPVP8cghN4?si=hasgqfSIRU8Gzy8V

Two Ronnies - Mastermind 

https://youtu.be/y0C59pI_ypQ?si=7krxJroa1tFKxi4X

Fast Show - Monkfish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_ohQ7yP0-I&list=PLu_1AWOleoaWWstu62EEnWzDGhOwo1GtD
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Merry Christmas to our beloved BritCom Goes to the Movies listeners!

Thanks for seeing in the festive period with us. This is our third Christmas episode, and while our previous two were a bit of a mixed bag, we’ve finally found a film we can all agree on: the 2009 classic, Nativity!

Writer and director Debbie Isitt was already the pride of the West Midlands theatre scene before turning to film. Her previous feature, Confetti, boasted the cream of British comic talent, even if some of the cast later tried to disavow the experience!

For her first festive foray, Isitt enlisted everyone’s favourite wise-cracking sitcom star, Martin Freeman, at a point in his career where he was firmly transitioning into a leading man. He’s joined by oddball comedian Marc Wootton as Mr. Poppy, Extras star Ashley Jensen and a whole host of familiar British faces, as well as an ocean of charming, non-theatre-school kids.

Joining Guy and Rob to discuss Nativity! (and Martin Freeman’s forgotten early-2000s sitcom Hardware) is writer and film critic Kat Hughes. Kat is the co-host of Movies with Mummy—the podcast where she and her daughter watch films together. But does Nativity! have what it takes to meet their high standards?

We also have the thrilling climax to our Quiz Season. With the scores currently deadlocked at 24-24, it’s all to play for!

So, join us for some "Ho-Ho-Hos" and a whole lot of sparkle and shine. Merry Christmas!

Bruiser - A Level Geography 

https://youtu.be/pHmcBFxgov4?si=pNC_rUWx7atIUPrU

Bruiser - Martin Freeman 

https://youtu.be/8w55vM3jwuA?si=Z3rgT1xTas8zMsxM

Robert Webb on Confetti

https://youtu.be/16xLrzEuLoM?si=uwIRD78sQFGSZ7YI

Hardware - Student 

https://youtu.be/EMDwINZmwp4?si=g68dvIPmkfsnx348

Hardware - S1e1

Dailymotion https://share.google/BACweRPsFHozyTy7o

Martin Freeman argues with Tim Lovejoy 

https://youtu.be/cqK-i6KSY88?si=Mmi2JUZ-5usxeNNW

Nativity! - Trailer 

https://youtu.be/6DaaTsSQktk?si=-tOiWjTSdavTjoaP

Nativity! - Sparkle and Shine 

https://youtu.be/dO6qmNNiAts?si=NUKNVKIv49MFZZir
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1991 was the year for beloved British comedy performers to try and make their names stateside.  We already heard about Rik Mayall’s experience with Drop Dead Fred, but the same year, Lenny Henry, riding high off the success of Live & Unleashed, was able to take advantage of a spot on a high-concept comedy caper vacated by Eddie Murphy (and others) called True Identity.



Were the Americans ready for Lenny? Well, as it turned out, no, they weren’t. But that wasn’t necessarily down to him, as we’ll find out in this episode. It was a troubled production with rather large amounts of meddling from Disney execs, throwing Henry and his director, the highly sought-after Charles Lane, under a bus. (One of those big American school buses, no doubt.)



For an American take on this British hope gone wrong, we invited the incomparable Tessa and Nicole from Doom Generation, themselves huge fans of British comedy, to join us and discuss not just this film, but Lenny Henry’s career leading up to it. New territory for the Doom Dames, who had never heard of our Lenny before.



there’s also the closest ending to a quiz series we’ve had, with the scores locked at 23-23, so join the four of us as we dive headlong into True Identity. 

Lenny Henry Show - Thriller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jfXzx1SHsY

Lenny Henry Show - Prince

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zmSn8tnJtA

Lenny Henry Show - Sitcom ep1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWcBsaWpQQY

EMF Unbelievable Andrew Dice Clay Samples

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QQCDE1Uy__c

Lenny Henry - Live & Unleashed Intro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3W17Z7ZTVM

True Identity - Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyHLV90D8pY

True Identity - Transformation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heP9g22t_m
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are a few entries from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant on our long list at Britcom Goes to the Movies, but we start with perhaps their least remembered and least successful offering, the period coming-of-age comedy/drama Cemetery Junction.

In contrast, the pair’s second sitcom offering, Extras, is in the annals of the all-time great British comedy shows. A by-product of a newfound celebrity and the connections it brought with it in 2005. Guest stars galore and a version of what might have been if The Office didn’t have the freedom to be itself.

Cemetery Junction was Gervais and Merchant’s first foray into cinema after Extras and is still the only film they have co-written and directed. Based on an idea they’d had for a 70s set sitcom, Ricky and Steve turned “The Men At The Pru” into a feature-length offering, with only small roles for themselves and focussing on the journeys of three young men in 1970s Berkshire. They made it clear as possible that this would be a departure and for audiences to expect the hilarity of Extras and The Office.

The result, it failed to penetrate the UK Box Office Top 10, but was that because it wasn’t any good? Stay tuned to find out what Rob and Guy made of it and a lengthy discussion about Extras as well.

Ricky Gervais on the 11 o Clock Show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl_gS0FsIsM

The Ricky Gervais Show - Monkey News - Russian Chat Show

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikvq0wZAFLM

Extras - Les Dennis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytDCab8ZoIM

Extras - Ronnie Corbett Bloopers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2FNaXLe_ro

Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant - Finding Leo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHdTve2PpeI

Gervais and Merchant on Mark Kermode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz3MTwufC5s&t=104s

Cemetery Junction - Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYDeHIszUqA

Cemetery Junction - Snork performs Cum on Feel the Noize

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTRyiNVl_G0
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We follow up a Goon-centric episodewith another Goon-centric episode! Hot on the heels of Spike Milligan’s Postman’s Knock comes Peter Sellers’ Two Way Stretch from 1960. A prison heist movie (our second after Get Santa), which has a little whiff of Porridge, just 15 years before.

This is our 50th film profiled on the main series, and we couldn’t let such an important landmark go past without enlisting the help of a very special guest. Step forward, Neil Mullarkey! Neil is a comedy writer, performer, and improv king with a big love for all things Sellers, especially this film, which he’d watched relentlessly as a child and young man. We also spoke about Sellers’ 1959 album Songs for Swinging Sellers, which came out just before this film and, of course, before superstardom beckoned with Dr Strangelove.

Join Rob, Guy, and Neil, who talk all things not only Sellers but also a cast with an abundance of comic talent, including Lionel Jeffries, Irene Handl, Bernard Cribbins, and, of course, Wilfred Hyde-White. Also, there’s the small matter of the quiz. It is now the business end of the series, and Guy still holds a slender lead.

Neil Mullarkey in 6 Pairs of Pants

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-ZkItmbFiQ

Songs For Swingin’ Sellers - Full Album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wogie3WEhwg

Two Way Stretch - Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3BOsDoG29w

Lionel Jeffries in Two Way Stretch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irnfVwdYv1Q
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices