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| Puberty blues! Kevin (Harry Enfield, right) and best mate Perry (Kathy Burke) in HARRY ENFIELD AND CHUMS. Images: BBC. |
There's no such thing as ageing gracefully when it comes to writer/comedian Harry Enfield, who last week (according to the DIGITAL SPY website) celebrated his landmark Fiftieth birthday. A true comedy icon of the last twenty five years, his brilliantly conceived, almost comic book like creations, whose bawdiness, cruelty and sometimes all out grossness, alongside characters of the kind you
might actually bump into on the streets within your daily lives (if heavily blown out of proportion!) could easily have sprung off the pages of classic laugh gems like VIZ magazine, with some often very funny spoofs of classic film and TV series to accompany them, have for the most part survived the test of time, especially those he's performed alongside other equally great comedy creative talents in their own right, like Kathy Burke and the later to realise his own series vehicle, THE FAST SHOW's Paul Whitehouse.
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| Paul Whitehouse and Enfield as the truly horrific Old Gits! |
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| Kathy Burke and Enfield as gruesome Wayne and Waynetta Slob, at the christening of their baby Frogmella! |
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| Due for the retirement home: terrible DJ's Smashy and Nicey! |
Puberty breaking teens Kevin and Perry (probably Enfield's greatest and most painfully accurate creations, who went onto star in their own very successful comedy movie KEVIN AND PERRY GO LARGE!), the sadistic and ultra-bitter The Old Gits, the irritating know-it-all "Only Me!", Liverpool's finest brothers, The Scousers, Wayne and Waynetta Slob (whose chain smoking, pizza eating and all round psycho behaviour was based on elements already starting to establish themselves in the real-life British slum consciousness of the nineties), twisted DJ's who "do a lot of work for charity", Smashy and Nicey, the Mister Chumley Warner public information films (a gut-bustingly funny parody of classic British black and white public information films) and Tory Boy (a truly revolting young Conservative politician that modern day leaders like William Hague and David Cameron probably hold their heads down in shame at!) have all well and truly established themselves firmly in the comedy TV lexicon as well as in the British public consciousness.
Some classic clips from the various series:
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| Enfield's ultra domineering and opinionated Frank always has something to say... |
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| Harley Street surgeons Charles and Sheridan have been excellent recent additions to the series. |
Having left and returned to the BBC during his ten year running comedy series rein, with a one-off, better paying SKY TV season in the late nineties that was only partially successful, Enfield, reunited with Whitehouse for the recent HARRY AND PAUL series of the late 2000's, which also bravely introduced tons of all new, mostly excellent characters, was abandoned by the BBC just when the series was getting funnier, replaced by the almost rival ARMSTRONG AND MILLER SHOW, which, in a bizarre twist of fate, was actually getting less funny as it went on. Go figure...
Let's hope it isn't too long before Enfield makes his return to the screens with some all-new projects and another mixing of old and new grotesques to tickle the funny bone...
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