Showing posts with label HARRY AND PAUL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label HARRY AND PAUL. Show all posts

Friday, October 26, 2012

KEEPING IT UNREAL! THE RETURN OF 'HARRY & PAUL'

Doctors in the house! Charles and Sheridan return in the new series of HARRY & PAUL. Images: BBC 

Deborah Meaden's worst TV nightmare-Harry Enfield's brilliant mocking incarnation of her entrepreneurial skills from DRAGON's DEN, as "The Grumpy Woman"- makes a well-deserved comeback, as the comedian and his equally lethal acting/writing partner Paul Whitehouse unleash new heights of humorous stupidity for a seven episode fourth series of HARRY AND PAUL sketch shows-possibly their final run on the BBC. (Thankfully, the earlier in the year rumours of the series cancellation proving greatly inaccurate.)

As well as the always funny and painfully accurate piss-take of DRAGON'S DEN, fans can also expect other old character favourites returning including the I Saw You Coming... antiques dealer, the frighteningly real The Benefits Family and those brilliant Harley Street Consultant surgeons, Charles and Sheridan. But what's happened to the luckless, loveless fool who used to visit the Polish cafe? Plus, Enfield plays a machine gun toting version of the Queen, there's a new duo in oily American used-car dealers Bob and Bob, and spoofs on THE KILLING (if only Sophie Grabol had made an appearance in this as well as AB FAB!), CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM, THE KING'S SPEECH and TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER, SPY, with special guest appearances from other comedy talents including Whitehouse's FAST SHOW buddy Simon Day, Victoria Wood (as one of the new Jolly Minor Royals), Simon Greenall, and Kevin Eldon as a gossipping 50's typist in what will surely be a MAD MEN-esque humour slaughter.

No clips available yet for the new series, and the Beeb's promotion of it in general has been somewhat lacking both online and on TV, but here's a few classics to get you in the mood:

"Harry & Paul" (BBC) insults Filipino domestic helpers! - YouTube
Ruddy Hell It's Harry and Paul - YouTube
Harry And Paul Dragons Den Spoof: Alan Sugar - YouTube
I Saw You Coming - YouTube


After an uneven third year run a few years back, we're hoping that this new series will see the pair back at the top of their game (interestingly, Enfield is also directing some episodes himself). The late slot given to the show by BBC 2 and BBC HD from this Sunday 10pm is annoying but at least we'll all have smiles on our faces before we go back to work on misery Mondays!


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Sunday, June 3, 2012

THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF HARRY ENFIELD

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.

Paul Whitehouse and Enfield as the truly horrific Old Gits!
Kathy Burke and Enfield as gruesome Wayne and Waynetta Slob, at the christening of their baby Frogmella!
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:


Enfield's ultra domineering and opinionated Frank always has something to say...
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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