The Comic Strip Presents…
1 9 8 2 - 2 0 0 0 (UK)
37 episodes (various durations)
The Comic Strip Presents was a series of occasional
comedic films from Peter Richardson, Ade Edmondson, Rik Mayall and
friends. The team parodied almost every genre of television and
movies and provided some of the absolute finest British comedy of
the late 1980s.
Production values were high, all the roles were beautifully
played, and the shows were just damn funny. We're talking
side-splittingly, pant-wettingly, gasping-for-oxygen funny.
"I think we're halfway between a Carry On film and a
Joe Orton play," Robbie Coltrane told Radio Times in
1990.
While many thousands of words have been written about the Comic
Strip Presents TV films - mostly in praise but some vitriolic
in their scorn - it is likely that no better description exists of
these unique contributions to British TV.
All 37 films are distinct productions, self-contained from the
others, their dialogue stuffed with dangerous lines, their action
containing hefty quantities of seemingly gratuitous physical
violence.
By the same token, all the programs contain some wonderfully
funny dialogue, creative ideas and perhaps the most astute film
pastiches ever attempted on TV. Whether the results were good or
bad, to have missed a Comic Strip production meant that you
missed something of note.
 Financed by theatrical impresario Michael White - who presented
the 1963 revue Cambridge Circus in the West End, which led,
eventually, to Monty Python and The Goodies by way
of radio gem I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again - the Comic
Strip club had opened in October 1980 at the Boulevard Theatre in
London.
Like the Comedy Store before it, this was located within a
Soho strip joint, but, unlike that other and more famous venue,
what was staged at the Comic Strip was more like a show, with the
same personnel repeating nightly - and honing, all the while - the
same act.
The eight-strong core team at the venue comprised Alexei Sayle,
Arnold Brown and three double-acts: Mayall and Edmondson, Planer
and Richardson and French and Saunders. Peter Richardson was keen
to get the team on to TV, and was especially interested in using
film as the medium. After some ideas had been thrashed around,
Richardson took a list to Jeremy Isaacs, head of Britain's fourth
TV channel, due to open in November 1982, whereupon six films were
commissioned.
With the exceptions of Arnold Brown (whom Comic Strip TV
viewers never saw) and Alexei Sayle (who showed up in only six of
the 37 films), the six other protagonists appeared in most of the
productions. Added to round off the eight were Pete Richens (who
co-scripted a good many of them and had tiny roles in two latter
productions) and Robbie Coltrane, who had not played the Comic
Strip club but was brought in as a friend by Rik Mayall. These
eight formed their own production company, Comic Strip
Productions, with Peter Richardson the linchpin and driving force
of the collective.
The first film, the fabulous Enid Blyton parody Five Go Mad
In Dorset, went out on the opening night of Britain's Channel
4 (with "lashings of ginger beer"), and four of the
other films were screened soon after. Although capable of comedic
savagery, these young comedians steered clear of the traditional
areas of racism, sexism and religion to concentrate on more
general, social and political themes, albeit with an anarchic
edge.
Their TV success did much to rid the small-screen of the
outmoded and often downright offensive comedy that had followed
the liberalisation of the medium in the 1960s, although this in
turn coincided with (or possibly instigated) a wave of 'political
correctness' that swept through British society.
The films kept coming, at reasonably regular intervals, and
switched in 1990 to BBC2. All the while, the various players were
enjoying glorious success with other TV productions (The Young
Ones and French And Saunders to name but two) and the
'alternative' comedians rapidly became primary stars of the
medium. After a five year break, the team returned to the screen
(and to C4) in 1998.
 Stand-outs include Bad News Tour (how Spinal Tap
could have been made), Space Virgins From The Planet Sex,
and the zenith of Gin-soaked, Tom-Jones obsessed, cuddly-toy
massacring hilarity . . . Mr Jolly Lives Next Door, in
which Mayall (pictured at right) and Edmondson operate a male escort business from
above an Off License (liquor store). "Escorts, bescorts -
Come in if you're saucy!".
The duo inadvertently get mixed up with the mob when they
receive a large amount of money and instructions to "take out
Nicholas Parsons". Turns out the parcel was actually for
their next-door neighbour - Peter Cook as Mr Jolly, a rather
house-proud contract killer.
While produced in association with Channel 4, two Comic Strip
films were made expressly for the cinema. The Supergrass,
released in November 1985, and Eat The Rich! (October 1987)
were written by Peter Richardson/Pete Richens and directed by
Richardson.
Five of the six 1988 TV productions (all but Funseekers)
were also afforded a limited theatrical release in autumn 1987 but
these were unquestionably made for television.
The 1991 feature film The Pope Must Die, starring Robbie
Coltrane, written by Peter Richardson/Pete Richens and directed by
Richardson, was not made by Comic Strip Productions, however.
EPISODES
Five Go Mad In Dorset (1982) War (1983) The Beat
Generation (1983) Bad News Tour (1983) Summer School
(1983) Five Go Mad On Mescalin (1983) Dirty Movie
(1984) Susie (1984) Fistful Of Travellers Cheques
(1984) Gino - Full Story And Pics (1984) Eddie Monsoon
- A Life? (1984) Slags (1984) Consuela (1986)
Private Enterprise (1986) The Strike (1988) More Bad
News (1988) Mr Jolly Lives Next Door (1988) The Yob
(1988) Didn't You Kill My Brother? (1988) Funseekers
(1988) South Atlantic Raiders - Part 1 (1990) South
Atlantic Raiders - Part 2 (1990) GLC (1990) Oxford
(1990) Spaghetti Hoops (1990) Les Dogs (1990)
Red Nose Of Courage (1992) The Crying Game (1992) Wild
Turkey (1992) Detectives on the edge of a Nervous Breakdown
(1993) Space Virgins From Planet Sex (1993) Queen Of
The Wild Frontier (1993) Gregory - Diary Of A Nut Case
(1993) Demonella (1993) Jealousy (1993) Four Men
In A Car (1998) Four Men In A Plane (2000)
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