A surreal sketch comedy series dispensing with punchlines in favour of whimsical scenarios.
This six-part BBC sketch series presented a collection of surreal and often unconnected comic scenarios. The core cast of performers, Eleanor Bron, John Bird, and Derek Fowlds, appeared in a variety of roles. Sketches were constructed around curious situations: Bron disrupts a dinner party by behaving like a cat, Bird engages a dehydrated woman in trivial upper-class conversation in the desert, and a musical piece frames a story in which a masseuse fears her new client might be her long-lost son.
Coming in the wake of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, this series was a clear attempt to push the sketch format into more whimsical, less frantic territory. The writing, primarily from Eleanor Bron and John Fortune, rejected traditional punchlines. Instead, the humour was built on awkward social observation and surreal non-sequiturs, signalled from the start by the curious opening title sequence of an egg-timer filled with eggs. While the programme never achieved the cultural permanence of its influences, it provided an excellent platform for its performers. Bron’s talent for inhabiting detailed comic characters was particularly well served by the material.
Broadcast: BBC Two, 6 Episodes, Thursdays, 2 January – 6 February 1975
Written by: Eleanor Bron and John Fortune
Additional Material by: John Bird
Music by: Carl Davis
Director: Gareth Gwenlan
Producer: Robert Chetwyn
Main Cast: Eleanor Bron, John Bird, Derek Fowlds
