Posts Tagged With 'Stephen ‘Pick A Buttock Up’ Fry'

TV Cream’s Puzzle Trail: Clue 7

Posted in A bit of business by TV Cream | No Comments »

A bit like the way Paul Merton always said the same joyless lines to introduce every single edition of Room 101, once again we feel compelled to remind you that TV Cream is in the middle of running its biggest competition yet: a puzzle trail set in Television Centre to find a mysterious valuable object.

Each day a new clue will be posted on the site that reveals the grid reference of a square on our map in which the treasure is not hidden. As the days go by you’ll be able to cross off squares until there are just two left – at which point the final clue will be revealed, and you’ll be in with a chance of winning a slew of prizes, including a complete set of TV Cream tie-in books.

Today’s clue is something of an enormous boon – and we’re always on the look out for enormous boons:

CLUE 7

Here is a shot from a sketch in the second series of A Bit of Fry and Laurie.

Assuming the four series of A Bit of Fry and Laurie are numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4, and the episodes labelled A, B, C and so on in order of transmission, today’s square has the grid reference that matches the episode in which the sketch featured in this photo was broadcast.

For example, if it appeared in the first show of the second series (which it doesn’t), the square you’d cross off the map would be A2 (A = first episode, 2 = second series).

Clue to the clue: it’s from the episode that has “a Paul Eddington in it”.

Now you’ll have to forgive us but we must dash - our wife’s just been towed away.

Read clue 6

Read clue 5

Read clue 4

Read clue 3

Read clue 2

Read clue 1 and download your own TV Cream Puzzle Trail map

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Blackadder

Posted in B is for... by TV Cream | 4 Comments »

SIMILING SITCOM beloved of Radio Times, and Only Good Thing in the career of Richard Curtis. For four series Blackadder (ROWAN ATKINSON) plus enduring cohorts Baldrick (TONY ROBINSON) and the other ones (usually played by a combination of TIM MCINNERY, STEPHEN FRY and HUGH LAURIE) brought “alternative” comedy to the mainstream. Words such as “wibble” and “Bob” were designated as funny and viewers were introduced to a legion of unseen but appositely named characters who happened to live in pertinently monikered houses, situated in relevantly titled streets based in aptly appelated towns (i.e. Thicky McThick of Thicky Manor Thickstreet, Thickton). The programme was just good enough to transcend the annoying fact that people who shouldn’t like it, did; but by its fourth series, BLACKADDER was looking a little tired with a recycling of plotlines and characters that made yet another sodding Dwayne Dibbly cameo in an episode of RED DWARF seem like a breath of fresh air by comparison. Famously the final episode concluded with everyone bar Stephen Fry getting blasted to smithereens while running across a BBC studio, but running very slowly to ensure they didn’t trip over a trailing camera cable.
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Bit of Fry and Laurie, A

Posted in B is for... by TV Cream | 10 Comments »
"I was sprawled in bed with Kathleen Turner and David Vine, when..." "Standards of accountability - ooh, I do like that one, I shall be using that in bed tonight"

FIRST DYNASTY, THEN SWITCH OVER TO BBC2 FOR FRY AND LAURIE. And so it once was in discerning households of a Friday night, as Stephen and Hugh brought us intricately crafted Oxbridge comedy, at turns surreal (“Par-pa! Par-pa! I haven’t done this for years”), stupid (“I stooped to pick a buttercup. Why people leave buttocks lying around, I’ve no idea”), satirical (“What do I think of John Major’s leadership? I’d welcome it!”) and saucy (“Yes, it’s called ‘England: A Nation of Cricketers’ by Ted Cunterblast”). Best topped off by that ace title sequence showing the duo walking into TV Centre, the series suffered from rapidly diminishing returns, before being upgraded to BBC1 for its fourth and final run – wherein IMELDA STAUNTON and JOHN BIRD rushed the set. Soupy twist.

"My husband and I read the Daily Mail. We prefer it to a newspaper" "I killed her because she said she wanted to marry Noel Edmonds. Until then, she really had been a model daughter"
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This is David Lander/This is David Harper

Posted in T is for... by TV Cream | No Comments »

SPOOF INVESTIGATIVE reportery with a heavy dose of ROGER COOK-chiding, reworked from Radio 4′s Delve Special which starred, as did DAVID LANDER, the delightfully shiny STEPHEN FRY in a blond wig. Earnest exposing of cover-ups and miscarriages of trivial justice that always transpired to be molehills not mountains. Titular David moniker passed, baton-like, to less appealing fellow Oxbridge simperer TONY SLATTERY for DAVID HARPER follow-up. Bob Wellings to Michael Grade on BBC1′s Open Air: “I saw David Lander and wasn’t very sure about it”…

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Alfresco

Posted in A is for... by TV Cream | 2 Comments »

As near to a red brick experience as any of this lot have hadGRAB BAG alterno revue, late in slot and long of trouser. STEPHEN “PICK A BUTTOCK UP” FRY, HUGH “SMELL?” LAURIE, BEN “ELTON BEN” ELTON, ROBBIE “BACK IN A JIFFY” COLTRANE, EMMA “BLARF!” THOMPSON and SIOBHAN “THE LINES” REDMOND arsed about out-of-doors on videotape instead of film. Not well remembered, or particularly well loved. By its participants, at least.

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