Worst Acting in a Comedy Episode

[Shaky]

Yep Linehan keeps going on about how much he misfired with the whole thing it's a wonder he didn't just can it after the first series . For some reason people liked it anyway

It's really not that bad. Quite a few decent episodes even if the hit-rate was wobbly over 4 series. Anyone who doesn't laugh at the "Street Countdown" episode is dead to me. I genuinely think there's a fair bit of unearned snobbery around that show, as there was with Black Books.

Morris was pretty awkward in it, though.

[SteK]

It's really not that bad. Quite a few decent episodes even if the hit-rate was wobbly over 4 series. Anyone who doesn't laugh at the "Street Countdown" episode is dead to me. I genuinely think there's a fair bit of unearned snobbery around that show, as there was with Black Books.

Morris was pretty awkward in it, though.

The two men both called John were bad actors I thought in the board game episode, and the guy who was married to Jen's school-friend in the FriendFace episode, he was useless....

[Barry Admin]

Did anyone mention the Danny Wallace cameo, where he managed to be really shit without even saying anything? Really quite impressive in a way.

[famethrowa]

The boat captain in the very first episode of Arrested Development. He seems to be not even an actor but a confused civilian with really obvious fake moustache and hair, but it apparenly he is someone who's been in movies and all. Can see him in the background at 0:45 here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqnyW131llE

[imitationleather]

The only good episode of The IT Crowd is the gay musical one.

[neveragain]

The boat captain in the very first episode of Arrested Development. He seems to be not even an actor but a confused civilian with really obvious fake moustache and hair, but it apparenly he is someone who's been in movies and all. Can see him in the background at 0:45 here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqnyW131llE

If I half-remember correctly from the extended version of the pilot, he's supposed to be in fancy dress (alongside a lot of other people on the boat) because George Sr requested it for some reason.

[mrClaypole]

Romesh Ranganathen in House of fools

[mrClaypole]

The one who replaced Julia Sawalha in Time Gentlemen Please. I had to stop watching the show because she was so bad.

Cracking pair of norks though.
Wasn't she in the Gavin and stacey xmas special as Smiffys new girlfriend?

[the science eel]

Grandaughter was watching a repeated 'Some Mother's Do 'Ave 'Em' the other day and the two young girls in the plot,that Frank Spencer has to take to the zoo,were both terrible. Either looking for the camera all the time, or looking generally uncomfortable.

They're no worse than Michele Dotrice in this scene, which is actually very funny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFVdFTBdAeI

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

In the episode of Frasier with Dr Nora, whoever plays her mother who shows up and rips into her on the air is shocking. Some terrible overacting.

[Wentworth Smith]

In the episode of Frasier with Dr Nora, whoever plays her mother who shows up and rips into her on the air is shocking. Some terrible overacting.

Right show, wrong actor. The worst is the guy who played 'Englishman' Clive, Daphne's ex-fiancee, in the first episode of series 4. Shame, as other than him the episode is great.

[Clownbaby]

It's really not that bad. Quite a few decent episodes even if the hit-rate was wobbly over 4 series. Anyone who doesn't laugh at the "Street Countdown" episode is dead to me. I genuinely think there's a fair bit of unearned snobbery around that show, as there was with Black Books.

Morris was pretty awkward in it, though.

No, not snobbery on my part. It does get me with the odd joke and I'm probably the only person on here who doesn't mind Richard Ayoade in it. The acting just pisses me off cause it seems like it could have been much better if everyone had just got the right vibe down. It just feels a bit tonally all over the place and not a convincing comedy world, cause all the characters (apart from Moss, ironically, as people often point out this character as being the shittest) seem to just behave randomly and loudl. But if it was just totally without merit I wouldn't have thought to mention it at all

[neveragain]

In the episode of Frasier with Dr Nora, whoever plays her mother who shows up and rips into her on the air is shocking. Some terrible overacting.

That's Piper Laurie, the mother from the original Carrie, so not someone ill-equipped at playing hysterical mamas. When she's chasing Dr. Nora around the studio, screaming "Whore!", I find it hilarious.

[TheBrownBottle]

Right show, wrong actor. The worst is the guy who played 'Englishman' Clive, Daphne's ex-fiancee, in the first episode of series 4. Shame, as other than him the episode is great.

He does that weird thing which some Americans do when affecting a British accent (apart from the dogshit pronunciation)  - he adds syllables instead of subtracting them.  Daphne becomes Daff-Her-Nee, lovely becomes Lav-Er-Lee etc.  Which few Brits do - and no Mancs ever do.

[Psmith]

If we are talking Frasier,Anthony LaPaglia is very cringeworthy.Although a lot of it could be the way his character is written.

[Dewt]

American sitcoms have the most irritating approach to non-American characters

It doesn't help that in American comedy, a character being from another place can get away with being the entire joke

[George White]

It always seems like the Norn Irish girl on Mrs. Brown is being asked to read off cue cards or summit.

Yes, she's a daughter-in-law.
She and the other daughter-in-law/daughter-in-real-life are the straight men, but they are so wooden.

Plus Cathy, I think doesn't quite have the chops plus she's at least fifteen years too old for the characterisation.


The new episode, the actress playing Peggy Piper the Pernod Poisoner, Sue Vincent, though she has a reasonable CV in British telly, was very OTT. Plus her accent kept slipping.

[TheMonk]

"Mr Bedford! Mr Bedford!"

[keir]

At the end of the year when I look back I expect the biggest shock of the year will be having seen someone having a go at Cyril Shaps.

[George White]

Exactly.
Saw him recently in a rare lead in a Danzigers film as a Nazi film producer, and he sold it.

[Tony Yeboah]

Paul Merton in the last episode of One Foot in the Grave.

[Keebleman]

Then you'll have seen the lad in The Black Adder, the sort of servant character, curly hair, big lad. Shite.

The one who imitates Atkinson's gestures?  His performance is uniquely bad; the mimicking makes no sense at all, it's the sort of thing an entirely untalented child would do in a school play.  When I first saw it I was amazed they simply didn't tell him not to do it that way, so I wonder if he saved it for the taping and there wasn't time for a retake?

Having said that, wasn't he also in the first Blackadder series too, doing exactly the same shtick?  Maybe they liked it!

[TheMonk]

At the end of the year when I look back I expect the biggest shock of the year will be having seen someone having a go at Cyril Shaps.

Based on this I just rewatched the episode and he's good in it, as is Neil McCarthy as the hotel manager. Great chemistry between them. Good episode. Michelle Dotrice is the worst thing in it. Sorry.

However I also watched "George's House" and all of the supporting guests in that one are atrocious.

[Jockice]

Wasn't she in the Gavin and stacey xmas special as Smiffys new girlfriend?

I never saw Time Gentlemen Please but I recognised that actress when undergoing my New Year's Eve Gavin and Stacey nightmare. And I was right about where I saw her. In Teenage Kicks, the terrible Ade Edmondson sitcom from about a decade ago.

And talking of Edmondson, he used to really get on my tits in The Young Ones etc. Yes, I know his characters are meant to be over the top but it was just so one-note I only rarely found it funny. It was someone acting badly at acting badly.

The thing is he really can act if he's not doing that sort of stuff. I had to eat my words and admit he was excellent in Strike.

[Jockice]

It's hard to find a good dwarf these days.

True dwarves, the lasting kind?

[Jockice]

none of the actors in that show deserve to be in this thread especially The one I massively fancy.

You mean Michelle, don't you?

[Icehaven]

He does that weird thing which some Americans do when affecting a British accent (apart from the dogshit pronunciation)  - he adds syllables instead of subtracting them.  Daphne becomes Daff-Her-Nee, lovely becomes Lav-Er-Lee etc.  Which few Brits do - and no Mancs ever do.

Loads of American actors: "Right, need to do a British accent, so let's Google famous examples to copy. Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins? Alrighty then."

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

You mean Michelle, don't you?

Erin, dude. The one which garnered a smile from Better Midlands ( I think it was)  when I described her as a sexy version of Plug from The Bash Street Kids.

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

Does anyone remember Carrotts Lib ( early eighties)? The young Chris Barrie and dear old Nick Wilton were on it. There was also a bloke with a moustache on it whose acting was shocking ( Oh yeah, the young Jan Ravens was on it as well).

[Jockice]

Erin, dude. The one which garnered a smile from Better Midlands ( I think it was)  when I described her as a sexy version of Plug from The Bash Street Kids.

She has a good surname in the show. I'll give her that.