Three Of A Kind

[TJ]

I remember quite enjoying this at the time, but I've never seen it since and virtually all of the writeups I've seen recently have indicated that it has worn very badly. Has anyone seen it more recently, and if so, is this the case or not?

[Jemble Fred]

Hit and miss, certainly, but the three or four UK Gold episodes I have aren't bad. Definite elements of the Fast Show in there – very few sketches over a minute or two, and quick fire gags, both in sketches and on the charmingly shite Ceefax-style chestnuts.

David Copperfield generally is an embarrassment on it though, I'm afraid to say. Terrible mugging.

[weirdbeard]

Seems like a good place to post this.

COMEDY:  Comedy Connections
Channel: BBC 1
Date: Monday 7th March 2005
Time: 11:00 pm to 11:30 pm (starting in 12 days)
Duration: 30 minutes.
Three of a Kind.
The series charting the history of some of the best British comedy programmes looks at 80s sketch show Three of a Kind, which introduced Lenny Henry, Tracey Ullman and the less well remembered David Copperfield to our screens. Growing out of a traditional variety show called Six of a Kind, it was heavily influenced by a successful American comedy series. Includes never-seen-before footage of the original Six Of A Kind pilot.
(Widescreen, Subtitles)

Excerpt taken from DigiGuide - the world's best TV guide available from http://www.getdigiguide.com/?p=1&r=36432
Copyright ©1999-2004 GipsyMedia Ltd.

[TJ]

"Six Of A Kind", eh? Sounds interesting...


I've also recently found out that there was a BBC Video compilation of the series, but I've no idea how representative that would have been.

[Jemble Fred]

Generally, a half-hour episode would start and end with the three of them against a white background doing vaguely 'The Frost Report's Class Sketch' type jokes (there'd be a few more of these scattered throughout the show) – Y'know, this kind of thing:

LENNY: I read the Sun, because it tells me the news quickly and simply.
TRACEY: I read the Guardian, because it just reports the facts.
DAVID: I read the Financial Times. Because I have a pink bathroom.

And that. Then the rest of the show would be sketches interspersed with the Gag Fax things (lots of hexagonal Smiley lips etc) – there'd be two or three full-length sketches, very like yer average Lenny Henry Show number, but most of the sketches would be a one-gag affair (my favourite being the pub scene – Copperfield goes to the bar to complain to manageress Ullman: "Ere, that Space Invader isn't working." Cue Ullman rousing a sleepy alien in the corner of the pub: "Come on, you lazy alien, there's work to do!" ... Please yerselves). The sets were always quite lavish considering the fact that most skits lasted less than a minute. You'd also get regulars, like Henry's Bellamy impression, or Copperfield's foul old gardener.

Oh, and there was always an especially bad musical number that went on for way too long – generally someone who looked like a wannabe Toyah dancing to disco music with Leroy from 'Fame' for about 8 minutes.

I think that's it.

[Alberon]

I really liked it at the time, but I was only a kid back then and it probably hasn't aged well. The one bit of dialogue I can remember is this -

(One of them reading a paper) "It says here that some people have trouble with their redding."

"That's in Berks isn't it?"

"They must be berks if they have trouble with their redding."


And I only remember that as I live in Reading.

[Jemble Fred]

Oh, and there was always an especially bad musical number that went on for way too long – generally someone who looked like a wannabe Toyah dancing to disco music with Leroy from 'Fame' for about 8 minutes.

And in one instance Tony Basil dressed as a cheerleader, doing 'Mickey'. I won't say any more on that subject for fear of making this a wankthread.

[Rats]

Who remembers packet of three with frank skinner? I do, it wasn't very good. Well, I wasn't going to start a new thread for it.

[The Mumbler]

I had the Three Of A Kind LP, released by BBC Records in about 1983.  A lot of unlikely bedfellows in that writing room (from Tiswas writers like David McKellar and Graham Deykin to Hale & Pace, Ian Hislop and Ben Elton). Some of it's painful now, I have to admit, but a couple of the musical numbers are very well-done: in particular "Break Wind & Fire" is a fantastically well-arranged (by Brewis) medley of, as you'd expect, EarthW&F's back catalogue.  With some funny lyrics.  Dollop's "Sing A Soppy Song" is not quie as impressive, though.

Must be honest, I never figured Copperfield was that dreadful at the time.  Clearly he wasn't as good as the other two, but I still find his downfall a weirdly sudden thing.  You know, given how many untalented fuckers these days continue to get endless TV work.

[grundie]

I aint seen it since I was a kid, bar clips shows.  At the time I loved it, but now I'd probably hate it. All I remember is one sketch that had Lennny going: "Bad back, Rugby injury". Tracey going "Painful rash, poision ivy" and David going "Sore neck, polo top Marks and Spencer" (or something like this).

[Mister Cairo]

Never seen it but my mum has the tie-in book which is pretty crazy

"Handi Bendi Gandi" was a spoof advert which sold bendable Gandi dolls


Oh, and the Trumpton spoof was fucking class

[Ambient Sheep]

I remember quite enjoying this at the time, but I've never seen it since and virtually all of the writeups I've seen recently have indicated that it has worn very badly. Has anyone seen it more recently, and if so, is this the case or not?

Can't help - like you I really enjoyed it at the time, but I suspect that it will have aged badly.  Certainly even at the time the later editions were quite pisspoor compared to the early ones.

I'd like to see it again though - I don't think I've even seen any clips.

The only David Copperfield bit I can remember is the Indian guru spoof "Bagwhan Hardcastle", which wasn't even terribly funny at the time.

[The Mumbler]

Fact: The signature tune for Three Of A Kind doubled as the theme tune (during the 80s anyway) to S4C's long-running Welsh-language current affairs programme "Y Byd Ar Bedwar" (The World On Four).  Just like that Grange Hill/Give Us A Clue coincidence.

[JCBillington]

I've also recently found out that there was a BBC Video compilation of the series, but I've no idea how representative that would have been.

It may have been me who mentioned this, since I found it a few weeks back. I rather enjoyed it. I remember enjoying the series, but at the time I probably also liked cannon and ball, so it's not a good measure. The video is enjoyable, straightforward stuff, fairly similar to the early Lenny Henry Show. That said, if the 90 minutes or so on the vid represent the best, then an actual half hour episode must have been a bit poor, since it is, as has been mentioned, somewhat hit-and-miss. I thought the music parodies were quite good, however. The cast generally make it watchable, performing the shitest of puns with glee. Lenny is the stand out, of course, the highlight being his party political broadcast as Fred Dread. My main memories of Ullman were from her American show which I despised (though I was far too young to get it) so it was nice to see her being very funny and likable, and not a little attractive. Personally I like Coppers, and enjoyed his kids programmes, so I found him very good on this.

If I could do caps I'd try and sort one out of the compilation, but I can't. Sorry.

[JCBillington]

Who remembers packet of three with frank skinner? I do, it wasn't very good. Well, I wasn't going to start a new thread for it.

I enjoyed Packet of Three, though not Packing them In. In fact, PO3 has one of my favourite random comedy moments...

Jenny Eclair finds Henry Normal's diary, and reads a very long romantic poem declaiming his love for her. The Payoff - Following the poem it says 'Had a wank. Went to bed.'

[alan strang]

I've also recently found out that there was a BBC Video compilation of the series, but I've no idea how representative that would have been.

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten has a BBC compilation. I seem to recall it was just three of the original shows strung together to form one big one (I had one of the 30 minute segments as an off-air audio recording and recognised the sketch chronolgy).

A lot of Three Of A Kind was great. Favourite bits include the Alien pisstake where Sooty pops out of the John Hurt character's chest; the afore-mentioned 'Hanhi Bendhi Gandhi sketch' ("comes with his own wardrobe and detatchable loincloth - buy one and you get five million follows free. As recommended by Bendhi Kingsley!"), and the Gladys Night pisstake where she takes so much time to do her slushy monologue over the opening music that she runs out of time for the actual song.

Best sketch of the lot - 'Badly Edited Man', featuring Lenny Henry as bloke whose social life has been ruined by having been edited out of sequence.

Gag-Fax was very Look Around You, looking back.

[chav]

I got that BBC video off ebay, and it's very much hit and miss, with the emphasis on "miss". As pointed out, there were a few of the Frost Report-type sketches; these tended to grate. Lots of the quick gags in a pub and so on - one that sticks in the mind is a nice little sequence featuring the pub's new lie detector - along the lines of, "no, can't stay for another, want to get back to the wife..BEEP BEEP BEEP!" It seemed a familiar gag but was played well. A lot of the jokes seem to revolve around new technology (of the time) - both fascinating and irritating at the same time. Gagfax is of a poor standard generally, just like on Look Around You. Of course from an archive TV point of view it's brilliant, brimming as it is with flippy Quantel effects and the like. The highlight for me has to be Henry as David Bellamy "wummaging awound in the undergwoth", it creases me up every time. In fact, he is appealing all the way through, and you can see how it was a natural progression to his own show and true stardom. Ullman on the other hand I find annoying, and it puzzles me how she ended up with her own show in the US. And what DID happen to David Copperfield? (apart from Lift Off! With Coppers & Co!, obviously)

[alan strang]

Jenny Eclair finds Henry Normal's diary, and reads a very long romantic poem declaiming his love for her. The Payoff - Following the poem it says 'Had a wank. Went to bed.'

ECLAIR
I came on the bus this morning - but don't worry - I passed it off as an asthma attack.

[Morrisfan82]

Best sketch of the lot - 'Badly Edited Man', featuring Lenny Henry as bloke whose social life has been ruined by having been edited out of sequence.

That's triggered a memory of something else with Lenny Henry in it. It was late 80s-ish, and there was a filmic sequence (could've been a cop show parody) of a guy driving down a street, with dialogue and accompanying subtitles. The car gets to a point in the road where it actually smashes through the subtitles, revealing them to be an actual feature of the street. Lenny says something like 'Damn these street-subtitles!'. They drive off with the broken pieces of subtitle in the back of the (convertible?) car.

I remember laughing for fucking ages at that. Was that from one of his sketch shows?

[Ray Le Otter]

The sets were always quite lavish considering the fact that most skits lasted less than a minute. .

That would be down to Paul Jackson pulling the old "Have a musical act on and we'd qualify as a Variety show and therefore get a bigger budget" trick, as seen to great effect on The Young Ones. Thus we got 80s shite like Roman Holliday & Toni Basil halfway through each show (and The Style Council once - or was that on The Lenny Henry Show?).

Three Of A Kind is class if only for Fread Dread's Party Political Broadcasts and the Nativity Play sketch.

[Charlie Bonkers]

I really liked it at the time, but I was only a kid back then and it probably hasn't aged well. The one bit of dialogue I can remember is this -

(One of them reading a paper) "It says here that some people have trouble with their redding."

"That's in Berks isn't it?"

"They must be berks if they have trouble with their redding."


And I only remember that as I live in Reading.

That's short for Berkley Hunt - aka c**t

[alan strang]

They drive off with the broken pieces of subtitle in the back of the (convertible?) car.

I remember laughing for fucking ages at that. Was that from one of his sketch shows?

Yeah - his BBC Christmas Special 1988 I think. Sort of a Beverley Hills Cop parody (including an 'Axel F'-a-like underscore).

[Morrisfan82]

Cheers Alan.

Chalan.

[elton]

LENNY: I read the Sun, because it tells me the news quickly and simply.
TRACEY: I read the Guardian, because it just reports the facts.
DAVID: I read the Financial Times. Because I have a pink bathroom.

That was actually from Not the Nine O'Clock news

[alan strang]

That was actually from Not the Nine O'Clock news

I assumed he knew that - and was just using it as an example of the sort of three-handers they did.

Here's an actual one (from memory):

TRACY
I'm a Bombadier - and I show people my bombs.

DAVID
I'm a Gunner and I show people me guns.

LENNY
I'm a Private. I keep getting arrested.

Something which probably should be mentioned is that Ben Elton went from contributing sketches to Three Of A Kind to writing most of the ITV series Alfresco - which featured a send-up of those routines (called 'Three Of A Vaguely Similar').

[The Mumbler]

LENNY: I read the Sun, because it tells me the news quickly and simply.
TRACEY: I read the Guardian, because it just reports the facts.
DAVID: I read the Financial Times. Because I have a pink bathroom.

That was actually from Not the Nine O'Clock news

A genuine one was:

TRACEY: The Times is read by people who run the country.
LENNY: The Telegraph is read by people who'd like to run the country.
DAVID: The Sun is read by people who don't care who runs the country - just as long as they've got big knoc...[INTERRUPTED BY JINGLE]

Another one:

LENNY: I'm Mr. Smith - the Nolans can't all be related, can they?
TRACEY: I'm Mrs. Jones - I don't believe it either.
DAVID [Irish accent]: I'm Mr. Nolan - I'm knackered.

[alan strang]

TRACEY: The Times is read by people who run the country.
LENNY: The Telegraph is read by people who'd like to run the country.
DAVID: The Sun is read by people who don't care who runs the country - just as long as they've got big knoc...[INTERRUPTED BY JINGLE]

I thought that was Yes Minister!

[The Mumbler]

Fuck, you're right as well.  Except Yes Minister did have the balls to say "tits".  Why had I forgotten that?  So TOAK nicked it.

[Charlie Bonkers]

Does any one remmember the Scumpton sketch, a parody of Trumpton. There was a punk in it I think.

For some reason had the book as a kid, I don't know why though I wasn't much of a fan.

[alan strang]

Does any one remmember the Scumpton sketch, a parody of Trumpton. There was a punk in it I think.

Uh-huh. The punk was called 'Vic The Vandal' ("Hello, Vic The Vandal...") and played by Copperfield. He only had two fingers on each hand - which he used to flick the Vs at the camera.

He then mugged 'Old Mrs Pensioner' (Ullman) by headbutting her. Lenny Henry played the policeman who shrugged at the situation but, upon being told by the narrator that Old Mrs Pensioner had no money, decided to arrest her for vagrancy.

And the sketch ran at around five frames-per-second - to make it look like an animation!