The Comic Strip Presents events in London

[lauraxsynthesis]

Well looking forward to this. Peter Richardson tends to come out with very surprising stories. He's either got an amazing memory or it's because he was working on a Comic Strip book a couple of years back. I hear he got bored of the book project, but I'm hoping it still happens. Also hoping Richard Herring has got over his nervousness or whatever it was that made last year's PR RHLSTP not a great interview.

What's happening is 2 screenings & panels at Picturehouse Central on 23 March.

The first event at 5.45 is TCP clips and Richard Herring interviewing Peter & Jennifer

The second at 8.30 will have screenings of The Hunt for Tony Blair and GLC The Carnage Continues then Herring again with Peter, Jennifer and Stephen Mangan. Mysteriously, when this was first announced Ade was very surprisingly on the panel as well.

There are rumours of a national tour this year.

[Kankurette]

Oh wow! I fucking love the Comic Strip. If they come to Manchester, I might have to go. Not seen either of these films either, though I did see the one with the swingers.

Kind of sad seeing Mayall and Coltrane there. I mainly remember Coltrane for the Famous Five parodies - was he in Strike? Not seen it in years.

[madhair60]

The second at 8.30 will have screenings of The Hunt for Tony Blair

fucking hell

[jamiefairlie]

Oh wow! I fucking love the Comic Strip. If they come to Manchester, I might have to go. Not seen either of these films either, though I did see the one with the swingers.

Kind of sad seeing Mayall and Coltrane there. I mainly remember Coltrane for the Famous Five parodies - was he in Strike? Not seen it in years.

Played Charles Bronson playing Ken Livingstone did he not?

[Shaky]

Played Charles Bronson playing Ken Livingstone did he not?

That's GLC. He does appear in Strike playing a couple of other characters, though.

[superthunderstingcar]

Coltrane plays the movie producer in Strike, also a miner "Dutch" in the movie-within-the-movie.

[kalowski]

Strike is the greatest thing they did. It's utterly wonderful from start to finish.

[jamiefairlie]

That's GLC. He does appear in Strike playing a couple of other characters, though.

Aye, that's right, memory playing tricks on me.

[lauraxsynthesis]

I rewatched Red Top last year and enjoyed it so much it's in my top 3 for sure. Last time I rewatched The Hunt for Tony Blair what struck me the most was the verbatim quotes from Blair's autobiography showing what an evil psycho he is.

[David Pielingtonburygrot]

Strike is the greatest thing they did. It's utterly wonderful from start to finish.

Absolutely. I like plenty of the others, but Strike is so far superior that it feels as though there must be some explanation as to how they did it differently. I haven't seen every last one though, so maybe there are other gems that I'm unaware of.

[lauraxsynthesis]

The Strike was the first outing of the Richardsonian trope of having Hollywood stars playing British historical characters, so that may be relevant. Having come up with the approach they have a lot of fun exploring it.

[DrGreggles]

I like Strike, but it's not my favourite.
That'd probably be Dirty Movie or Mr Jolly. They're just funnier.

[extraordinary walnuts]

Dirty Movie has the weirdest atmosphere, I love it. Fistful of Travellers Cheques might be my favourite though, full of great performances. Don't much care for the later film parodies I'm afraid

[neveragain]

Gregory Diary of a Nutcase contains some wonderful film parody work and a nice Adrian Edmondson-led camcorder narrative alongside it. They gel together superbly and actually seem to make some sort of point about violent movies.

Les Dogs is a great surrealist film with added Kate Bush. War is also memorably absurd, sometimes disturbingly so.

The two Four Men films are just great.

[Gladys]

Fistful of Travellers Cheques is a favourite of mine if only for Rik Mayall spitting which is one of my favourite things ever.

I used to have a Comic Strip Presents... book of scripts back when I was a young teenager in the '80's which I read and re-read constantly (along with a Fawlty Towers script book). So the scripts of that first series are particualy vivid in my memory - War and The Beat Generation and all that and the next few series have some great episodes.

I'd love to go along to this but way too far away.

[kalowski]

Fistful of Travellers Cheques is a favourite of mine if only for Rik Mayall spitting which is one of my favourite things ever.

"What's your name?"
"Can't remember"
"So, you're the man with no name.."
"That's right. Billy Bolton, the man with no name."

[extraordinary walnuts]

Rik and Peter are so funny together in it. "What football team do you support." They really look the part, too.

He seems to prefer being behind the camera but I wish Peter Richardson had done a bit more acting. His turn as Mr Lovebucket is one of my favourite things ever.

[The Bumlord]

[Norton Canes]

Quite like 'Susie', for the desolate Norfolk locations

[jobotic]

I haven't watched any of these since they were on. I know Mr Jolly off by heart as we watched my mate's video of it over and over again. I can't hear the words "tonic water" without doing that scene. Dirty Movie too.

Would love to see them all again.

[extraordinary walnuts]

Fill yer boots! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGud7HgKXkH2S5gHKvdhaTmmMRvyB_hMq

[jobotic]

Nice one!

Might start with Travellers Cheques

[lauraxsynthesis]

The whole tour of TCSP events has now been announced for several London cinemas as well as Brighton, Cambridge, Exeter and Henley. Generally Robin Ince is interviewing Peter and other folks depending on the films - Alexei, Nigel, Harry Enfield, Keith Allen, Stephen Mangan. I'm getting to as many as I can.

https://www.picturehouses.com/event-details/0000000018/the-comic-strip-presents

[DrGreggles]

I'll be at the Cambridge one.
Shame it's listed as 2 separate events.

[lauraxsynthesis]

PS Southampton as well

[emmett85]

Bit disappointed by the geography of the tour venues. Bah.

[Kankurette]

Balls, if my parents were still in Cambridge they'd be going to this. We got Mum the Comic Strip boxset for Mothers' Day one year. Shame there aren't northern dates.

Strike is the greatest thing they did. It's utterly wonderful from start to finish.

Dutch!

The Famous Five pisstakes were definitely up there too. And the one with Spandau Ballet on repeat.

ETA: Four Men in a Car!

[Tarquin]

Booked for the last night in Brighton. Two shows "Best of the Comic Strip" on first but gone for the last one "Strike" and "Bad News."

Q&A with Den Dennis and Spider Webb (on the ticket it says Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson but I'm ignoring that).

[Guessing Mr. Jolly is being ignored for the world-wide celebration in 2027]

[Tarquin]

I'll be at the Cambridge one.
Shame it's listed as 2 separate events.

Confused me. First one is a clip show of "The best of" second one is showings of two full episodes.

I remember for the 1987 series they were initially shown at London cinemas first before appearing on TV and got reviews in the movie section of Time Out ("The Yob" was the one that got the good reviews - christ.)

[lauraxsynthesis]

Went to the first 2 events on Saturday night. A bigger turnout would have been good but it was a reasonably-sized crowd in a big screening room. Bad News songs played before the show started and there was the cool branded collection of images onscreen as above. More punters were there for the Best of clips and panel than for The Hunt for Tony Blair, so I imagine Jennifer Saunders was the main draw there. It was an odd format. The best of clips included bits from a previous TCSP documentary or two and it was in no particular order - not theme, not chronological. Then we got the first panel and a bit of Q&A, then another clips film, more panel, and longer Q&A. I didn't mind the format, but I couldn't understand it.

The oddest thing though was that when, presumably Peter, edited together the best of he didn't bother to fix the aspect ratio of the older films. There's no excuse for that. I'm hoping someone else will have picked him up on that and it'll get sorted for the upcoming events. As for choice of clips, they were often surprising. Peter said he chose the best clips rather than clips from the best films. For example, there was rather a lot from Queen of the Wild Frontier. I don't think there was anything from Red Top, which I think is a terrific-looking film.

The panel for Best of was Peter Richardson, Jennifer Saunders and Stephen Mangan with Richard Herring interviewing. Audience questions were good, and Herring was less obviously in awe than when Peter was on RHLSTP recently so it went fairly smoothly. One question enabled Jennifer to get a dig in at meddling commissioners who block scripted comedy from getting past endless rewrites, so that was good. I asked about the two Petes' writing process, but was too excited to focus on the answer. I think Peter said he came up with the story and outline and Pete filled it in and added jokes. 

After an hour break, we had the screening of The Hunt for Tony Blair. The black & white photography looked gorgeous on the big screen and though I'd seen it a couple of times before, I came away this time feeling it's a very well-directed film with great comedy performances. I particularly enjoyed Robbie Coltrane as the police inspector, and Mangan was brilliant. The Q&A was Richard, Peter and Stephen. It turns out Mangan was cast because Peter recognised him from a Coca Cola advert they made together that never got used. Afterwards there were queues for signings, selfies and handshakes with Peter so fandom wins.

A young and recent fan of The Comic Strip has done an extensive video review of the events here.