Big Train

[prelektric]

Awwww.

[studpuppet]

...The Artist formerly known as Prince

It was years after I found out that this was a nod to the lyrics of Little Red Corvette:

I guess I should've closed my eyes when you drove me to the place where your horses run free
'Cause I felt a little ill when I saw all the pictures of the jockeys that were there before me

[prelektric]

I adore the Ming the Merciless sketches but the hospital one is terrifically good.

"They're simple folk."

Oh yes indeed, that's my favourite of the "Tyrant" sketches. Pegg as "Rolex" never gets old, it's the voice and his mannerisms. "Your sister's nice!".

Big Train's biggest asset was the cast IMO - even if some sketches didn't quite land, it wouldn't really matter too much since their performances were always brilliant.

[Cold Meat Platter]

"... a ladies lower venusian furrowed plough"

[Mr Banlon]

[Fried Egg Sandwich]

"I'm a Alien!" loved that one.

[kalowski]

Fucking hell, there's loads of great ones. I'll choose this one now, only to change my mind in a bit.

FUCKITPOST

I'd forgotten about this one but it's utterly brilliant.

[Uncle TechTip]

Ming the Merciless doing the hoovering. Silly and mundane together they did so well.

[idunnosomename]

Fluffy puppet... phwoar!

love street location in comedies. the plastic bags. the old ladies who are clearly entertained by the whole shoot if you watch closely. very well shot though

can someone tell me where it was shot? I was thinking North London but then one of the shop fronts seems to say Essex.

Top pipe acting from Eldon there though.

Puerile as fuck, but still makes me laugh.

Can at least tell you this is the chapel of The Royal Masonic School for Boys, Bushey, Herts, which closed in 1977 and has been gradually sold off for housing and stuff. Google it and you'll find urban explorers going in it, can't really find any better pics than that, but it seems to have lost its furnishings since this. Used a lot for filming in the 80s and 90s, almost wonder if having a partially derelict school chapel available as a location is what prompted the idea of Goodbye, Mr. Chips spoof that gets increasingly puerile.

this new site for this freemasons school, which I assume was far too fucking big for its own good, was founded 1902 by freemason Prince Arthur, third son of Queen Victoria, which makes the line "if King Arthur were alive, he'd fight the Germans too!!" even better.

[The Coat hanger]

Big train was always a weird one for me, couldn't quite get it on first watch, but loved it after persevering. The amazing Amelia Bullmore tour guide for me. "He's got a big round head with a little tiny face and the other guy has a big face and but just one ear, incredible."

[Old Nehamkin]

He really, really looked like Shakespeare.

[Magnum Valentino]

Big train was always a weird one for me, couldn't quite get it on first watch, but loved it after persevering. The amazing Amelia Bullmore tour guide for me. "He's got a big round head with a little tiny face and the other guy has a big face and but just one ear, incredible."

I uploaded that to YouTube I loved it so much!

[Old Nehamkin]

I always thought it was a bit of a shame that Arthur Matthews never did much more performing because he's got so many great little turns in this.

[McDead]

"Big fat cocks!"

I always misremember that sketch as being from The Fast Show, with Mark Williams as the wistful schoolmaster, but I am wrong, of course.

[idunnosomename]

"Big fat cocks!"

I always misremember that sketch as being from The Fast Show, with Mark Williams as the wistful schoolmaster, but I am wrong, of course.

williams did play a schoolmaster who talks to camera about the antics at big school, like burning teddy bears. it might also be Bushey, I suspect it is. can't remember what series it's in now or I'd check

edit think it's Barnard Castle School actually. most of the location stuff in the fast show was shot in the north east except for the Christmas special

[Norton Canes]

Puerile as fuck, but still makes me laugh.

Just played that and heard

Spoiler alert

"Cocksucker!"

[close]

at the end, absolutely lost it

[Solid Jim]

Some remarks on punchlines from the DVD commentaries:

GL: This punchline is actually very like the punchlines on a lot of Saturday Night Live sketches, that we were watching around this time. We really like Saturday Night Live, and I noticed that when they can't end a sketch, they often pretend it's an ad for something. And this served us well.

MH: We didn't know how to end this, because when we first improvised this as a notion it just wittered on, and someone - I don't know who it was - had the idea of the policeman as a good way of getting out of it.
SP: That's the same thing that happened with the other sketch we filmed in that very location, I think, the Ritz and the Titz, which was the monkey thing ... I remember Arthur just came up and went [whispers] "do the monkey thing."

GL: That's possibly influenced a little bit by The Simpsons. Did you ever notice in The Simpsons, things always blow up?

GL: Ah, now this is the one where Arthur suggested for him to do the monkey.
SP: You know, I think the reason why we did it was because we were all secretly ashamed of that punchline, which was "I'm going to have the biggest Titz in the world." And we couldn't quite bring ourselves to allow that to be the last line.

[flotemysost]

That's part of the charm of the show. A lot of the sketches are just silly ideas that don't really go anywhere, so they either end with a limp punchline or a non sequitur. If it's a choice between a genuinely hilarious joke ending up getting cut or it just ending with Simon Pegg doing an impression of a chimpanzee or "Join the Army", I'd take the latter.

For me the sketches that work best are the ones where an outlandish idea is played extremely straight (wanking in the office, too many cooks - I suppose it works particularly well in more formal settings). Hardly an original or elaborate basis but as others have said, the performances are generally so strong that the conviction really carries it. Having said that, the heightened emotions in some scenes are verging on the side of discomfort (imho) - the cat and mouse fighting has been mentioned, and the one with the upsettingly unflattering caricatures springs to mind too.

Less keen on the sketches where the core seems to be the surreal whackiness itself - I agree with whoever who said it comes off a bit self-conscious at times. Though I'll make an exception for My Name Is Paul, there's something oddly comforting about that one (again, the "child's voicover saying adult things" has been done aplenty before and since, but it just works for me - maybe it's the chipper muzak in the background):

[shoulders]

don't know how to end it.

An increasing problem as the series went along.

[kalowski]

[David Pielingtonburygrot]

I love that one. Not to take anything away from the writing, but that sketch is an illustration of how much of the greatness of Big Train lay in the performances. I'm assuming that everything after 30" was semi-improvised.

[lipsink]

Wasn't the first episode of Big Train aired on BBC Two the same night as the first episode of The League Of Gentlemen?

Ah, those were the days...

[Matthew Dawkins Jub Jub]

I HATE YOU
I HATE YOU
YOU BOLLOCKS

[The Culture Bunker]

I love that one. Not to take anything away from the writing, but that sketch is an illustration of how much of the greatness of Big Train lay in the performances. I'm assuming that everything after 30" was semi-improvised.

You can even include Barry Davies in that. Obviously he had (as far as I know!) no background in comedy or even acting, but I get the impression he really enjoyed the idea and gave the staring sketches a certain weight they wouldn't have had if it had been one of the regular cast doing the part.

[David Pielingtonburygrot]

You can even include Barry Davies in that. Obviously he had (as far as I know!) no background in comedy or even acting, but I get the impression he really enjoyed the idea and gave the staring sketches a certain weight they wouldn't have had if it had been one of the regular cast doing the part.

Yes, Barry Davies was a revelation in the "Staring" sketches. It's often the case that when sport-related celebrities are asked to play themselves, they fail hopelessly (Micheal Owen), but Davies' staring commentary was delivered in exactly the same tone as his football commentary.

[Obel]

love street location in comedies. the plastic bags. the old ladies who are clearly entertained by the whole shoot if you watch closely. very well shot though

can someone tell me where it was shot? I was thinking North London but then one of the shop fronts seems to say Essex.

Chingford Mount

[phantom_power]

Yes, Barry Davies was a revelation in the "Staring" sketches. It's often the case that when sport-related celebrities are asked to play themselves, they fail hopelessly (Micheal Owen), but Davies' staring commentary was delivered in exactly the same tone as his football commentary.

See also the various mugging performances of ex-pros and pundits in Ted Lasso

[markburgle]

I love that one. Not to take anything away from the writing, but that sketch is an illustration of how much of the greatness of Big Train lay in the performances. I'm assuming that everything after 30" was semi-improvised.

Heap is great at playing "serious guy trying to pretend to be a good sport while secretly fuming". That would totes be me. I swear I've even said the words "I did suspect" before

[Minneapolis Fuckhat]

The incongruous, jarring end to The Titz sketch where it's transfers from a juvenile gag to Simon Pegg pretending to be a monkey.

[mrfridge]

My favourite. Totally stupid.