Comedy

A parody of Charles Dickens, a time machine based on Leonardo da Vinci's original plans, and some random dips into history. Daniel Tessier rather cunningly rounds up the whole Blackadder saga.

In the history of comic strips, 'Peanuts' is among the most popular and influential. Running in newspapers in 75 countries and with a readership of over 300 million, it is arguably America's biggest export. But when it was animated for TV in 1965, CBS were reluctant to bring it to our screens.

Stuck in the middle of World War I, Captain Edmund Blackadder does his best to escape the banality of the war.

In the Regency era, Mr E. Blackadder serves as butler to the foppish numskull Prince George.

Lord Edmund Blackadder, great grandson to the original, is a Tudor courtier attempting to win the favour of Queen Elizabeth l while avoiding execution by decapitation.

After the 1485 Battle of Bosworth Field, a brave and kindly King Richard III returns victorious, only to be accidentally killed by Edmund Plantagenet. The first series of the classic historical comedy about the venomous but luckless Blackadder was almost its last.

Andrew Cobby reflects on the ups and downs and the coming of goings at a run-down boarding house, somewhere in England in the 1970s.

Festive laughter inside the walls of Slade Prison, in the company of Norman Stanley Fletcher and Lenny Godber.

Dick Emery's characters were some of the best remembered on British television for a number of years. This article looks at how he created these characters utilising his natural flair for mimicry.

Dan Tessier looks back at three million years of comedy...and it's smegging fantastic!