calling Anglos and Anglophiles

[brightlywoven]

(inspired by foreverdirt's latest link)

One thing I have found to stand between me and the feeling that England is home, has been my lack of familiarity with the people of pop and political culture. I have for indtance, rarely any idea who humph is snarking about in ISIHAC. Partly this is because I have no tv. However, rather than get one, then try to trawl through for the good bits, I am asking you, dear friends list to point me the right way.

Week one: comedy

Can you suggest British comedy or comedians that would probably not be known internationally which I might enjoy? (eg a passing comment from shanith led me to mitch benn. Awsome)

Comments

[dr-biscuit.livejournal.com]

Hitchhikers, Yes Minister and Red Dwarf are well loved in our household. The Goons I grew up with but didn't quite get into (because it was my brother's thing...Yeah, that *is* stupid, I know). As for the Goodies, they were my *favourite* TV show when I was 6, and they were played on Children's TV is Australia, just before or after Dangermouse. Apparently GG, TBT and BO were a bit peeved by this, but we loved it! Now, I can't believe we didn't get the jokes.

Flanders and Swann I've never heard, though probably should, being a fan of Tom Lehrer, and might need to chase these. Will do a youtube trawl :)

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

There are only a couple of actual live performances by F&S on youtube (shortage of actual video of them); I imagine that the large number of other videos probably divide fairly evenly between people putting graphics to the audio recordings and amateur covers (of the usual range of quality).

If you don't know, I should probably mention that Michael Flanders suffered from Polio - you can see in the real video clips that breathing requires unusual (and very obvious) physical effort for him. Some people find this disturbing and/or upsetting, especially if they're not expecting it. (His voice control is very good despite having effectively no intercostal muscles and being chairbound. Listening to the audio without video, the only clue that there's anything wrong is that he takes very frequent breaths while singing; impressive for a man who has to move his shoulders up and down to breathe at all....)

[sally_maria]

The two videos of F&S I know of on YouTube are http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW_zi8n4HDQ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vh-wEXvdW8

Then of course there's the excellent lego version of their song - The Gasman Cometh - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOA_SUKEZRE