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No Spaced. No The League of Gentlemen. No Smack the Pony or Goodness Gracious Me or The Royle Family or Brass Eye, or Red Dwarf or Father Ted or anything that belongs to the last century (side note: the late 90s were an incredible time for UK comedy). These are the 40 finest British comedy TV shows that have arrived since the year 2000, as nominated by our writers. Add in your favourites below, and it’s a party.

What’s cheering about this lot, apart from the fact that as comedies, they should all technically cheer us up, is how different they are. There’s the surreal chaos of Year of the Rabbit, and the sweet warmth of Lovesick, the Pythonesque bonkersness of Yonderland, the satirical might of The Thick of It and much more. Something for everyone, you might say.

And to make sure there was enough space to include a wide enough selection,...

“The Sopranos” was a very perfect TV show to introduce us to the 21st century. Down the line, the silver screen has witnessed some of the most captivating stories ever told, like “Breaking Bad,” “The Wire,” “Brass Eye,” and “The Game of Thrones.”

In the 21st century, big brands such as Netflix, Amazon, and HBO have evolved as pacesetters in the entertainment and streaming space. In this article, we take a trip back in time (more like time traveling) as we highlight some of the best TV shows that have been aired across different streaming platforms.

Related: Top 10 Best TV Series of All Time, Ranked by Viewers

This list of the 25 best TV shows of the 21st century was curated from a 2019 article by The Guardian highlighting the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century (as seen on IMDb).

25. ‘Black Mirror’ (2011-)

“Black Mirror” is a British Anthology Series that...

Tortoise Media is to launch its latest podcast, Into The Dirt a 6-part series telling the story of one man’s journey from corporate spy to self-proclaimed double agent – and how it ruined him.

Over three years in the making, from the team that brought you Sweet Bobby, Into The Dirt charts the story of Rob Moore. A former producer who helped make the cult classic series Brass Eye, he had a successful career in television until one day he ran out of ideas. After a stint as a gardener, a more enticing door was opened for him; he was offered a job in the world of corporate intelligence – he became a spy.

Initially tasked with working undercover to extract information from environmental campaign groups, Rob Moore says he became sympathetic to the campaigners’ aims and decided to turn on his employers and support the groups he was meant to be infiltrating.

Joan is Awful is the first episode of the sixth season of Black Mirror. It is written by Charlie Brooker, directed by Ally Pankiw and stars Salma Hayek, Annie Murphy, and Michael Cera.

This episode is more amusing than terrifying and features Salma Hayek (who mocks her own diction) playing an actress in a series that parodies itself. It is a charming and humorous episode that serves as an excellent appetizer for this sixth season.

Did you expect Charlie Brooker not to take AI beyond imagination? Wait until the end of the episode, where his idea of personalized content for Netflix is quite curious and, although comedic, also frightening.

Storyline

An executive of a tech company finds a program on Netflix that reflects her own life point by point.

Black Mirror: Joan is Awful About “Joan is Awful”

The first episode of this season contains many ideas, and it is a very good start.

This list applies to UK streaming services

If you’ve had a tough day and need a laugh, this list’ll see you right. These are the British big guns. Big comedy guns, firing… laughter-bullets! Ak-47s of mirth, spraying chuckles through… look, yes, okay, that’s terrible. A stop to that. Agreed. We’re all just trying to do our best here.

Helping us to keep a grip when the world seems a scary place are these excellent British comedies, all available to stream on the UK’s various platforms. Find a bunch of comforting and familiar favourites and some newer arrivals below.

We’ll keep this list updated as shows enter and exit the streaming catalogues. Parents may also like a look at our best kids’ TV streaming recommendations, while here are our picks of the best British TV dramas to stream in the UK.

After Life

Ricky Gervais...

Further new openers include Lionsgate’s ‘Farming’, eOne’s ‘The Day Shall Come’.

Two contrasting titles are among the new openers at the UK box office this weekend, as Universal’s animated comedy Abominable goes up against Paramount’s Will Smith action drama Gemini Man.

However the new openers will have to score strongly to knock Warner Bros’ Joker from top spot, which scored a huge £12.6m debut last weekend.

Abominable is a DreamWorks Animation production, about a magical Yeti in Shanghai on a quest to reunite with his family on Mount Everest. Chloe Bennet, Albert Tsai and Tenzing Norgay Trainor lead the voice cast.

Years before the term “cancel culture” took off and before comedians faced comeuppance for offensive tweets, Chris Morris was deemed “the most hated man in Britain.” Needless to say, he’s well-positioned to dig into these sensitive times — and, unlike many comedians, he’s sympathetic to them.

Morris has been pushing buttons his whole career, and he knows a thing or two about the distinction between good satire and offensive jokes. “It sounds like you’re surrounded by rulebooks, but I think this is all intuitive,” he said in a recent interview. It was a few days after “SNL” fired new cast member Shane Gillis over his racist comments in a podcast, and while Morris declined to comment on Gillis’ specific comments, the veteran writer-turned-director had plenty of insight into the best practices for crafting edgy comedy.

Morris scored the “hated man” moniker almost 20 years ago, after his 2001 TV satire “Brass Eye,...

Entertainment One has launched the first trailer for ‘Four Lions’ filmmaker Chris Morris’s new comedy, ‘The Day Shall Come’.

Morris’ new film tells the story of a person walking blind into a false reality programmed to blow up in his face. That person is a fringe preacher called Moses. The false reality is created by the FBI and written like a script. Moses has no idea this is happening or that their plotline ends with him in jail.

In a statement, Morris stated:

‘The story that kicked off this film was like a brick hurled from Miami to London. It was a lie that I didn’t know was a lie and it resulted in a farce about paranoia, deception, delusion and injustice that reflects an unfortunate truth: Finding a real terrorist is harder than creating your own.’

The lie

Breaking news! The Us Attorney General is announcing the...

The mysterious writer-director travels to Miami for a short but sharp comedy about an idealistic preacher targeted by the FBI

In the nine years since the release of Four Lions, Chris Morris’s incendiary feature film debut, his absence from both big and small screens has felt like an ill-timed loss. As a director, he’s taken on a handful of Veep episodes but as a writer, he’s starved us of new material which, for anyone familiar with his long and storied career, has been a tough blow. Because throughout his work, from The Day Today to Brass Eye to Nathan Barley, he’s perfected a brand of cultural and political commentary that’s both uniquely incisive and uniquely silly and given the world’s increasingly expedited scramble to the bottom, his outlook is needed now more than ever.

Related: The Beach Bum review – Matthew McConaughey lands the role of a lifetime

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Hello and welcome back to our roundup of news from across the industry. From stage to screens big and small, we’ve got you covered. It’s everything you need to know and all you can’t afford to miss. New company to celebrate northern talent.Playwright Jim Cartwright is to establish a new theatre company based in Salford to showcase the best of northern talent. The writer of “The Rise and Fall of Little Voice” and “Road”, recently revived at The Royal Court, has previously called for the vibrant northern theatre scene and working-class voices to be celebrated. Based in Salford University’s new £55m arts centre, actors Warren Brown (“Luther”) and Julie Hesmondhalgh (“Broadchurch”) are to help launch the company on Dec 1. Also performing “Burning Bright”, a selection of Cartwright’s monologues, will be Sue Johnston and Beverley Callard. It will be the inaugural performance inside the 350 seat New Adelphi,...

Louisa Mellor May 5, 2017

Major spoilers ahead as we speak to Line Of Duty creator, writer and director Jed Mercurio about Roz Huntley, Acc Hilton and more…

If I were ever to find myself alone in a room with a dead body I’d created in self-defence and pondering my next move, “plead guilty to manslaughter,” Jed Mercurio tells me. “For the minimum three years sentence. If you take the risk of fighting a murder plea with self-defence and you fail, then you will be convicted of murder and that is a mandatory life sentence.” Getting off with self-defence is really, really hard, says Mercurio, really hard. “I did the research.”

See related American Gods episode 1 review: The Bone Orchard American Gods cast interview: Ian McShane, Ricky Whittle, Emily Browning American Gods: Bryan Fuller interview

It’s good advice, if alarming in the context of a DVD release-plugging interview. As a general rule,...

Written by Bobby Joseph | Art by Joseph Samuels | Published by Knockabout Comics

Usually the last thing I want in my comic book or graphic novel is politics… Usually I am looking for a book that takes me out of the real world a little bit and gives me some surreal fantastical story… Usually. When I read the write up and blurb for Scotland Yardie I decided, to hell with my usual. This book sounded like a story that was pulling all the real world issues from my nations heartland and poking them with a bloody big stick with a nice big tongue planted firmly in its cheek.

Its hard to actually boil down what Scotland Yardie is in a simple synopsis for you guys but I am going to try. With crime, police corruption, racism, unexplained deaths, Brexit, mass immigration and a new strand of a highly addictive drug named...

Maybe you heard about it from a friend, someone who'd stumbled across a random episode late one night. Maybe you knew someone from the U.K. who'd been crowing for years about this thing they'd caught on TV, something to do with brain-chips and recorded memories and a nightmarish sense of dread. Or maybe someone texted you, or Dm-ed you, or posted something in your social media feed about this show that was tapping into the collective fear that it's all one click away from coming apart at the seams.

Andrew Blair Oct 17, 2016

Armando Iannucci & Chris Morris' BBC Radio 4 news spoof not only gave rise to Alan Partridge but also launched countless comedy careers.

If you haven’t heard of On The Hour, you’ll have seen or read the work of the people who made it: Brass Eye, The Thick Of It, Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, Veep, Four Lions, that bit on the train at the end of Mission: Impossible, Closer, Jam, the Leicester Square Theatre Podcasts, the movie version of Notes On A Scandal; the NME, TV Burp, the videos for Little Baby Nothing by the Manics and Kung Fu by Ash, Smack The Pony, and Alan Partridge to name a few.

See related The Big Bang Theory season 10 episode 4 review: The Cohabitation Experimentation The Big Bang Theory season 10 episode 3 review: The Dependence Transcendence The Big Bang Theory season 10 episode 2 review: The Military Miniaturization The Big Bang Theory...

Environmentalist George Monbiot has sparked debate by skinning, butchering, cooking and eating a squirrel on live TV.

The Guardian columnist attracted criticism after revealing that he had eaten a roadkill squirrel, and later wrote a 2,360-word piece in the newspaper justifying his actions.

"There are millions of squirrels, rabbits, pigeons, deer that are killed every year, and a lot of them are landfilled," Monbiot said on the BBC's Newsnight as he butchered a squirrel bought from a farm shop.

"It doesn't have to be. It's not very nice! But meat production isn't. But at least there's no further ethical problem here."

George Monbiot taking an axe to a squirrel during an earnest #newsnight discussion is straight out of Brass Eye. pic.twitter.com/pcDHqrJdMj

— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) August 27, 2015

He continued: "I'm just cutting through the tail vertebrae - the tail bone in other words - but not the skin. It's quite a delicate operation,...

Noel Edmonds baffled TV fans this week when he declared that "electro smog" is a bigger world problem than climate change or even Aids.

This might be a surprising claim, were it not for the fact that Mr Blobby's bearded buddy has had more than his fair share of bizarre moments over the years. Whether you consider him a national treasure, a visionary maverick or just plain wrong, here are 9 of his most memorable moments that will surely leave all but the most hardened fans scratching their heads.

1. He claims to be visited by two melon-sized 'spiritual energy' balls

Noel has spoken openly about his belief in Spiritualism and cosmic ordering, a version of positive thinking in which people can write down their wishes and wait for them to materialise.

After being introduced to the practice by his reflexologist, he went on to write his own book titled Positively Happy:...

We certainly felt the power of 10 former Gladiators yesterday, as we took a look at what some of the stars went on to after the success of ITV's '90s hit.

We were bowled over to discover that Blaze (Eunice Huthart) is a stunt double to A-listers and godmother to Angelina Jolie's daughter Shiloh, and that Rhino (Mark Smith) went on to star in Hollywood films including Ben Affleck's Oscar-winning drama Argo.

But whatever happened to the villainous Wolf or the infamous Shadow, who was dramatically sacked from the series? We haven't found many current pictures of this lot, but here's a little bit about what 9 more of our favourite former Gladiators got up to after their time on the show:

1. Scorpio (Nikki Diamond)

Contenders were subjected to the mighty sting of the speedy Scorpio. Former bodybuilder and model Nikki Diamond was an original Gladiator, but was forced...

With fantasy franchises having been so popular in recent years, why did Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series stop before it got going?

A much beloved trilogy of fantasy novels, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials was much praised for its rich, imaginative fantasy world, nuanced and ambiguous characters and powerful anti-religious themes. Critically acclaimed, award-laden bestsellers with a young heroine in the form of Lyra Bellacqua, the trilogy seemed an obvious choice to follow Harry Potter and Lord Of The Rings and become a blockbuster movie series.

New Line bought the rights after bringing Lord Of The Rings to the screen, hoping for a similar success. The two stories are very different High Fantasies though, and The Golden Compass contains concepts less familiar to audiences than wizards, monsters and swordplay. His Dark Materials was also occasionally categorised in shops as a children’s book, unlike Lord Of The Rings.

Originally published two years ago, we re-present our look back at Nathan Barley to mark its 10-year anniversary

10 years since Channel 4 aired Nathan Barley, Charlie Brooker's "self-facilitating media node" has gone from absurdist parody to frightening reality.

A flop when it originally aired, but a cult hit on DVD, Nathan Barley is love-it-or-hate it telly. From Brass Eye creator Chris Morris, it was edgy, raw and often hilarious.

Brimming with up-and-coming talent like Brooker (Dead Set), Julian Barratt (The Mighty Boosh), and fellow Booshers Noel Fielding and Richard Ayoade, as well as some blink-and-you'll-miss-'em cameos from Stephen Mangan (Episodes), Mat Horne (Gavin & Stacey) and Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch, we think it's time Nathan Barley was given the praise it deserved.

Inspired by a mock TV show called C**t from Brooker's satirical TVGoHome website, the show follows two East Londoners: Nathan Barley (Nicholas Burns), the "self facilitating media...

Channel 5 will count down the Most Shocking TV Moments tonight (Monday, December 1) from 10pm.

In the 3-hour special, celebrities will recall Tom Cruise's sofa jump, Charles Ingram's Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? con, Oliver Reed's drunken chat show antics and much more.

Digital Spy can reveal which shock moments have made the top ten, though you'll have to tune in tonight to find out which order they come in, and which has claimed the top spot.

Michael Jackson's performance at the 1996 Brit Awards is interrupted by a stage invasion from Pulp's Jarvis Cocker

Strictly Come Dancing professional Kristina Rihanoff is surprised to be partnered with John Sergeant back in 2008

Diana, Princess of Wales gives a revealing interview on Panorama in November 1995

A Blind Date contestant believed to be a secretary is revealed to be a journalist writing an article for Cosmopolitan magazine

The Bee Gees...

From You’re Next director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett comes The Guest, a wacko action/horror comedy that rocks and rolls like a midnight madness movie, where expectations about pacing and tone are challenged, and good ol’ cinematic chaos reigns. Leading the film is Dan Stevens, formerly of BBC series “Downton Abbey,” who plays a kind ex-soldier named David who shows up one day at the Peterson family’s door, and begins to cozy into their daily lives. However, as the soldier spends more time as visitor, he slowly reveals himself to be a strangely wired individual, whose charm and incredible presence only provides a mask for his true origins.

Along with You’re Next, Wingard & Barrett have also made films like A Horrible Way to Die, and the V/H/S anthology shorts. Both of them also appeared as actors in Joe Swanberg’s post-Drinking Buddies experimental murder mystery 24 Exposures.

arstechnica.com

In the last day or so, news has been filtering down through the internet about the possibility of Facebook testing a ‘satire’ tag for use with the increasing number of satirical news websites out there. Just so people are aware: satirical news is not news about satire. A satirical news story is a comedy story published online that mimics the format of real news sites.

Now, obviously The Onion and The Daily Mash have been around for a number of years, and The Day Today and Brass Eye were doing this back before the Internet was a glimmer of free porn in a lonely geek’s eye. Nonetheless, Facebook still feels the needs to signpost satire – because a horrifying proportion of its regular users will not check the background of a story before sharing it with all of their friends.

But this massive, widespread gullibility isn’t just...

Channel 4

When something controversial, bizarre or shocking graces your tellybox, do you change the channel? Or even shut it off? No, of course you don’t; the last thing you want to do is look away. That’s why the most Wtf TV moments – even those discussed in hushed whispers – experience a special kind of longevity, still frequently referenced and remembered decades after their initial run.

True, there have been many moments of this variety to send the outraged and disgusted crying to Ofcom over the years – ecstasy trial Drugs Live, nineties magazine show The Word and anarchic black comedy Brass Eye to name just a few. But controversial TV doesn’t always have to be morally divisive, or mouth-agape awkward, or abrasive satire. The spooky and the strange have also caused their fair share of upset, with legendary faux-documentary Ghostwatch and Derren Brown’s Seance ranking as some...

Though its title would suggest light-hearted bakery rom-coms or potentially a Brass Eye spin-off drug pic, indie drama Cake actually focuses on a pain support group and has Jennifer Aniston as producer and star. She’s just gained a batch of fellow cast members in Anna Kendrick, Sam Worthington, Chris Messina, Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy, Britt Robertson, Lucy Walters, Camille Mana, Manuel Garcia Rulfo and Marianne Jean-Baptiste.Never Back Down’s Daniel Barnz is set to direct, with Patrick Tobin providing the script. Aniston will be the acerbic Claire, who becomes obsessed with one of the other attendees in her chronic illness support group, Nina (Kendrick). When Nina commits suicide, Claire tries to find out more about her life and starts a relationship with Nina’s husband (Worthington), while also dealing with her own traumas. Lest you think Kendrick will appear briefly then vanish from the film, she sticks...

Stewart Lee returns to BBC Two this weekend and judging from the first preview clip of his new series, the stand-up has lost none of his brilliantly astute, bone-dry cynicism.

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle series 3:

In the preview clip for the first episode, 'Shilbottle', Lee launches into one of his trademark rants about his dislike for the internet, and in particular, Twitter.

Lee points out that his entire life could be traced back using only inane Twitter updates from members of the public and compares the social networking service to "a state surveillance agency staffed by gullible volunteers".

"It's the Stasi for the Angry Birds generation," he concludes.

The third series of Comedy Vehicle will feature the return of Brass Eye and The Day Today creator Chris Morris to TV. Morris has replaced Armando Iannucci in the sketches placed between Lee's stand-up sets.

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle returns on Saturday,...

BBC

For those of us who love to be uncomfortable, Britain has spawned some of the most warped, unsettling and notorious programs ever to make us laugh. But sadly, our darkest comics are often our most overlooked and underrated. They’ve been lauded by some, yet alienated many others; caused widespread controversy, whilst somehow paving the way for lighter entertainers. Would Little Britain have ever existed without The League of Gentlemen, for example?

The fact is, we laugh at horrible things. We know we shouldn’t, but we do anyway. Laughing is the best coping mechanism we have. That’s why giggling in sombre situations, whilst highly frowned upon, is actually not considered that abnormal. And that’s also why these shows are funny. Often because we’re seeing something we recognise, but simply never really talk about because it isn’t ‘done.’ Sometimes we’re seeing a reflection of something we’ve experienced ourselves,...

The British techno-anxiety anthology series "Black Mirror" was one of the best things to sneak onto U.S. television last year (via DirecTV's Audience Network) -- check out our review here. The series originally ran for two three-episode seasons on the U.K.'s Channel 4 in 2011 and 2013, and now creator Charlie Brooker has promised that at least two more episodes are on the way. Brooker broke the news on a BBC Radio show hosted by Lauren Laverne, saying "There will be more -- I don't think I'm allowed to say quite when. There's going to be some and then there's going to be some more -- you'll get one helping and then there'll be another helping." Brooker, who also created the zombie series "Dead Set" and wrote episodes of "Brass Eye," "The 11 O'Clock Show" and "Nathan Barley," currently hosts BBC Two series "Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe." Of...

Objective's chief on why the magician's Channel 4 special this week had to be different and the return of Peep Show

Andrew Newman, an executive producer on illusionist Derren Brown's latest Channel 4 show, in which he coaches pensioners to steal a Chapman brothers painting from an art exhibition, is no stranger to brazen stunts. Early in his TV career, Newman worked with Sacha Baron Cohen in his Ali G phase and Chris Morris on Brass Eye, so he should have a natural affinity with Brown's high concept pranks.

As chief executive of Objective, the independent producer behind Brown's TV output, Newman oversees a programming slate that mirrors his own background working on offbeat, sometimes spiky series. The likes of Peep Show, Fresh Meat and Toast of London – recommissioned for a second Channel 4 series last week – attract critical plaudits and industry awards, but not always large audiences.

Newman...

The actor on his enduring love for Guns N' Roses, the brilliance of The Wire, and the appeal of artist Eric Roux-Fontaine

Jack Huston, 30, is the grandson of the Hollywood film director John Huston and nephew to actors Anjelica and Danny Huston. He is best known for his role as Richard Harrow, a disfigured war veteran turned assassin, in the HBO Prohibition drama Boardwalk Empire. Huston was born in London in 1982, the son of Lady Margot Lavinia Cholmondeley and Walter Anthony (Tony) Huston. He decided he wanted to be an actor at the age of six after playing the lead role in a school production of Peter Pan. He began to get major film roles in his early 20s and has since appeared in 19 films and almost every episode of Boardwalk Empire's four seasons. He can currently be seen in Strangers on a Train by Craig Warner. Directed by...

As its title suggests, the terrific British anthology series "Black Mirror" is meant to offer a darker reflection of ourselves and where we are as a society as technology continues to shape our lives. The mirror in question isn't just allegorical -- it could also refer to the many shiny surfaces into which we peer on a regular basis -- like that of, say, an iPhone or a flatscreen TV. The series, which premieres in the U.S. tonight, November 12 at 9pm on DirecTV's Audience Network, takes place in a variety of futures and alternate universes that aren't all that removed from our present reality. Some, like the first installment, "The National Anthem," are speculative without being sci-fi, and without introducing elements that would make what unfolds impossible today. The six stand-alone stories, the majority of which are written by series creator Charlie Brooker ("Brass Eye," "Dead Set," "Nathan Barley...

"Black Mirror" is an acclaimed British anthology series about our fears about technology and the future, one that earned comparisons to "The Twilight Zone." Created by Charlie Brooker ("Brass Eye," "Dead Set"), the series aired in the U.K. in two three-episode seasons, the first in December 2011 and the second in February 2013, and was for a long time a contender for series most talked about on the internet and yet not available on U.S. television. But "Black Mirror" is finally coming (legally) to U.S. screens courtesy of DirecTV's Audience Network. The channel, which is exclusive to DirecTV subscribers, will be airing all six episodes of "Black Mirror," premiering on Tuesday, November 12 at 9pm. The series will air alongside another Brit series, "Secret State" at 10pm. "'Black Mirror' is truly unlike any other show that is currently on television, which makes it a perfect fit for Audience,...

We've had Drugs: Live (people talking about drugs and being very boring) and Bedtime: Live (people talking about their sleeping habits and being very boring), so it was only a matter of time before Channel 4 made the logical step and brought us a Daily Mail-baiting sex series.

Sex Box is a ridiculous Brass Eye-esque concept. Shoving a happy couple in a box in a studio, asking them to get down to it and then having them discuss what they got up to with three smug 'sexperts'. The only purpose the show serves is creating an eye-catching, ratings-grabbing Epg show title (Date My Porn Star and Virgins - coming soon to C4).

Channel 4 can bang on all they like about this show being a serious examination of modern sexuality and they can bring in Mariella Frostrup as a host (oh Mariella!), but this show served no real purpose...

Who can possibly replace Louis Walsh on the X Factor? The answer to that question is simple. Nobody. It's a silly question.

However, if the X Factor juggernaut is going to continue without the cheeky Irish scamp, Digital Spy has seven (not particularly serious) suggestions for replacements.

Sinitta

A first-week exit on Dancing on Ice, a gig on the written-out-of-Cowell-history TV turkey Grease Is The Word and 10 years on the X Factor sidelines, where she was reduced to parading around with only palm leaves to cover her modesty in a bid to capture someone's (anyone's) attention. Is it finally time for the 'friend of Simon Cowell' and 'So Macho' popstar to step into the big league?

Pete Waterman

Way back when Simon Cowell was still known in the music industry as the man behind Zig & Zag and Robson & Jerome's pop careers, Pete Waterman was the original big cheese in cheesy pop.

Pacific Rim | Monsters University | The Deep | Blancanieves | Trap For Cinderella | The Moo Man | We Steal Secrets: The Story Of Wikileaks | Citadel | Cleopatra | Play | Les Invisibles | Bhaag Milkha Bhaag

Pacific Rim (12A)

(Guillermo del Toro, 2013, Us) Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi. 131 mins

You can boil this sci-fi spectacle down to Transformers vs Godzillas, but with Del Toro at the helm it's the thinking person's big, dumb blockbuster: an unironic, city-stomping smash-up mixing state-of-the-art effects with curiously antiquated action-movie dynamics. There's just enough human interest to sustain it, but this is all about giant machines, giant aliens and deafening destruction.

Monsters University (U)

(Dan Scanlon, 2013, Us) Billy Crystal, John Goodman. 110 mins

Animal House for pre-schoolers? The college setting is questionable and the originality scarce, making this an acceptable, colourful prequel rather than another Pixar triumph.

The Deep (12A)

(Baltasar Kormákur, 2012, Ice) Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Jóhann G Jóhannsson. 93 mins

Visceral but unsensational...

Stephen Merchant's new HBO sitcom Hello Ladies will air in the UK on Sky Atlantic, it has been confirmed.

The show will debut in the UK in the autumn. The second series of Armando Iannucci's Us political comedy Veep will also air in the UK in the autumn.

Hello Ladies is based loosely around Merchant's stand-up tour of the same name, and focuses on "a gawky Englishman searching for the woman of his dreams in Los Angeles".

The show is exec produced by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, who both worked on the Us version of The Office.

Watch a Hello Ladies teaser clip below:

Veep stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Vice President Selina Meyer and takes a satirical look at the world of Washington politics.

Chris Morris (Brass Eye), Chris Addison (The Thick of It), Becky Martin (Peep Show) and Tom Kirkby (Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle) have all...

The film star may have retracted his remarks about cunnilingus but he has raised awareness about this natural part of sex

In the past couple of days, cunnilingus has made a comeback (pun intended). Ever since Michael Douglas claimed that his marathon sessions had given him oral cancer, rather than the slightly more obvious culprits of drinking and smoking, everyone's had something to say about muff-diving. TMZ reports that ex-wife Diandra Douglas has made it clear to them that she "does not have Hpv, period" under the headline "My lady junk was clean as a whistle", which makes it all a little awkward. Jezebel interviews a couple of doctors then concludes that we should stop panicking before Douglas "becomes the poster child for idiot teenage boys and abstinence-only advocates who already think vaginas are super icky". Meanwhile, site after site, publication after publication, outlet after outlet, has been running variations...

Feature Andrew Blair 6 Jun 2013 - 07:00

Andrew counters the Twelfth Doctor speculation with ten actors who could, but almost certainly won't be playing the next Doctor...

After the news of Matt Smith's departure broke on Saturday evening, fans took to Twitter (or were already on Twitter anyway) to propose possible replacements. The breadth and calibre of the actors suggested was reassuring – we have a long and plausible list of candidates for the Twelfth Doctor, still leaving space for a relative unknown to turn up at the last minute.

If anything, the sheer number of people who could, in the public's eyes, convincingly play the Twelfth (probably) incarnation of a fictional alien (probably) makes the pressure of casting harder. Doctor Who's casting director Andy Pryor has done a damn good job since 2005, though, and the process of giving the showrunners a shortlist of actors then letting them pick the...

William Shatner is a man synonymous with so much more than strapping on a uniform, corset and rug to play the likes of Captain Kirk in Star Trek and Tj Hooker in the eponymous '80s cop show. He is a cult. An institution. A presence on this planet that should be rejoiced and rewarded with endless timeline-defying cameos in the new Star Trek movies! Here are a few reasons why he deserves a place in your heart...

International Talk Like Shatner Day

Every year on March 22, the day of the great man's birthday, homage is paid to Shatner's distinctive delivery and intonations. It all began in 2009 courtesy of Maurice Lamarche, who explains how to perfect 'the pause' in this tutorial...

Khaaaaaaaaaaan!

In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, a very special moment happened. It consisted of one bellowed word and an angry, contorted face. Magical.

Shatner's Bassoon

Chris Morris...

Channel 4 celebrated its thirtieth birthday last year. Though throughout its history it has struggled to match the ratings of the two networks that came before it – the BBC and ITV – it has succeeded at establishing itself as an excellent alternative that has never feared to be different, offering a wealth of interesting programming across a number of genres and channels.

The following article seeks to look at why the channel has succeeded and what continues to allow it to flourish and stand out above its rivals in the dynamic and competitive industry that is television. It also looks at where the channel has struggled in comparison to its counterparts.

5. Its Willingness To Take Risks And Tackle Taboo Subjects

‘Unspeakably sick’

‘The sickest TV show ever’

‘If this is considered acceptable material then we are tearing down all the boundaries of decency on television’

Those are just a handful of...

The BBC's remake of The Lady Vanishes distanced itself rather too well from Hitchcock's classic film

The Lady Vanishes (BBC1) | iPlayer

It's Kevin (BBC2) | iPlayer

Our Queen (ITV1) | ITV Player

Who can say why the BBC suddenly decided to remake The Lady Vanishes, though it must have seemed a fair bet that only film buffs – and perhaps not the ones in the habit of dropping by for Call the Midwife at this time on a Sunday night – would remember more than the opening credits of the original 1938 Hitchcock adaptation (scrolling jerkily over a railway hobbyist's layout of a station and hotel nestling in the snow-capped Balkans, which must have looked almost real at the time). In the event they avoided plot familiarity by cunningly going back to the forgotten 1936 novel (The Wheel Spins) by Ethel White, thus dispensing with Hitchcock's gunfight at the end, his comic characters and egregiously providential turns of fortune.

Kevin Eldon is a cult comedy legend. His CV is essentially a lengthy must-watch list of the funniest British TV from the last 20 years, which includes (to name just a few) Brass Eye, I'm Alan Partridge, Black Books, Big Train, Fist of Fun and Spaced.

Eldon has finally been granted his own solo sketch show by the BBC to allow his surreal comedy juices to run wild and the first clips showcase his unique, eye-catching style.

Watch two clips from It's Kevin:

The intro song to It's Kevin:

An gripping instalment of 'Shoe Shop' from It's Kevin:

It's Kevin, which features six episodes, starts on Sunday, March 17 at 10.30pm.

One of our recurring segments on The Televerse is The DVD Shelf, where guests come on to talk with us about one of their favorite series no longer on the air. Here is a library of the DVD Shelfs and guest segments we’ve done so far so listeners can catch up with our back catalog. Enjoy!

30 for 30 Season 1 (Make-You-Watch-athon)

Awake with Sean Ingram

Batman: the Animated Series with Gabe Bucsko

Battlestar Galactica (2003) with Josh Spiegel

Better Off Ted with Josh Spiegel

Blackadder with Les Chappell

Brass Eye with Derek Gladu

Buffy the Vampire Slayer with David Bax

Capone’s Horror Picks 1 (Duel, Salem’s Lot)

Cheers with David Bax

Chuck with Shawn Keown

Coupling (UK) with Erik Bondourant

Dead Like Me with Amrie Cunningham

Deadwood with Previously On

Doctor Who (Make-You-Watch-athon)

Fawlty Towers with Michael Rice

Firefly with Justine Smith

Freaks and Geeks with Corey Atad

Friday Night Lights...

Bill Murray called it 'probably the best work I've done' and, 20 years after its release, Groundhog Day can still take your breath away. Its original screenwriter Danny Rubin and admirers such as director David O Russell explain its lasting appeal

I am holding for David O Russell, the Oscar-nominated director of Silver Linings Playbook and The Fighter, who has agreed to talk about one of his all-time favourite films: the comic masterpiece Groundhog Day, released in the Us 20 years ago this month. (It reached the UK in May 1993.) But the person on the other end of the line doesn't sound like Russell: it's more of a shrill whine, the vocal equivalent of nails on a blackboard. Then the penny drops.

"Ryan? It's Ned! Ned Ryerson! Bing!" After a prolonged chuckle, Russell drops his impersonation of Groundhog Day's irksome insurance salesman, a minor but intensely memorable character, and explains excitedly...

[Now with added trailer.]Though scarcely known outside of the UK, critic turned writer-director Charlie Brooker is considered something of a giant within certain circles in the UK. As a writer he made his splash early, the enormously controversial Pedophilia episode of Chris Morris' brilliant investigative journalism send up Brass Eye standing as his second formal credit. The collaboration with Morris would later continue with Brooker penning a great deal of Morris' television series Nathan Barley, a show that was considered relatively minor at the time but seems weirdly prescient now. Brooker's dominant field is media satire and while that generally falls into relatively straightforward formats he has increasingly been plying his trade in more genre friendly, narratively driven packages. His 2008 show Dead Set put...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Hotel Transylvania

Stars (voices of): Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, David Spade, Ceelo Green | Written by Peter Baynham, Robert Smigel | Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky

After an angry mob of humans kills his wife, Dracula (Sandler) sets up a place for the world’s monsters to come and enjoy peace and safety – in the castle walls of Hotel Transylvania. It also becomes a sanctuary set up for his daughter (Gomez) whose desire to see the outside world is invigorated all-the-more once a human (Samberg) finds his way into the hotel and shows them all a different side to life.

Director Genndy Tartakovsky has a very recognisable style – pure energy and frantic movement à la the cartoon mayhem of something like Looney Tunes or Tom & Jerry – but for a film like Hotel Transylvania it becomes too disorientating. From the man who has directed episodes of The Powerpuff Girls,...

Four Lions

Directed by Chris Morris

Written by Chris Morris, Simon Blackwell, Sam Bain & Jesse Armstrong

UK, 2010

At face value, the idea of a black comedy following the efforts of a group of second generation Muslims in modern Britain taking up Jihadism and suicide bombing doesn’t exactly sound tasteful or well judged, let alone a gold mine for potential gags. But one underestimates Chris Morris’ incredible but ulnar nerve smashing sense of humor if they think his debut feature film would be anything other than horribly funny while somehow making a very serious point, a poignant message hidden within the bowels of farce and politically incorrect high jinks. Always controversial, Morris had been in the shadow zone of public consciousness for the better part of a decade since the public outcry at his genius satire Brass Eye boiling up further acid as follow up to widely acclaimed news parody The Day Today.

Good day to you! I trust you had a peaceful festive period – I certainly did, but it was dull. So mind numbingly, buttock-clenchingly dull! I’m so happy the calendar has progressed beyond late-December and into the grey, insignificant sludge of January. And to welcome in another four months of pre-summer boredom I present to you another five superlative strewn Youtube clips to take your mind off the vapidity of modern culture.

There’s a flailing Good Samaritan; a series of informative quasi-facts about our favourite actor Morgan Freeman; a movie marriage that would set fanboy hearts racing; some wonderfully silly British humour; and finally an Oscar nominated short film.

Enjoy!

5. Good deed of the week

Here we have a Good Samaritan doing what Good Samaritans do; he’s releasing an animal back into the wild.

In what looks to be an American park, this noble plan goes awry. I daren’t say what,...

Revisiting 18 years of pop culture, from Britpop to the Spice Girls, via Father Ted

1994: Mad fer it!

Issue No 1 Previously a broadsheet section in the newspaper, The Guide was expanded into a magazine proper on 27 August 1994. Nobody bothered to archive a copy, though, so the best we can do is show you a Xeroxed reproduction of the cover. At the time we were concerned with the weird state of science shows on TV and had a wander around the Notting Hill Carnival.

Spotted! All Saints From a review of their single Silver Shadow: "Born in the same year and in the same area of London, what else could these girls do but form a swingbeat group? Their debut is a sickly Atlantic Starr cover with an idiotic number of mixes, encompassing every dance style bar Morris. Eternal may rest easy in their Timberlands." Note: swingbeat was a form of...

Hotel Transylvania

Stars (voices of): Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, David Spade, Ceelo Green | Written by Peter Baynham, Robert Smigel |Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky

After an angry mob of humans kills his wife, Dracula (Sandler) sets up a place for the world’s monsters to come and enjoy peace and safety – in the castle walls of Hotel Transylvania. It also becomes a sanctuary set up for his daughter (Gomez) whose desire to see the outside world is invigorated all-the-more once a human (Samberg) finds his way into the hotel and shows them all a different side to life.

Director Genndy Tartakovsky has a very recognisable style – pure energy and frantic movement à la the cartoon mayhem of something like Looney Tunes or Tom & Jerry – but for a film like Hotel Transylvania it becomes too disorientating. From the man who has directed episodes of The Powerpuff Girls,...

For those unfamiliar, here is a brief history lesson on Veep creator / director Armando Iannucci. Iannucci first came to prominence as one of the creators of The Day Today, a UK mock news show that also launched the careers of Steve Coogan and Four Lions director Chris Morris. The core trio were fearless in skewering both the media and political trends of the day, Morris continuing on that line with his subsequent series Brass Eye while Iannucci and Coogan teamed up for a string of enormously popular shows based on Coogan's The Day Today character Alan Partridge. Together Coogan and Iannucci are largely responsible for launching the style of awkward-verite comedy that launched Ricky Gervais to stardom in The Office and while Gervais...