Chris Hallam

Mar 29, 2025 | comedy.co.uk | Chris Hallam

Have you ever wondered what happens to our favourite sitcom characters after the final curtain falls? Did Basil and Sybil survive the final climactic discovery of a live rat on the premises of Fawlty Towers? Did Tom and Barbara manage to keep on living the good life into the Eighties? In most cases, we never get to find out. Happily, in the case of Slade Prison's most famous inmate, Norman Stanley Fletcher (Ronnie Barker), we soon got a definite answer.

Mar 26, 2025 | chrishallamworldview.wordpress.com | Chris Hallam

Back in 1963, the BBC launched a new TV series about a mysterious old man who could travel through space and time in a vessel disguised as a police telephone box (apparently a common enough sight in Britain at the time). Viewers liked the fact the machine was somehow magically much larger on the inside and loved the character’s enemies, the Daleks. The show became a hit.

Feb 13, 2025 | chrishallamworldview.wordpress.com | Chris Hallam

Joel Morris is a very funny man. With his writing partner, Jason Hazeley, he has written for Diane Morgan’s great comedy creation, Philomena Cunk. He also helped write both of the first two Paddington films, has written a book called, ‘Far From The Sodding Crowd,’ has contributed to adult comic Viz and co-wrote the hilarious series of Ladybird book parodies (e.g. The Ladybird Book of the Midlife Crisis) which were bestsellers a few years ago.

Feb 1, 2025 | comedy.co.uk | Chris Hallam

The most rampant and frenzied comedy sex scene in British film history. A pair of singing underpants. A West End musical based around the life of the Elephant Man. All three play a crucial role in The Tall Guy, the winning British film comedy released in June 1989. The Tall Guy was a film of firsts. It saw future Oscar-winner Emma Thompson make her first ever big screen appearance. It was the directorial debut of TV funnyman Mel Smith.

Jan 13, 2025 | chrishallamworldview.wordpress.com | Chris Hallam

Well over sixty years ago, the collective talents of director, Blake Edwards and comedy genius, Peter Sellers came together and created the Pink Panther films. The original 1963 film stared David Niven as the debonair thief of the titular diamond, but, in fact, it was Sellers who (as Niven ruefully acknowledged) committed the greatest crime of all: stealing the whole film with his winning comic performance as the bumbling French sleuth, Inspector Jacques Clouseau.