The best moments of The Comic Strip Presents…
As Gold gives a long-awaited reshowing of the 2011 Comic Strip gem The Hunt for Tony Blair on Saturday, we give our guide to the best the troupe has had to offer in its 32 year history
Since the first ever offering from The Comic Strip Presents... (the Enid Blyton spoof Five Go Mad in Dorset that aired on Channel 4’s launch night in November 1982), the occasional series has always brought the best out of British comedians.
The Comic Strip has been a kind of supergroup for funny people where every so often some of the brightest and best get together and make something special.
They include Harry Enfield, French and Saunders, Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Robbie Coltrane….up until the likes of Stephen Mangan who played the eponymous anti-hero in The Hunt for Tony Blair. There have been more than forty Comic Strip offerings over the years but here is our pick of the very best...
1. Five Go Mad in Dorset
Oh Wizard….with lashings of ginger ale. Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books were never seen the same way again….
2. The GLC
Robbie Coltrane played an unlikely – and unforgettable – Ken Livingstone saving London from right-wingers. And Kate Bush’s hilarious song Ken was its crowning glory...
3. Jealousy
A good one this, not least because it features current Time Lord, Peter Capaldi, as jealous husband John who suspects his wife (played by Jennifer Saunders) of having an affair…
4. Four Men in a Car
Four men. In a car. And this unforgettable (and disgusting scene) scene featuring the late great Rik Mayall….
5. The Hunt for Tony Blair
A 1950s fugitive film which imagined the former Prime Minister as a deranged serial killer shooting his way out of Downing Street and ending up in the bed of Margaret Thatcher. It had to be funny, didn’t it?
* Comic Strip Presents…The Hunt for Tony Blair is on Gold on Saturday at 11pm
