Peter Sellers was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show. Sellers featured on a number of hit comic songs, and became known to a worldwide audience through his many film roles, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther series.
Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan was an Irish comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor. The son of an English mother and Irish father, he was born in British Colonial India, where he spent his childhood before relocating in 1931 to England, where he lived and worked for the majority of his life. Disliking his first name, he began to call himself "Spike" after hearing the band Spike Jones and his City Slickers on Radio Luxembourg.
The Goon Show is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 1951, was titled Crazy People; subsequent series had the title The Goon Show.
Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. The form developed and became popular in vaudeville, and is used widely in variety shows, comedy talk shows, and some sitcoms and children's television series. The sketches may be improvised live by the performers, developed through improvisation before public performance, or scripted and rehearsed in advance like a play. Sketch comedians routinely differentiate their work from a "skit", maintaining that a skit is a (single) dramatized joke while a sketch is a comedic exploration of a concept, character, or situation. Sketch comedy is a genre within American television that includes a multitude of schemes and identities.
Richard Lester Liebman is a retired American film director based in the United Kingdom, famous for his comedic and campy style of shooting movies and for his work in both US and UK cinema.
Johnny Speight was an English television scriptwriter of many classic British sitcoms.
Bruce Robinson is an English actor, director, screenwriter and novelist. He wrote and directed Withnail and I (1987), a film with comic and tragic elements set in London in the late 1960s, which drew on his experiences as a struggling actor, living in poverty in Camden Town.
Not Only... But Also is a BBC British sketch comedy show starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore that aired in three series between 1964 and 1970.
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a British television adaptation of the 1949 novel of the same name by George Orwell, originally broadcast on BBC Television in December 1954. The production proved to be hugely controversial, with questions asked in Parliament and many viewer complaints over its supposed subversive nature and horrific content. It starred Peter Cushing, Yvonne Mitchell, Donald Pleasence and André Morell.
Graham William Stark was an English comedian, actor, writer and director.
Q... is a surreal television comedy sketch show written by Spike Milligan and Neil Shand, and starring Spike Milligan with supporting players, usually including Julia Breck, John Bluthal, Bob Todd, and John Wells. The show ran from 1969 to 1982 on BBC2. There were six series in all, the first five numbered from Q5 to Q9, and a final series titled There's a Lot of It About. The first and third series ran for seven episodes, and the others for six episodes, each of which was 30 minutes long.
Colin Gordon was a British actor Although primarily a stage actor he made numerous appearances on television and in cinema films, generally in comedies. His stage career was mainly in the West End, but he was seen in the provinces in some touring productions.
Mario Edgio Pantaleone Fabrizi was an English comedian and actor of Italian descent, noted for his luxuriant moustache. He was active in Britain in the 1950s and early 1960s.
David William Frederick Lodge was an English character actor.
Penny Points to Paradise is a 1951 comedy feature film directed by Tony Young and starring Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers of The Goon Show in their feature film debut.
Let's Go Crazy is a 1951 British short comedy film directed by Alan Cullimore, written by and starring Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan playing multiple roles.
Tony Young (1917–1966), sometimes credited as Anthony Young, was a British film director and television producer. His films include Penny Points to Paradise (1951), The Eternal Question (1956) and The Runaway (1963).
Son of Fred is the successor series to The Idiot Weekly, Price 2d and A Show Called Fred. It was made by Associated-Rediffusion and broadcast only in the London area, Midlands and Northern England.
The British actor and comedian Peter Sellers (1925–1980) performed in many genres of light entertainment, including film, radio and theatre. He appeared in the BBC Radio comedy series The Goon Show, recorded a number of hit comic songs and became known internationally through his many film characterisations, among them Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series. The filmmakers John and Roy Boulting described him as "the greatest comic genius [Britain] has produced since Charles Chaplin".
Edward J. Danziger (1909–1999) and Harry Lee Danziger (1913–2005) were American-born brothers who produced many British films and TV shows in the 1950s and 1960s.
