Popped along to a pilot recording last night for BBC One for a new series of  "Armstrong & Miller".

Pretty much the same format as all the previous series they did for Channel 4 - so not sure why thay had to do a pilot....

Thought the quality was as high as previous CH4 series.  Some real laugh out loud moments throughout.  Favourites for me included RAF World War II pilots talking chav and breakfast time/News 24 presenters reading out inane emails they had received.

Got shown about 20 mins of pre-recorded material and saw 5 sketches recorded in the studio.

No Sarah Alexander or Tony Gardiner in the supporting cast - which was a shame.

Hattrick production

Russell Howard did warm up (thought he was very good - and so did the audience it seemed from their reaction).

Oh, that sounds good.

Interesting that after a fair few years of catchphrase comedies we're heading back the other way with two Cambridge pairings.

Russell Howard's good, yeah. Although he struggles bit with the extended set, I find.

QuoteAF World War II pilots talking chav

Oh, great.

That's a pleasant surprise; I had no idea this was in the pipeline. The Channel 4 show was pretty strong, I thought.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6MQ-CK6JEY&NR

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5OV4GCpGhk&mode=related&search=

Some old clips dressed up as new ones.

Nah, they are from the old Channel 4 shows.  Who's the prat that's put his Faceless-style web address over the top of the clips halfway through?

Thanks for the links, though.  I have reasonably fond memories of these shows and these clips have confirmed that reasonable fondness.

When's this likely to be on? I'd imagine the BBC would keep some distance beween it and The Mitchell and Webb Look, but time's running out for that if they're going to show both of them this year.

I'd be surprised if this Armstrong & Miller series goes out much before the end of the year because, as far as I know, I don't think it's even been shot yet.

Mitchell & Webb Sound's going to be on BBC2, so I think there's more than enough room for both of them.

I have no time for A&M, but I am encouraged by the amount BBC1's investing in comedy for the upcoming new season.  Is Peter Fincham the channel's first controller with a comedy background since Michael Grade (1984-87)?

Anyone make it along to the read thru/try out for the new series this evening at the Hen & Chickens in Islington tonight (or even last week's one)?

linky

So is this show actually going to get shown?

Was their a demand to bring back Armstrong and Miller? I never spotted any. Or do they have a powerful friend within the BBC or something?

It's a bit like reviving Surgical Spirit or Faith In The Future.

Quote from: "Joe Maplin"Was their a demand to bring back Armstrong and Miller? I never spotted any. Or do they have a powerful friend within the BBC or something?

It's a bit like reviving Surgical Spirit or Faith In The Future.

I thought their Channel 4 show was superb. Dunno about a demand, but compared to recent and not-so-recent sketch comedy fare, A&M are like Citizen Kane.

Mitchell&Webb wrote a lot of the A&M shows, and the good bits could have fitted on TMAWL easily. So I don't see the point of having both series. It would be like having another Boosh series and also bringing back The Goodies.

Quote from: "Backstage With Slowdive"Mitchell&Webb wrote a lot of the A&M shows, and the good bits could have fitted on TMAWL easily. So I don't see the point of having both series. It would be like having another Boosh series and also bringing back The Goodies.

You make a good point. Although do we know who wrote their BBC pilot? Maybe they've done something new with it, or something. I'd still like to see them, they're both great comedy performers.

The studio sessions for the series started a few weeks ago. They were recording the same night as Harry Enfield, who asked his audience "Do you know who Armstrong and Miller are?". There was no response, because we all lied.

Interesting link: the persons responsible for Enfield's awful new scripts (Tyler-Moore and Jeffrie) were head writers for Armstrong and Miller's last couple of series.

Does anyone get the Boosh/Goodies comparison? I mean, ONE TINY BIT? On one hand, you've got a character and joke-based show that was usually topical and satirical. On the other hand, you've got empty, directionless whimsy. No two comedy shows could be more dissimilar.

At its best, TMB could be seen as the briefest, most offhand bits of throwaway R&M silliness, strung out several times the length, and badly performed.

Depressing looking behind the scenes of the tryouts can be found here. Is that a Montgomery I see before me?

I think there is some good character based stuff in TMB but I would agree it is not entirely similar to The Goodies.

Quote from: "Ben Ordinary"Depressing looking behind the scenes of the tryouts can be found here. Is that a Montgomery I see before me?

Depressing looking? I had two or three good laughs at that 3 minutes of chatting and material, which bodes well for a new series. I'm really looking forward to this.

Quote from: "Famous Mortimer"

Quote from: "Ben Ordinary"Depressing looking behind the scenes of the tryouts can be found here. Is that a Montgomery I see before me?

Depressing looking? I had two or three good laughs at that 3 minutes of chatting and material, which bodes well for a new series. I'm really looking forward to this.

I thought it seemed like 3 minutes of ideas-free dullness added with Lucy Montgomery, who I 'have to admit' is bloody awful in those clips. I used to like the Channel 4 series just in case you think I've got some agenda, although it went incredibly dull too by the end. I'll not pre-judge it and would really love this to be good but I suspect it'll be another predictable plodding series that the BBC hope might sell a few teatowels.

For someone with a Mr Show related username, you'll understand my desire for some UK-based super exciting 'anything could happen' comedy of a similar vein. I just dont think Armstrong And Miller will be that series.

I'm puzzled as to why they're going back to doing sketches when they've both got succesful drama careers going - well, Ben Miller has. Wonder if they'll put a Primeval parody in.

'Cos sketches are great!

I guess they must enjoy working together and writing sketches.

Quote from: "Ben Ordinary"For someone with a Mr Show related username, you'll understand my desire for some UK-based super exciting 'anything could happen' comedy of a similar vein. I just dont think Armstrong And Miller will be that series.

I do indeed understand that desire. I'm not sure A&M will be that either, but I'm pretty confident it'll be really funny.

Quote from: "Famous Mortimer"

Quote from: "Ben Ordinary"For someone with a Mr Show related username, you'll understand my desire for some UK-based super exciting 'anything could happen' comedy of a similar vein. I just dont think Armstrong And Miller will be that series.

I do indeed understand that desire. I'm not sure A&M will be that either, but I'm pretty confident it'll be really funny.

I'd agree that it isn't groundbreaking, but the stuff I saw in the Pilot and the second recording session for the series was really great.  The second session was especially good - haven't laughed as much at an audience recording for years.  It repeated some stuff from the pilot  andsome bits were reshot and augmented.

In fact I liked the stuff so much I'm off to see another session on Friday .  Not done that since the Blackadder and Fry & Laurie recordings...