Only Fools and Brotherly Forces

This episode we discuss the long running and immensely popular family comedy first released in the year 2000, "My Family". This was our first proper family comedy show and lead to a really unique and interesting discussion, full of tangents, random anecdotes and early 21st century nostalgia.  The show features a great cast of actors and interesting characters that was dismissed by the critics while being a huge hit with audiences. Although it did perhaps overstay its welcome with a whopping 120 Episodes...

This Episode we discuss the 2012 series Bad Education, written by and staring Jack Whitehall. The show finds itself landing dangerously close to the likes of "The Inbetweeners" and another show staring Jack Whitehall, "Fresh Meat", and its fair to say the comparisons do not do this show any favours.The fact this show managed three seasons and a movie is a surprise only surpassed in magnitude by its recent relaunch, maybe we've missed something here? Safe to say it wasn't exactly our cup of tea but as always we had fun discussing it.

Another year rolls past which means another chance for us to step outside our usual format and look at a UK Comedy film. This year we watch the funniest UK Comedy Film EVER! (As per a decade old channel 4's poll). Monty Pythons 'The Life of Brian' was as controversial at the time as it was funny. The film experienced issued getting the green light from production studios and even after it was made would be banned in multiple countries for a long, long time. Listen to our episode to find out the good, the bad, the ugly and the great of this absolute classic. Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

In this episode we tackle the incredibly joke heavy 'Not Going Out'. Written by Lee Mack and surprisingly the second-longest-running British sitcom (number of series), the word play, one liners and consistent punch lines make it one of the easiest watching shows around. But with so many jokes, is there much story and character intrigue to keep us engaged? All will be revealed in this weeks brotherly forces rewatch.

In this episode we watch the long running and 129 episode deep Birds of a Feather. Another female led comedy showcasing the acting prowess of Pauline Quirke along side childhood friend Linda Robson and larger than life Lesley Joseph. This series certainly looked to exceed expectations with similarities to some of our best loved shows, but will it be able to keep up the pace through its many series? Listen to our take on this classic to find out  

In this episode we discuss the seminal 2001 comedy " The Office", created by the now world renowned Ricky Gervais and Steven Merchant. The Office while not universally loved, was an instant classic and ubiquitous almost to a fault from its inception. The commitment to detail and insistence of its creators to have full control, lead to a show that appeared as instantly fully formed as anything we've previously discussed. The blend of reality, relatability and comedy seems perfectly woven into the sometimes unbelievable characters and their often despicable actions.The shows popularity and impact on comedy are often very highly stated, we try to pull this back down to earth and provide context into the world that The Office entered, discussing some of its predecessors and hopefully heaping deserved praise and fair judgement in our usual fashion. 

Its what so many of us have been waiting for, a brand new comedy written by and staring the legendary Dylan Moran. When we both found out this was to be released last year we were of course overjoyed and quickly decided to break our randomator format to tackle this fresh series. Coupled with another of our favourite female comedy actors, Morgana Robinson, it has all the ingredients to be an instant hit. At only 15 minutes a piece, the episodes are very short and there is only 5 of them in total, so will this long awaited return to the screen give us what we've been craving for 2 decades?? or does disappointment loom. Listen to our breakdown of this very uniquely formatted series to find out. 

Another Brotherly Forces ambitiously named Christmas Extravaganza. We catch up a little about our year and the different circumstances we find ourselves in compared to last years special when we covered the same dickens story performed by the muppets.In this episode we follow the classic story with one of our favorites Rowan Atkinson as Ebenezer Blackadder and visit his ancestors from past and future.

In this episode we discuss a piece of English comedy history with French and Saunders first regular sitcom roles. They both write and star along with Ruby wax and Tracey Ullman in the classic comedy format of unlikely housemates. While parallels to Young Ones are abound, it's very much its own show with some new ideas and welcome new voices. A fascinating origin story for this collection of now much loved female comedians .