Could ‘Little Britain USA’ Be the Way?

A very unusual Transatlantic experiment will take place on Sept. 28. That’s when HBO is set to air Little Britain USA, essentially the fourth season of the BBC’s Little Britain.

Shot in Wilmington, NC, the six-part series also will air on the BBC in the UK and The Movie Network in Canada.

In addition to the usual gang of outrageous characters featured in previous series of Little Britain, this year’s entry also will include some new American ones:

• “Sweet American Teen Connor and his grandmother Mildred”
• “Misguided beauty pageant hopeful Ellie-Grace and her pushy mother” (pictured)
• Iron-pumpers Tom and Mark
• Bing Gordyn, the eighth astronaut on the moon

Up till now, Little Britain has been seen in the USA only on the BBC America cable channel. It remains to be seen what effect filming the series in the US for a combined UK/North American audience will have on the often-crude sketch show. Could this finally be a successful compromise between airing British programs in America and remaking them with American casts?

Visit ‘Comedy England’

Certainly it’s been a slow, maddening process, watching the BBC, and by extension all British television companies, come to realize what a commodity they have in their programs, and how admired those commodities are around the world.

Today, everything has changed. You can acquire most British TV shows on home video (though you may have to bung in a few extra quid for a Region Free DVD player), the BBC America cable channel isn’t afraid to experiment with its content, and last month, something even more amazing came about.

VisitBritain, the UK’s national tourism agency, launched a sweeping new campaign to lure more cash-engorged souls to its shores – all based on its rich history of television, cinematic and stand-up comedy.

The “Comedy England” campaign and Web site invite the curious and the obsessed to visit the birthplaces of legends such as Peter Sellers and Charlie Chaplin, and pay their respects at the graveside of Benny Hill.

Of even greater interest to British Telly fans, “Comedy England” also can helpfully guide you to dozens of other points of interest including:

• The setting of the Seventies sitcom To the Manor Born
• The place where Fawlty Towers‘ Basil Fawlty thrashed his car with a tree branch
• The home of Lou and Andy from Little Britain
• The fictional home of Bridget Jones’ Diary’s title character
• A Dad’s Army museum

What’s particularly gratifying about this campaign and its accompanying Web site is the thought that has clearly gone into it. This isn’t just the nonsense you’ll find in any old guidebook. Speaking of the Web site, its a slick, friendly little number that can easily lead to a relaxing evening’s Web surfing.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to plan my trip to the French restaurant that Mr. Creosote threw up in in Monty Python’s Meaning of Life. (I assume I shall have to bring my own bucket.)

Robbie Coltrane: ‘We’re All Going to Be Gypsies’

Robbie Coltrane, star of the yet-to-be-topped police drama Cracker, is exploring the weird and wonderful places off the beaten path in the UK in the new DVD Robbie Coltrane: Incredible Britain. Terrific, wonderful — I’m sure he’s brilliant in it as he is in darn near everything he’s ever put his hand to.

But check out this interview with Coltrane by Luaine Lee of the McClatchy-Tribune News Service for some of his insights into not only this new DVD, but the world at large. In particular he has an interesting riff on acting vs. “normal” jobs:

“The more dull the job the less likely you were ever to get fired. People made a deal with themselves that they were going with security and not necessarily much fulfillment. But that’s not true anymore. They’re laying off people who work in banks by the thousands. I think we’re all going to be gypsies and vagabonds one of these days.”

And don’t forget to check out an interview with Coltrane’s Cracker co-star Geraldine Somerville (Jane Penhaligon) in 30 Years of British Television, out now.

Book’s First Review!

Thanks to 30 Years of British Television publisher Ben Ohmart for calling our attention to the book’s first official review. On the whole, Phil Hall, writing for the Edge Boston, had some nice things to say:

For anyone who watches public television strictly to feed an Anglophile fix, this is quite the treasure.

Thanks, Phil! Feedback of any kind is always appreciated.

Is TV Drama the New Novel?

Riffing on a remark made by Jane Tranter, the BBC’s head of fiction, at a recent Royal Television Society event, The Guardian’s Leigh Holmwood asked the very interesting question:

Should TV drama be taken as seriously as other forms of more ‘high art’? And has it really supplanted the novel as the “narrative of our times”?

Even more intriguing than the question were some of the answers Holmwood received such as this one:

I’m not convinced. Television is culturally extremely important but to say the TV drama has supplanted the novel as the “narrative of our times” is perhaps a step too far. The novel is still incredibly important – book sales are high and the novel has great influence over other art forms, in a way that television does not.

At first blush this sounds right, but even in the UK, book sales are not as high as all that. And as much as they would like to deny it, the type of books that are actually selling are of no greater intellectual weight than what passes over bookseller counters in the States: James Patterson potboilers, bodice-rippers and party-political screeds, mostly. A far more telling answer is one of the most recent on The Guardian page:

Last time I had a long flight, I didn’t take along a book. I took series one of The West Wing to watch on an iPod. Drama – as proven by The Sopranos, The Wire, and even pulp TV ‘airport’ fiction such as Lost and 24, can be every bit as engaging as a good book, and – thanks to ongoing narratives – can last a lifetime (or seven seasons…)

What say you?