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Graham McCann
Graham McCann

Graham McCann

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Graham McCann features - page 2

Till Death Us Do Part. Image shows left to right: Alf Garnett (Warren Mitchell), Arthur Blenkinsopp (Eric Sykes). Credit: BBC Features

Comedy Chronicles: Up the polls! - Election campaigns and comedy

Sunday 30th June 2024

Comedy and politics regularly mix, but there has long been a significant hesitation amongst television broadcasters to poke fun during election campaign periods.

On The Buses. Jack Harper (Bob Grant) Features

Comedy Chronicles: The bus stop - The post-fame fate of Bob Grant

Sunday 16th June 2024

Bob Grant found fame in 1970s sitcom On The Buses. It was the role that made him, but also, alas, the one that broke him.

The Queen and Bernard Delfont Features

Comedy Chronicles: Bernard Delfont's theatrical reign

Sunday 2nd June 2024

There was a time, roughly from the 1950s to the 1990s, when it seemed as though just about anything that was funny, as well as dramatic, that was going on inside a British theatre had arrived there courtesy of Bernard Delfont. Here's an in-depth profile of the entertainment impresario.

Image shows left to right: John Junkin, Barry Cryer Features

Comedy Chronicles: Taking on the tabula rasa: Inside the writing room

Sunday 19th May 2024

Writing comedy. Some like to do it standing up; some prefer sitting down; and others have ended up lying flat out on the floor. Graham McCann examines how some of Britain's finest comic minds got their words down on the page.

Lew Grade Features

Comedy Chronicles: How Lew Grade knocked entertainment into shape

Sunday 5th May 2024

A profile of Lew Grade, one of the most powerful TV executives who - via companies such as ATV - defined the comedy that appeared on television from the 1950s onwards.

Deryck Guyler Features

Comedy Chronicles: Oh yes! - The comic guile of Deryck Guyler

Sunday 21st April 2024

A profile of Deryck Guyler, the comic actor who for much of the Sixties and Seventies on British television was the comic embodiment of the Jobsworth.

John Le Mesurier Features

Comedy Chronicles: Playtime - The leisure of John Le Mesurier

Sunday 7th April 2024

Marking 112 years since his birth, biographer Graham McCann explores the truth behind the private life and pleasures of actor and beloved sitcom star, John Le Mesurier.

Val Parnell Features

Comedy Chronicles: The Duce of Entertainment - Comedy, commercial TV and Val Parnell

Sunday 24th March 2024

Val Parnell was one of Britain's most significant and influential impresarios of the twentieth century. A major manager of the live variety circuit, a powerful promoter of talent and one of the pioneers of commercial television, he helped shape, maintain and move on what passed as popular entertainment in this country for the best part of fifty years.

Jimmy James Features

Comedy Chronicles - The Comedians' Comedian: The art and impact of Jimmy James

Sunday 10th March 2024

Who influenced comics as diverse and star-studded as Peter Cook, Morecambe & Wise, Frankie Howerd, Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock? The great Jimmy James, that's who.

Rita Webb Features

Comedy Chronicles: Rita Webb

Sunday 25th February 2024

On the 120th anniversary of her birth, Comedy Chronicles looks back at the life and career of Rita Webb, the comic actor who often played working class characters.

Jack Hylton Presents Features

Comedy Chronicles: Taking It To The Hilt - Jack Hylton and British Comedy

Sunday 11th February 2024

Jack Hylton must rate as one of, if not the, most extraordinary and influential impresarios in the history of British entertainment.

Harry Green Features

Comedy Chronicles: The Trouble With Harry - The premature exit of Harry Green

Sunday 28th January 2024

Comedy Chronicles looks at the career of actor Harry Green and how his death during a live television play threw the production into chaos.

Kenneth Williams Features

Comedy Chronicles: A touch of the Gogols: When Kenneth Williams read Russian literature

Sunday 14th January 2024

It might have been somewhat surprising at the time, but now, looking back at it, it seems quite an apt connection: a diarist drawn to a diary. The diarist in question was Kenneth Williams, and the diary was Nikolai Gogol's Diary of a Madman.

Image shows left to right: Fred MacAulay, Carol Smillie Features

Comedy Chronicles: Hogmanay Hell: The BBC's New Year Live 98

Sunday 31st December 2023

Graham McCann looks back at New Year Live on BBC One in 1998. Hosted by Fred MacAulay and Carol Smillie, a programme that ended up a "terrible, hopeless, depressing mess".

Image shows left to right: Kenneth Kendall, Michael Crawford Features

Comedy Chronicles: Merry Christmas, VT: How festive television used to amuse itself

Sunday 24th December 2023

This festive edition of Comedy Chronicles looks back at a strange tale of some strange tapes. It is about the television festivities from the latter part of the last century that were never meant to be televised, and were only meant to be seen by those behind the scenes.

Alma McKay Features

Comedy Chronicles: Digs, dives and landladies: Comic travellers' tales

Sunday 17th December 2023

Insalubrious boarding houses and idiosyncratic landladies were particularly popular topics for comic tale-telling throughout most of the twentieth century. Comedy Chronicles looks back at some of the well-known theatrical lodgings, including what became of poor Arthur the parrot.

Stainless Stephen Features

Comedy Chronicles: The comic that time forgot: The lives and deaths of Stainless Stephen

Sunday 3rd December 2023

One of the first British comedians to appear regularly on radio, Stainless Stephen was one of the busiest, best-loved and cleverest comedians in the country.

You're Only Young Twice. Cissie Lupin (Pat Coombs). Copyright: Yorkshire Television Features

Comedy Chronicles: Oooh, I say!: The kind but clever comedy of Pat Coombs

Sunday 19th November 2023

Pat Coombs was, for more than half a century, one of British comedy's most effective and admired supporting performers. This article traces her career.

Josephine Tewson Features

Comedy Chronicles: Choosing Tewson - A star of the second row

Sunday 5th November 2023

Josephine Tewson is perhaps best remembered as Hyacinth Bucket's flustered next-door neighbour Elizabeth, but her comic talent - and breadth of contributions - go far wider and far deeper.

Gonks Go Beat. Great Galaxian (Jerry Desmonde) Features

Comedy Chronicles - Giving it to you straight: The discreet art of Jerry Desmonde

Sunday 22nd October 2023

If a definition of a straight man is ever required, the entry should simply read: 'See Jerry Desmonde'. Comedy Chronicles recounts the career of the man once dubbed 'the prince of feeds', who worked with comics such as Sid Field and Norman Wisdom.

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