Jon Plowman

How To Produce Comedy Bronze by Jon Plowman review

If Jon Plowman is creating comedy bronze, it doesn't say much for the other people in that mysterious TV job of producer.

How to Produce Comedy Bronze review

Lucy Lumsden revels in Jon Plowman's new book, an engaging mix of memoir and manual.

10 years of Sachsgate: a prank call made comedy boring

"Compared with leaving the EU or the election of Donald Trump, it was of no magnitude whatsoever," says the comedy producer Jon Plowman when asked about the impact of the BBC bungle enshrined in history as "Sachsgate".

TV should make fewer dramas - and more comedies

The BBC's former head of comedy Jon Plowman says we need more fresh new comedies like This Country.

Another Ab Fab movie?

Jon Plowman says they have talked briefly about "how did they all meet and get together when they were much much younger".

In his new memoir, How to Produce Comedy Bronze, former BBC head of comedy Jon Plowman allows himself what he calls a "moany bit" about how the influence of his former department has declined at the corporation. "It's not the force in fun that it once was and this is partly because of competition but also because of the hours of comedy that have been lost on the main channels because, apparently, on the main channels people don't want to laugh any more," he says.

The Beeb's current head of comedy, Shane Allen, tends to put things more succinctly. At a BBC press presentation in April 2015, his distinctive Northern Irish tones could clearly be heard heckling then BBC2 controller Kim Shillinglaw as she was introducting her slate of dramas for the new season: "Drama's fucking shite. It's all dead kids."

Jon Plowman criticises BBC for overinvesting in drama

Jon Plowman, executive producer on The Office, lambasts lack of money being put into new comedy.

Catchphrase comedy is dead. Am I bovvered?

The former head of BBC comedy claims catchphrases are out of fashion. But as Corporal Jones might say, 'Don't panic!' There's life in sloganeering yet.

W1A review: Clarkson's ghost looms large

At the preview screening, the producer Jon Plowman said he would like the show to run until the charter renewal in 2016. On this evidence - and at the rate the BBC is churning out scandals and gaffes - it could run a lot longer than that.

W1A, review

At the preview screening, the producer Jon Plowman said he would like the show to run until the charter renewal in 2016. On this evidence - and at the rate the BBC is churning out scandals and gaffes - it could run a lot longer than that.