Paul Mayhew-Archer

Edinburgh preview: Paul Mayhew-Archer

Paul Mayhew-Archer is 65 years old, he has an incurable illness and he's about to do something he has never done before: He is about to perform a one-man comedy show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Paul Mayhew-Archer returns to Fringe after +40 years

The co-writer of Vicar of Dibley and ex BBC Radio 4 Commissioning Editor for Comedy, Paul Mayhew-Archer is set to perform his debut show, Incurable Optimist, at the Underbelly throughout the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. He last performed at the fringe in 1975 as part of a revue show with Andy Hamilton.

Comedy writer with Parkinson's tries stand-up comedy

The writer behind BBC sitcom The Vicar of Dibley has been trying his hand at stand-up comedy after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Why would you even bother with studio sitcom?

On a recent Sitcom Geeks podcast, Dave Cohen and I interviewed Pete Sinclair, who wrote Bad Move with Jack Dee for ITV having previously written Lead Balloon together. Both of those shows are single camera shows, but Pete's previous sitcoms were both studio shows (Mr Charity and All Along the Watchtower).

Paul Mayhew-Archer on the funny side of Parkinson's

Mayhew-Archer recently made a documentary about the condition he's lived with for five years, and not the veteran broadcaster, as a friend mistakenly assumed.

Radio Times review

Esio Trot (it's "tortoise" backwards) is a drama of the type that broadcasters save up for Christmas and New year, when we are all feeling a bit soppy, mellow and disinclined to be too critical.

It's the slightest of stories, a tale as thin as a fairy's wings, which isn't to say it's not heart-warming and rather sweet. There's just not much to it. Still, with Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench as leads, and James Corden as a cheerful (onscreen) narrator, Richard Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer's adaptation of the Roald Dahl book is a starry confection.

Hoffman is lonely, diffident Mr Hoppy, who has long nurtured a secret love for lively, glamorous, rather brassy neighbour Mrs Silver (Dench). The pair exchange polite pleasantries on their balconies and Mr Hoppy thinks he's in with a chance, if only he were bold. Then Mrs Silver buys a tortoise called Alfie, who becomes the object of all of her affections.

Esio Trot: Dustin Hoffman & Judi Dench shine

Although Esio Trot is ultimately quite a lightweight story, I feel that Richard Curtis and co-writer Paul Mayhew-Archer make it work due to some great characterisation and extra narrative touches.

Scriptwriter pens BBC sitcom at 19

Article about Tim Dawson, with photo of Dawson and Paul Mayhew-Archer.

That apart - and it did no more than slow what had been an incredible pace - this was flawless, deceptively clever, feel-good television from start to finish. In its machine-gun delivery of funny lines and strong sight gags; its artless contrivance of a charmingly quaint small town English world; and, above all, its reliance upon ensemble acting of the very highest quality from a large cast of gifted comic actors, the Vicar of Dibley strongly raises the memory of Dad's Army. And compliments come no more lavish than that.

An Actor's Life For Me (BBC1), a perfectly good little show with a fine comic actor John Gordon Sinclair, was absolutely infested, pock marked and maggoty with studio laughter.