Simon Nye

You know that feeling you get when a brand-new sitcom arrives and spends most of its first series wobbling around, trying to find its comedy feet? Well you don't get that here. Simon Nye's pilot feels like an old favourite within seconds: two young gents in 1900s London exchanging smut, anachronisms and posh banter. Put crudely it's Edwardian Men Behaving Badly.

With Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller in the leads, the chemistry is as slick as one of their sketches, but writ large. Felix (Miller) is a banker with a sideline in inventing: he devises a terrifying "electricity toothbrush" and a cash dispenser (a small boy inside dishes out cash); while Murdo (Armstrong) is a cocky toff who takes up the javelin to compete in the London Olympics, hoping to impress Felix's suffragette sister. ("What is all this boats for women nonsense?")

The plot goes a bit loopy but the characters gel, the tone works and the rhythms are up and running. Roll on a full series.

Comedy pair Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller star in this one-off sitcom about two jolly posh chaps in London in 1908 - the year the Olympics came to town. Felix (Miller) is supposed to be running the family bank with his sister Winnie but instead prefers to party and fool around with his fiancée. Murdo just likes to party and chase Winnie. "Marry me," he says. "We're too different," she replies. "You can change," he responds. But the realisation that an Olympic athlete can be attractive to women - or, more precisely, Winnie - inspires Murdo to enter the games as a javelin thrower. With Felix as trainer, his chances are only handicapped by a strict regime of drinking, smoking and taking drugs. Plus the fact that he can't throw the javelin.

Felix and Murdo is written by Simon Nye, who created Men Behaving Badly - and with its two male characters, knockabout banter and slight over-reliance on jokes about sex, it is very much an Edwardian Men Behaving Badly. The fact that they have unusual names doesn't disguise the point that Felix and Murdo are really Gary and Tony in old-fashioned suits. Still, the period setting allows Nye to give us the occasional amusing line.

Armstrong & Miller strut their posh stuff as a saucy Edwardian duo in a pilot for a new Simon Nye sitcom. A series will surely follow.

The year's 1908. The scene is the sitting room of old Oxford chums and modern men about town Felix (Ben Miller), an inventor, and Murdo (Alexander Armstrong), the ghosts of the past for a whole slew of sitcom characters to come.

Simon Nye's affectionate Edwardian version of Men Behaving Badly is a gleeful and (presumably) knowing mash-up of every anarchic comedy you can think of, from The Young Ones and Blackadder, to Ab Fab and, of course, Armstrong & Miller (the best bits of which follow), and it's a total hoot; as surreal, silly and puerile as you'd expect - and Armstrong & Miller fans would demand.

Produced for the Comedy Showcase season, this pilot was held over for C4's Christmas season despite having not a flake of snow or festive motif in it. It should stand out like a beacon amid all the repeats of second-rate sitcoms, Christmas specials and period dramas, whilst offering some fun period jokes of its own.

The mad, loose plot of sorts is surprisingly topical, taking in as it does the arrival of the Olympics to the capital and the world of banking, but largely it acts as a tree on which hang such baubles as scatological jokes, laugh-out-loud sight gags, a surreal clubbing scene, lots of Viz-style lewd humour and plain stupid lines such as: 'What is all this boats for women nonsense? Just give them all a boat.' Titter ye, as Frankie Howerd might have said.

A one-off, half-hour sitcom starring Armstrong and Miller. It's set in 1908 when the Olympics first came to London, and provides our comedy duo with the opportunity to act like posh nitwits, which they do so well. They decide to enter the Olympics, despite not having done any training and going on a drink-and-drug spree. The script, by Simon Nye, is more Eddy the Eagle than Steve Redgrave. If this is a pilot for a possible series, then the producers need to raise their game.

Fans of comedy duo Ben Miller and Alexander Armstrong should lap up this spiffingly funny one-off comedy. It's written by Simon Nye (Men Behaving Badly) and is set in London in 1908, the year the Olympics first came to the city.

Murdo (Armstrong) and Felix (Miller) are posh, fun-loving friends who happily indulge in a drink-and-drugs fest while one of them attempts to complete in the Games, and the other plans a sudden marriage to a lady called Fanny (obv), and all the while they utter a non-stop stream of innuendo.

The rave-dancing sequence is hilarious, Armstrong and Miller are a joy, and they're well supported by Georgie King, Katy Wix and Lizzie Roper. Let's have a full series, please.

Edwardian gents Felix and Murdo can't believe their bad luck when Felix's wedding day clashes with a performance by their favourite variety act, Little Titch and the Monkey Twins. Can they delay the nuptials without offending Felix's future father-in law?

The answer is no, and hilarity ensues as Felix is challenged to a duel in this sitcom pilot by Simon Nye. He's best known for creating beer-loving best mates Gary and Tony in Men Behaving Badly, and this is similar in some ways.

Comedies have always been big on friendships, be they soulmates or odd couples. Men Behaving Badly's Gary and Tony were always the former and so it seems are actors Martin Clunes and Neil Morrissey: writer Simon Nye admits that it was sometimes difficult to see where his scripts ended and real-life began. There's a chance to witness some of that spark here thanks to a montage of very funny bloopers. Of course, get the chemistry right and you have a mucker for life - as the 295 episodes of Last of the Summer Wine demonstrate.

Just William up for three Children's BAFTA awards

BBC drama Just William has been nominated for three prizes at this year's BAFTA Children's Awards, including a nod for its writer Simon Nye.

It's the story of failed flirtations, strained marital relations and a passion for innuendo. Yes, sitcom heroes may be sexually frustrated but it seems there's a lot of laughs to be had from being unlucky in love. This examination of TV characters that have lusted and usually lost takes the likes of Hancock, Ria from Butterflies and the Men Behaving Badly and sets their behaviour into a social context. So we witness the liberation on The Liver Birds that was brought about by the introduction of the contraceptive pill and see how the gradual shedding of inhibitions resulted in the anything-goes atmosphere of Gimme Gimme Gimme. Writers Simon Nye and Jonathan Harvey are among those contributing their thoughts and there are plenty of accompanying clips to release your titters.