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"Just Good Friends" (1983) More at IMDbPro »

3 items from 2013

14 May 2013 8:04 AM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Armstrong and Miller comic lambasts 'inverse snobbery' while Ricky Gervais teaches guitar – and who's the hottest comedian?

This week's comedy news

We begin with the Telegraph's tale of Alexander Armstrong and the apparent victimisation of "posh" comics. "Why should your background be held against you?," asks the descendant of William the Conqueror, alumnus of a Durham public school and director of a production company called Toff Media. "It is so short-sighted … This tribal aversion to anyone with a posh voice is very boring." Armstrong – best known as one half of the sketch double-act Armstrong and Miller – even lodges the improbable complaint that his privileged upbringing has been detrimental to his career in British entertainment. In the piece, he blames inverse snobbery for the BBC initially spurning Armstrong and Miller after their big break on the Edinburgh fringe in the mid-1990s. And, he adds, "I'm not anticipating an offer to »

- Brian Logan

14 May 2013 8:04 AM, PDT | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »

Armstrong and Miller comic lambasts 'inverse snobbery' while Ricky Gervais teaches guitar – and who's the hottest comedian?

This week's comedy news

We begin with the Telegraph's tale of Alexander Armstrong and the apparent victimisation of "posh" comics. "Why should your background be held against you?," asks the descendant of William the Conqueror, alumnus of a Durham public school and director of a production company called Toff Media. "It is so short-sighted … This tribal aversion to anyone with a posh voice is very boring." Armstrong – best known as one half of the sketch double-act Armstrong and Miller – even lodges the improbable complaint that his privileged upbringing has been detrimental to his career in British entertainment. In the piece, he blames inverse snobbery for the BBC initially spurning Armstrong and Miller after their big break on the Edinburgh fringe in the mid-1990s. And, he adds, "I'm not anticipating an offer to »

- Brian Logan

9 May 2013 4:06 PM, PDT | The Guardian - TV News | See recent The Guardian - TV News news »

Vince and Penny's on again/off again relationship is that rare thing – an 80s sitcom that hasn't aged badly

Sitcoms can age badly, perhaps worse than any other type of TV show. What had millions of viewers laughing like drains in the 70s and 80s is often met with stoney-faced silence these days, the hairstyles and clothes generating more laughs than the actual gags. John Sullivan's 1983 hit sitcom Just Good Friends bucks this trend; it even seems quite modern today. It doesn't go hard after laughs, the pace is deliberate rather than desperate, the sit is given just as much importance as the com. Plus, in leads Jan Francis and Paul Nicholas, it has something age cannot wither: chemistry.

The set-up is simple: charming Jack-the-lad turf accountant wanders back into the life of advertising secretary Penny Warrender, having jilted her at the altar five years previously. There's still some spark between them. »

- Phelim O'Neill

3 items from 2013