Enfield comedy show ideas stolen

Ideas and material for a new series of Harry Enfield's comedy show with Paul Whitehouse have been stolen from a car.

BBC, 18th October 2009

Harry and Paul moves to BBC2

Tiger Aspect sketch show Harry & Paul will move from BBC1 to BBC2 for its third run - despite scooping a Bafta for its most recent series.

Written by Robin Parker. Broadcast, 23rd September 2009

Ruddy Hell, It's Harry and Paul was distinctly patchy, but the re-titled Harry and Paul showcased some of the best stuff the pair has done for years.

Off The Telly, 2nd January 2009

What a sinful joy to meet the incorrigibly optimistic American tourists we all know and avoid in the last Harry and Paul. The British caff was so quiet you could hear the cheese curling. Chuck and Patty came in looking like a couple of eggs, sunny side up. He beamed: "Good morning, how are you? Well, how are you today? Good morning, sir!" And, to the dyspeptic owner, "Hello, how are you today?" "Whadyawant?" he replied.

Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian, 11th October 2008

Philippines angry at Enfield show

Comedian Harry Enfield's BBC show has been labelled 'disgraceful and distasteful' by members of the Philippine community in the UK.

BBC News, 7th October 2008

The first series of new Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield sketches, which bore the prefix Ruddy Hell!, was so flabbily disappointing that expectations were low for the new run. That's worked in their favour because series two has been surprisingly good, with Mr I Saw You Coming, the ageing rap DJs and the posh scaffolders all hitting the spot.

The Metro, 3rd October 2008

After some time out, the pair have joined forces again for a show that I can only describe as 'quite enjoyable'. I know that doesn't seem like much, but it's about right. You see, some of the new characters created by the pair are really fun to watch, although, not laugh-your-lungs-up funny.

Sadly, for each sketch I enjoy, there's one to irritate. The posh builders drive me stir-mental, with their alarming predictability. As jokes go, it's pretty one-dimensional.

TV Scoop, 30th September 2008

I have a deep and abiding love for Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, but the first series of Harry and Paul left me deeply underwhelmed. It had its moments, but I was left with the feeling that the pair were trading upon their reputations.

So rejoice to the news that series two is clever, inventive, imaginative, frequently inspired and the funniest programme currently on TV.

Their Dragon's Den pastiche in episode one was fabulous, but even greater joys were to come the following week with the Liverpool Capital of Culture running gag which saw various giants of the performing arts - including Matthew Bourne, Simon Rattle - conduct sweaty, Steven Gerrard style post-match interviews.

"I let me baton do the talking. Cheers!" droned Rattle, in thickest Scouse, before snatching a bottle of celebratory champagne and departing mid-question.

Harry Venning, The Stage, 15th September 2008

This sketch show - which lurches constantly from humorous to frustrating - gets off to a great start again this week with a skit involving hoodies stealing a three-seater bicycle and then terrorising little old ladies at double-speed, Goodies-style. Other sketches, however, fall way wide of the mark, and those that rely on character study as much as jokes can leave you feeling rather more bemused than amused.

Anna Lowman, The Guardian, 12th September 2008

Harry & Paul, back for a new series, wasn't the unmixed pleasure it might have been, not because it wasn't good (there were some fine new sketches and very funny variations on the best of the old ones), but because it was hard to watch it without melancholy thoughts about its producer, Geoffrey Perkins, who died suddenly just a week before transmission.

Thomas Sutcliffe, The Independent, 8th September 2008

Ruddy hell! It's not Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul. It's just Harry and Paul now. How confusing. Were you confused by the original title? Me neither. Maybe it was just too long for the Sky EPG.

Anyway, they're back: Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, former young Turks of comedy, are once again on primetime BBC1, shoring up old comedy and helping to showcase new talent.

But as always, the question is, are they funny?

Surprisingly, yes. Okay, some of the sketches fall quiet flat. There are far too many returning characters that have stretched a once-good joke too far. And the absence of comedy goddess Morwenna Banks is sorely felt.

But we did sit there laughing for a good portion of the show. The multi-lingual football manager was a fun opener. The 'cool old guys' were pretty entertaining. Okay, the Dragons' Den impressions were poor and where was Caaan!!!, but the general accuracy of the sketch was good. And, praise the Lord, the talented Laura Solon is still there with her Polish coffee shop attendant.

Maybe a little too traditional and too much like the first series at times, and given the rapid fall off in quality of the first series, it might not be a good idea to make it a permanent fixture in your diaries. But still far more hits and misses than is normal for a BBC1 comedy show. Anyone doubting that should have stuck around for The Armstrong and Miller Show afterwards...

The Medium Is Not Enough, 8th September 2008

Rather than attempt to hold on to their youthful glamour like some yoiks I could mention, Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse returned on Friday for the second series of Harry and Paul embracing old age so tightly it may soon expire on their chests. The opening titles feature them as a pair of old Soviet generals and they reappear as geriatric DJs playing their favourite Nineties rap and then again as Nelson Mandela and Castro.

You might accuse them of favouring some pretty old jokes, too. Thirties cinema remains an inspiration; here an early version of The Bourne Identity had a plummy Jason asking: "Hells bells who am I?" Whitehouse's version of Theo Paphitis in the Dragons' Den sketch was clearly a close relative of Stavros. And the pair still delight in imagining breaches of the walls that divide Britain culturally: meet the builders with opinions on Tracey Emin ("a child of five could become a ludicrous parody of themselves"), a foul-mouthed but multilingual football manager, the over-educated surgeon operating on a Foo Fighter and the fishermen chatting, by the side of their local pond, about the merits of Peter Shaffer.

For those of us of a certain age, this half hour was pure pleasure, or would have been were it not for knowing that its producer, Geoffrey Perkins, had died ten days ago without seeing the old age his stars parody with such fate-tempting brio.

Andrew Billen, The Times, 8th September 2008

The Times Article

Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield are to be celebrated for the quality of their characters, not for being revolutionary.

Written by Bryan Appleyard. The Sunday Times, 7th September 2008

Messrs Enfield and Whitehouse are back with their sketch show. There's not much new here; the jokes are mostly about people saying things you wouldn't expect them to (builders discussing the merits of Brit Art, etc) and funny foreigners, speaking funny. And yet I laughed. Not all the time - this is a sketch show, so it is hit-and-miss by definition. But when I did laugh, I laughed quite a lot. Maybe the old ones are the best.

Sam Wollaston, The Guardian, 6th September 2008

It may not have the inspired characters of their earlier collaborations, but Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's latest sketch show still has its inspired moments.

Metro, 5th September 2008

Bloody hell, it has been recommissioned! Amazing, really, considering how staggeringly painful Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's first series was.

Quality control has been cranked up a notch but I should warn you, Nelson Mandela is back.

Best reason to watch is a brilliant take on Dragons' Den. Harry is Deborah Meaden but the moment when Paul's Duncan Bannatyne leans forward to sneer at Harry's Peter Jones makes this worth investing in.

The Mirror, 5th September 2008

Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse are comedy legends but their last outing was hit and miss.

The Sun, 5th September 2008

So much comedy water has passed under the TV bridge since Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse first did sketch shows together that when they reunited last year it seemed a rather retrograde step. Whitehouse had done funnier, subtler shows in between and with Mitchell and Webb and Armstrong and Miller on the scene, the market for male double acts is decidedly cluttered.

But they are back for a second series with old favourites such as the judgmental Polish café assistants and Enfield's badly behaved Nelson Mandela, and new sketches, including a Dragons' Den spoof and two elderly Jewish DJs. It should be at least as popular as the first.

Paul Hoggart, The Times, 5th September 2008

Enfield and Whitehouse return with another loose collection of sketches, although be thankful that it's not as loose as their profoundly dodgy last series.

All their familiar obsessions are present: football managers (there's a very funny opening skit where an irate boss gives a half-time team talk in several different languages), class divides, stiff black-and-white films, and middle-aged men trying to have sex with gullible young women.

It has the age-old problem of sketches that don't build on their initial premise - see the 1940s Bourne Identity ("Oh hell's bells, who the devil am I?"), a funny idea that drifts on for about a week - and lot of the material is, in truth, a bit too familiar. But if, for instance, the elderly DJs who play nothing but hip-hop are one variation too many on an old gag, it doesn't matter when it's as well performed as this is.

The gabbling, Plasticine-faced surgeons, and the rabid northern man who lets out a pained squeak when told by his southern owner that he must be neutered, are rewind-and-play-it-again fantastic.

Jack Seale, The Radio Times, 5th September 2008

Comedy couple back on fast track

The world of Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse is possibly the only place you'll find a pair of elderly Jewish gentlemen presenting a rap radio show for Radio 3.

Written by Andy Welch. Manchester Evening News, 3rd September 2008

The first series was entertaining enough, and while many of the sketches wouldn't have felt out of place had they come out in the 1980s, I guess you have to congratulate them for sticking to what they know. Maybe. At the very least, it's unlikely that the two comedy legends will have lost their touch completely, and so we can expect Harry and Paul's usual mix of parodies and character-based sketches to provide a fair few laughs.

Anna Lowman, TV Scoop, 2nd September 2008

Harry and Paul Interview

With their sketch show back on BBC1, Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse tell The Telegraph why silliness is the secret of their success.

Written by James Rampton. The Telegraph, 28th August 2008

Harry and Paul were ruddy good

So Ruddy Hell, it's Harry and Paul has ended and we can finally reach a verdict.

Written by Mike Anderiesz. The Guardian, 21st May 2007

Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul Review

Descending from plain old boringly unfunny to actual cringing embarrassment with sketches like The Computer Billionaires and Laurel and Hardy in Brokeback Mountain made me want to desert this sinking ship along with the rats.

Written by John Beresford. TV Scoop, 14th April 2007

Ruddy Hell! It's Harry and Paul Review

A bibulous and joyful reunion of witty chums, and more power to its elbow. Mine's another, if you're going to the bar.

Written by Paul Stump. Off The Telly, 13th April 2007