Graham McCann
- English
- Author
Graham McCann features
Comedy Chronicles: Oh yes! - The comic guile of Deryck Guyler
Sunday 21st April 2024
A profile of Deryck Guyler, the comic actor who for much of the Sixties and Seventies on British television was the comic embodiment of the Jobsworth.
Comedy Chronicles: Playtime - The leisure of John Le Mesurier
Sunday 7th April 2024
Marking 112 years since his birth, biographer Graham McCann explores the truth behind the private life and pleasures of actor and beloved sitcom star, John Le Mesurier.
Comedy Chronicles: The Duce of Entertainment - Comedy, commercial TV and Val Parnell
Sunday 24th March 2024
Val Parnell was one of Britain's most significant and influential impresarios of the twentieth century. A major manager of the live variety circuit, a powerful promoter of talent and one of the pioneers of commercial television, he helped shape, maintain and move on what passed as popular entertainment in this country for the best part of fifty years.
Comedy Chronicles - The Comedians' Comedian: The art and impact of Jimmy James
Sunday 10th March 2024
Who influenced comics as diverse and star-studded as Peter Cook, Morecambe & Wise, Frankie Howerd, Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock? The great Jimmy James, that's who.
Comedy Chronicles: Rita Webb
Sunday 25th February 2024
On the 120th anniversary of her birth, Comedy Chronicles looks back at the life and career of Rita Webb, the comic actor who often played working class characters.
Comedy Chronicles: Taking It To The Hilt - Jack Hylton and British Comedy
Sunday 11th February 2024
Jack Hylton must rate as one of, if not the, most extraordinary and influential impresarios in the history of British entertainment.
Comedy Chronicles: The Trouble With Harry - The premature exit of Harry Green
Sunday 28th January 2024
Comedy Chronicles looks at the career of actor Harry Green and how his death during a live television play threw the production into chaos.
Comedy Chronicles: A touch of the Gogols: When Kenneth Williams read Russian literature
Sunday 14th January 2024
It might have been somewhat surprising at the time, but now, looking back at it, it seems quite an apt connection: a diarist drawn to a diary. The diarist in question was Kenneth Williams, and the diary was Nikolai Gogol's Diary of a Madman.
Comedy Chronicles: Hogmanay Hell: The BBC's New Year Live 98
Sunday 31st December 2023
Graham McCann looks back at New Year Live on BBC One in 1998. Hosted by Fred MacAulay and Carol Smillie, a programme that ended up a "terrible, hopeless, depressing mess".
Comedy Chronicles: Merry Christmas, VT: How festive television used to amuse itself
Sunday 24th December 2023
This festive edition of Comedy Chronicles looks back at a strange tale of some strange tapes. It is about the television festivities from the latter part of the last century that were never meant to be televised, and were only meant to be seen by those behind the scenes.
Comedy Chronicles: Digs, dives and landladies: Comic travellers' tales
Sunday 17th December 2023
Insalubrious boarding houses and idiosyncratic landladies were particularly popular topics for comic tale-telling throughout most of the twentieth century. Comedy Chronicles looks back at some of the well-known theatrical lodgings, including what became of poor Arthur the parrot.
Comedy Chronicles: The comic that time forgot: The lives and deaths of Stainless Stephen
Sunday 3rd December 2023
One of the first British comedians to appear regularly on radio, Stainless Stephen was one of the busiest, best-loved and cleverest comedians in the country.
Comedy Chronicles: Oooh, I say!: The kind but clever comedy of Pat Coombs
Sunday 19th November 2023
Pat Coombs was, for more than half a century, one of British comedy's most effective and admired supporting performers. This article traces her career.
Comedy Chronicles: Choosing Tewson - A star of the second row
Sunday 5th November 2023
Josephine Tewson is perhaps best remembered as Hyacinth Bucket's flustered next-door neighbour Elizabeth, but her comic talent - and breadth of contributions - go far wider and far deeper.
Comedy Chronicles - Giving it to you straight: The discreet art of Jerry Desmonde
Sunday 22nd October 2023
If a definition of a straight man is ever required, the entry should simply read: 'See Jerry Desmonde'. Comedy Chronicles recounts the career of the man once dubbed 'the prince of feeds', who worked with comics such as Sid Field and Norman Wisdom.
Comedy Chronicles - Those other two fellers: Dick Hills & Sid Green
Sunday 8th October 2023
Comedy writers Dick Hills and Sid Green left Morecambe & Wise behind, only to find that the duo they had really left behind was themselves.
Comedy Chronicles: And this was him - The life, art and anxieties of Mike Yarwood
Sunday 24th September 2023
"There were three basic stages in Yarwood's career. The first was as a turn; the second was as a star; the third was as a problem." Graham McCann looks back at the work of impressionist Mike Yarwood.
Comedy Chronicles: No ifs, no buts - and no ...ands: The star quality of June Whitfield
Sunday 10th September 2023
Despite remaining in the memory as one of British comedy's greatest comedy actors, as a woman June Whitfield was overlooked for the kind of superstar/starring chances of her male peers. Here we pay tribute to her brilliant talents.
Comedy Chronicles: An Englishman abroad - The hidden life of Derek Nimmo
Sunday 27th August 2023
Derek Nimmo was, for a long time, one of Britain's favourite character actors on television and radio - but then he just seemed to start to disappear. This is the story of what he was really up to during those wilderness years.
Comedy Chronicles: When Cary met Pastry - Cary Grant's friendship with Richard Hearne
Sunday 13th August 2023
The story of the perhaps unlikely-seeming friendship between Hollywood icon Cary Grant and English slapstick comic Richard Hearne, better known as the aged Mr Pastry.