Little Britain. Image shows from L to R: David Walliams, Matt Lucas, The Prime Minister (Anthony Head)
Little Britain

Little Britain

  • TV sketch show
  • BBC Three / BBC One
  • 2003 - 2016
  • 23 episodes (3 series)

Matt Lucas and David Walliams take a comic look at British life in this character-based sketch series. Also features Anthony Head, Joann Condon, Charu Bala Chokshi, Leelo Ross, Ruth Jones and more.

  • JustWatch Streaming rank this week: 478

Press clippings Page 8

Little Britain's Vicky Pollard takes catchphrase crown

''Yeah but no but yeah but'', the retort used by Little Britain's ill-educated teenager Vicky Pollard, has been voted the funniest ever television catchphrase.

The Telegraph, 26th January 2010

Matt Lucas: 'I feel very vulnerable'

"Apart from one-off specials, there are no plans for any more series of Little Britain, either here or in the US, but when I ask if he'd grown bored of it, he answers before I've even got the question out..."

Decca Aitkenhead, The Guardian, 4th September 2009

A largely successful US spin off. I'm not sure that having Sebastian as the British Prime Minister works all that well and the Vicky Pollard stuff hasn't been great, but there's still much to enjoy.

Cool Blue Shed, 18th October 2008

Radio Times Review

Can you hear that sound? It's the final nails being hammered into the coffin of Little Britain with the truly dismal Little Britain USA.

Alison Graham, Radio Times, 16th October 2008

Little Britain USA Episode 2 Review

David Walliams and Matt Lucas are stuck in a comedy rut trying to shock desensitized teens and twentysomethings. The excuse here is that they're just introducing old characters to fresh-eyed Americans, so they have every right to recycle. So, for British audiences tuning into this unofficial 'fourth series', it's all very flat, repetitive and brainless.

Dan Owen, Dan's Media Digest, 11th October 2008

Little Britain USA Review

You spend quite a lot of the time analysing what Matt Lucas and David Walliams have changed in their bid to crack America - and why. (Happily, the urinating old woman seems to have gone, along with the vomiting one.) You spend much of the rest wondering what on earth its target audience will make of it.

James Walton, The Telegraph, 6th October 2008

Matt Lucas and David Walliams certainly can't be accused of buttering up to American audiences in Little Britain USA, which begins with Tom Baker grandly informing HBO's viewers that we let you win the War of Independence because you threatened to cry if we didn't. They're not going to be accused of overdoing it with new material either. There are some fresh characters here, including a redneck sheriff who gets an erection as he displays weapons to his deputies, and a former astronaut who can't get over the fact that he was the eighth man on the moon and not the first. But mostly they've simply transferred the British regulars Stateside, and not worried much about the plausibility of the move. Quite how Marjorie Dawes comes to be conducting an American weight-loss class isn't clear, though it has to be said that imagining American sensibilities coming in contact with her rasping lack of tact adds a novel twist to the basic gag. Rosie O'Donnell sportingly takes a cameo, which allows two pieties to be outraged at once: Are you fat because you're a lesbian, she was asked by Marjorie, Or are you a lesbian because you're fat?

The show would be a lot easier to like if you had the sense that such calculated shocks were serving something other than mere shock itself.

Tom Sutcliffe, The Independent, 6th October 2008

Apart from some transatlantic locations and a couple of new accents, Little Britain USA was mostly more of the same old jokes recycled. Which isn't entirely a bad thing, familiarity breeding contentment among the modern sketch show audience.

Harry Venning, The Stage, 6th October 2008

Jim Shelley Review

It's the last sketch of Little Britain USA and Bubbles de Vere displays the kind of sharp observation totally lacking in the 'comedy' up until then. I think it's very important to know when to stop, Bubbles confesses, having gambled - and lost - her dress, wig, and ruby-encrusted 'panties' on the roulette table.

I only wish Bubbles had thrown her ludicrous fat suit into the pot, too. With the losing streak David Walliams and Matt Lucas were on, that would have been the end of her, guaranteed.

Jim Shelley, The Mirror, 6th October 2008

Little Britain USA Review

Has Little Britain become too much of a monster? Whether it has or not, it's impossible to deny that Matt Lucas and David Walliams have pulled off a sensational achievement. The first episode of Little Britain USA featured content that was every bit as good as the home-grown version and for that alone Lucas and Williams should be congratulated, applauded and showered with medals.

David Sharpe, Cool Blue Shed, 5th October 2008

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