The Comic Strip Presents...
- TV comedy drama
- Channel 4 / BBC Two / U&Gold
- 1982 - 2016
- 41 episodes (5 series)
Periodic series of satires and spoofs that helped bring alternative comedy to the mainstream and forge a comedy reputation for then-new Channel 4. Stars Adrian Edmondson, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson, Jennifer Saunders and more.
Streaming rank this week: 823
Press clippings
Edinburgh Fringe to celebrate Comic Strip with special shows
The classic comedy The Comic Strip Presents is to be celebrated at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer with special screenings and Q&As with the stars.
Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke, 30th April 2025Special Comic Strip screening and talk to be held
Peter Richardson, Jennifer Saunders and Stephen Mangan are set to appear at a special screening of two Comic Strip films in March.
Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke, 29th February 2024How The Young Ones responded to a road crash and appalled Steve Martin
Peter Richardson has revealed how The Young Ones helped to save a stricken scooter rider after a horrific crash, how he sought to cast Matt Lucas as Boris Johnson in a Comic Strip movie and how he shocked Steve Martin with his method approach to shooting a riotous scene in The Supergrass.
British Comedy Guide, 23rd November 2023French and Saunders almost died after poisoning horror while filming
Dawn - one half of comedy duo French and Saunders - says the pair were filming for a Comic Strip movie in Spain when a faulty boiler almost killed them as they slept.
Mark Jefferies, The Mirror, 25th October 2023Comic Strip stars to celebrate series at BFI
Three screenings at the BFI this month will celebrate more than 40 years of the influential Comic Strip Presents series.
British Comedy Guide, 9th May 2023Boris Johnson Comic Strip film scuppered by creative differences
Lie Another Day, a planned Channel 4 satire from The Comic Strip Presents... team on Boris Johnson's tenure as Prime Minister, which would have seen the PM as a Russian agent planted to destroy the UK, was cancelled because of production wranglings between writer Peter Richardson and production company Lookout Point.
British Comedy Guide, 13th February 2023Channel 4 make classic comedies available on All4
Channel 4 is making some of its classic comedy shows available on its catch-up service All 4 to mark World Alzheimer's Day. Viewers will be able to re-watch nostalgia-inducing titles including The Comic Strip Presents, Crapston Villas, Porterhouse Blue, Terry & Julian, The Jack Dee Show, Paul Merton - The Series, Vic Reeves Big Night Out, Sean's Show and Desmond's.
Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke, 21st September 201910 satire shows we need back on our TV screens
It's fair to say that we don't have much satire on TV at the moment. So, are we really beyond satire now? Have things become too surreal? Well, I'm not so sure. In no particular order, here are ten shows that I think need a revival in these turbulent times.
Rhianna Evans, Super Ink, 7th August 2019The Comic Strip trains its eye on the hacking scandal and manages to get a decent smattering of its shots on target. This, like many of the alternative comedy group's recent specials, is a hit-and-miss affair, but does feature a brilliantly savage portrayal of Rebekah Brooks from Maxine Peake, and some very funny digs at us pinko liberals at the Guardian.
Gwilym Mumford, The Guardian, 25th January 2016Red Top, the latest outing for the once splendid Comic Strip team, and we won't begrudge them a certain resting on ancient laurels, was an altogether mixed bag, as Peter Richardson and co gleefully ran rings round lawyers to bring us the purported tale of phone hacking and the Met, Rupert M and Tony B and Rebekah Brooks (played with peppy malevolence by Maxine Peake), set with a certain bizarreness in the 70s. Much was shambolic, missing easy marks. Wendi Deng as pastiche of Chinese sex ninja? But Johnny Vegas was great as the tabloid sleazehound turned Deep Throat, and there was great guilty joy at seeing Lewis Macleod as The Guardian's ex-editor Alan Rusbridger, played as a lisping, patronising Chris Biggins in a yachting cap and mincing below a banner reading "Never knowingly enjoy yourself". And the gang still managed, rather subtly, to skewer Brooks's implausible juxtapositioning of a reputation for micromanagement with that breezy verdict that said she knew nothing of phone taps.
Euan Ferguson, The Observer, 24th January 2016