THE COMIC STRIP PRESENTS:
Financed by theatrical impresario Michael White , the Comic Strip club opened in October 1980 at the Boulevard Theatre in London. Like the Comedy Store before it, this was located within a Soho strip joint. The eight-strong core team at the venue comprised Alexei Sayle, Arnold Brown and three double-acts: Mayall and Edmondson, Planer and Richardson and French and Saunders. Peter Richardson was keen to get the team on to TV, and was especially interested in using film as the medium. After some ideas had been thrashed around, Richardson took a list to Jeremy Isaacs, head of Britain's fourth TV channel, due to open in November 1982, whereupon six films were commissioned.
The films kept coming, at reasonably regular intervals, and switched in 1990 to BBC2. All the while, the various players were enjoying glorious success with other TV productions After a five year break, the team returned to the screen (and to Channel 4) in 1998.
The history of The Comic Strip Presents was reviewed in two editions of First On Four (18 & 25 March 1998), a Channel 4 series looking at comedy stars who first made their mark on the channel in the 1980s. These programmes were repeated as part of The Return Of The Comic Strip, a themed-evening dedicated to the team on 4 January 2000 which incorporated what (to date) has been the last of the productions.
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