The Fast Show
Are Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse who have known each other since meeting at The University of East Anglia. Paul quit university after a year, while Charlie was in various Bands. Harry Enfield joined them and theyl ended up living on the same estate in Hackney. Paul and Charlie also worked as decorators, whilst Harry was part of the comedy circuit . They would go to the pub togther and make each other laugh with their own comedy characters.
Harry got his break when he was asked to do a stint on Saturday Night Live as his 'Stavros' character, Paul and Charile be become his writers. And the Comedy trio was born which they eventually become The Fast Show. Charlie. Paul also worked on Vic Reeves' Big Night Out and Harry Enfield's Television show.
The producers of Harry's show put together a selection of highlights from the new series to show at a press launch, Paul and Charlie thought after seeing this it worked better than the show itself, this is what The Fast Show format was based on. Character on, getting themy something funny, then character off, so mainly sketch based. This actually started off a new breed of format for many other shows that followed, The League of Gentlemen, Little Britain etc. Pre Fast Show sketches were fairly slow movin, so the show injected life back into sketch-based comedy.
Charlie and Paul got together some of the best comedy actors around including guest stars like movie actor Johnny Depp! and also John Thompson (Cold Feet, ,Paul Calf's video diary) and The quality of acting was high and Paul particularly shone as an amazingly versatile comedy actor creating some of the best-loved characters in the show.
Best loved characters over all 3 series:
- The 13th Duke of Wybourne
- Archie (hardest game in the world)
- Bob Fleming
- Brilliant
- Colin Hunt
- Competitive Dad
- Jesse
- No Offence
- The Offroaders
- Roy and Renée
- Suit You Tailors
- Swiss Toni
- Ted and Ralph
- Tommy Cockles
The ran the shows for three series the last fast Show ever was the one in which Johnny appeared.