Big Train
| Big Train | |
|---|---|
| File:Bigtrain cover.gif DVD cover | |
| Created by | Graham Linehan and Arthur Mathews |
| Starring | Simon Pegg Mark Heap Kevin Eldon Amelia Bullmore (series 1) Julia Davis (series 1) Rebecca Front (series 2) Tracy-Ann Oberman (series 2) Catherine Tate (series 2) |
| Country of origin | Britain |
| No. of episodes | 12 |
| Production | |
| Running time | approx. 30 minutes per episode |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC |
| Release | 9 Nov, 1998 – 11 Feb, 2002 |
Big Train is a surreal television comedy sketch show written by the creators of the more successful Father Ted, Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan.
Following in the tradition of Monty Python, the comedy of Big Train is based on the subversion of ordinary situations by the surreal or even macabre. For example, one scene features a bad-mannered man casually stabbed to death by his embarrassed wife at a dinner party. The series is probably most famous for a recurring sketch of the first series, a stare-out competition accompanied by commentary from BBC football commentator Barry Davies and Phil Cornwell. The stare-out competition was based on a comic book by Paul Hatcher and animated by Chris Shepherd
Despite running for two series (1998 and 2002), Big Train attracted only a limited audience. Even so, the first series was voted "Best Broken Comedy Show" at the prestigious British Comedy Awards in 1999. Both series were released on DVD on 25 October 2004.
Its stars included Kevin Eldon, Mark Heap, Simon Pegg, Julia Davis, Rebecca Front, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Catherine Tate and Amelia Bullmore, who have all starred in a variety of other comedy shows including I'm Alan Partridge, Spaced, Smack the Pony and Brass Eye. Catherine Tate went on to get her own show on the BBC, The Catherine Tate Show.
Although there was indeed a sketch in the first series about a train being pushed by a giant, the name of the show comes from the song that plays during the credits. The authors liked the song so much they decided to name the show after it.
Memorable Sketches
All sketches are shot in film and shown in front of a studio audience.
- A radio DJ enslaves small children in a back room who are forced to write puns for his radio show.
- In a bizarre spin on non-smoking offices, an office manager comes into an office and informs the outraged staff that "wanking" is to be banned from the office.
- A man dressed as a mouse and a man dressed as a cat have an argument in a pub which spirals into full-blown violence in a busy street.
- A woman wanting to give up smoking turns to hypnotism, but nothing works until the arrival of the "Evil hypnotist."
- A man driving a car runs over something, which turns out to be a very large tortoise called Jacques that speaks French.
- The '80s pop stars Hall & Oates act as community service workers in a dilapidated London slum.
- The Bee Gees are killed by Chaka Khan in a Western style shoot-out. It was infamous for how the Bee Gees violently shot to death which offends the fans of Bee Gees. It turns out the fake "Chaka Khan" is a midget.
- Showjumpers who have a childlike fascination with the fire brigade constantly get in the way and cause annoyance to the firemen who are trying to do their jobs.
- A spoof wildlife documentary shows jockeys who "spend long periods in the open, risking attack from predators, like the Artist Formerly Known As Prince."
- A Dr. Jekyll style scientist drinks a magic potion and goes through a huge series of bodily and facial spasms before simply concluding that the potion is "very tart."
- Knights during the Hundred Years War complain about how uncomfortable their armour is to their superior officer, who lets them fight the next battle in casual clothes.
- A documentary-style look at the downfall of Den Davies, the furious, bitter, foul-mouthed, pill-popping, drunken second-best Rostrum Cameraman in Britain.
- A dog phones a theatre and tries to book tickets for "Oh What A Lovely War."
- In order to save their company from a buyout, one of the employees tries to confuse their manager by dressing up in a paper bra and panties and doing a dance.
- Chairman Mao on his death-bed suddenly comes to life, turns into Bryan Ferry and sings "Virginia Plain" with the rest of Roxy Music.
- A behind-the-scenes look at the life of Ming the Merciless, as he spends his morning watching TV, hoovering his house and listening to his answering machine. At one point, one of his minions comes to the door informing him that a rebel prince has just been captured. Ming tells him to "throw him into the pit of ice" before carrying on with his hoovering.
- Ming the Merciless's right-hand man has terrible trouble with his mask, which keeps catching underneath the skin, becoming quite painful.
- A man on the street is trying to encourage people to sign a petition to "have Siberian Tigers bombed" for being dangerous.
- A surgeon takes a phonecall in the middle of an operation. The operation gets more and more urgent and panicky, but the surgeon isn't able to get off the phone quickly enough, and eventually the patient dies.
- In a parody of The Antiques Roadshow, an antiques expert continually flirts with the elderly ladies he interviews on the show, informing them that their trinkets would "fetch on the market somewhere in the region of fifteen BILLION pounds!" before trying to kiss or grope them.
- A man phones an associate to organize the catering arrangements for a meeting, before explaining that he's turned into a ventriloquist dummy and is wondering how best to explain this to the people at the meeting. He finally decides just to "play it by ear."
- A couple go round to a friend's house to meet his new girlfriend, who turns out to be a vulgar, chain-smoking mermaid with a strong Northern English accent.
- Two Beefeaters outside the Tower of London start holding hands, even though their faces remain expressionless.
- In a bizarre parody of European cinema (possibly Kieslowski's Three Colours trilogy), the woman in a couple announces to the man that she has fallen in love with "something else," which turns out to be a set of portable traffic lights. Eventually she decides to go back to the man, only to find that he has fallen in love with a garden hose.
- An English tourist in France asks a local for directions in English. In perfect English, the local replies that he can't actually speak English. Another man comes along and again, in perfect English, confesses to not being able to speak a word of the language. She tries to speak to them in German, only for them to confess, in perfect German, to not being able to speak German.
- A mad scientist brings his "creature" to life. The creature is Kevin Rowland from Dexys Midnight Runners, who proceeds to sing "Let's Make This Precious."
- The Beatles' producer George Martin, despite getting kidnapped by extremists, imprisoned and held hostage, never stops waxing lyrical about working with the Beatles.
- A man is surprised to find that the sexy escort he ordered is a man in a suit who claims to be able to do "either gay or straight." When asked if he is a hermaphrodite, the escort says he isn't because "they're neither, I'm both!" It is only when they are in bed with the lights out that the secret of how he's able to do straight sex is revealed to the man, but not the audience.
- A mild-mannered man with unfortunately large hands is constantly embarrassed and insulted by people who call him a "fat-handed twat."
- A man overhears another man's opinion on public transport in a pub and decides to pass it off as his own at a dinner party. His argument gets completely destroyed by the dinner party guests and he becomes a complete laughing stock. A voiceover then declares: "Passing off opinions as your own never works. Face it, you can't cut it in the real world. JOIN THE ARMY!!"
- Two monks dupe another monk into thinking one of them has been killed. When the duped monk is theorizing in full flow ("Death stalks these relics...etc") the "dead" monk in the background and the other monk burst out laughing, revealing their practical joke. The duped monk reacts with surprise, embarrassment and very mild annoyance. This was repeated in the second series, when two scientists dupe a co-worker into thinking they haven't found a cure for a lethal virus. Just as he starts to go into full-blown melodramatics ("May God have mercy on our souls, we have created a bastard chimera...") one of the joking scientists says "It has worked, really!" Again, the duped man is amused but embarrassed, but this time visibly relieved.
- Florence Nightingale meets with the managing director of a 19th century London Hospital, and turns out to be a foul-mouthed, hard-drinking nightmare, in stark contrast to her image as the "Lady With The Lamp." She ends up being sacked and dragged kicking, screaming and swearing out of the office.
- A man meets with two other men in the pub. While one of the other men goes to the bar, the man makes assumptions to the one he's just met that everything he is saying is "some sort of reference to me not being married." He gets increasingly unhinged and violent, eventually cutting off and eating his thumb.
- A man is increasingly stalked by a sinister version of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz (who is constantly accompanied by pounding, nightmarish music whenever he's on the screen). The man is driven to hysterical terror by the Tin Man, only to re-encounter him at a dinner party - where the audience learns that the reason for the man's panic was that he couldn't remember that the Tin Man's name was Colin.
- In a parody of A Matter of Life and Death, a doomed World War Two pilot confesses his love for the Women's Auxiliary Corps radio operator he's managed to get in touch with - only to discover that he's the third such doomed pilot to reach her, and that she's juggling between the three. Crossed wires, inevitably, ensue.
- An ancient Roman gladiator is persuaded to join the rebellion against the corrupt dictatorship - as long as his co-conspirators can provide enough donkeys for the keyboard collection of his fellow slave Keith Emerson, of Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
- A smarmy film producer consistently has trouble in opening unlocked doors and in operating door handles. This presents quite a problem when sleeping with a colleague's wife.
- A documentary-style look at after the Nuremberg Rally, as Hitler and some assorted Nazis attend an after-party, get drunk and go back to a hotel room with some women.
- We see Hitler and one of his aides attempting to get Mein Kampf published, only to be rejected because most of the book is "a bit racist." Their names, not unnaturally, get put in his little book of vengeance.
- A rich millionaire meets with the management of the Ritz to organize buying the hotel. He has only one condition upon purchase: that the name of the hotel change from the "Ritz" to the "Titz." A debate ensues about how to pronounce "Titz" to avoid it sounding like "Tits," which proves hopeless, before one of them decides to launch into a random monkey impression.
- A distraught woman increasingly frustrates the police sketch artist who is trying to draw her attacker. She describes his eyes as "melancholy" and his nose as "defiant." The policeman increasingly loses his patience with the woman, particularly when she says his ears are "like a small, fat, dead Japanese businessman."
- Jesus is the manager of an office who has a heated argument with Satan, one of his workers, over his irresponsibility, his constant practical joking and bad attitude. Jesus eventually decides that he'll have to give Satan the sack, but insists he will "write him a reference, but obviously it isn't going to be a glowing report."
- Folk singer Ralph McTell is performing in a pub. After playing crowd favourite "Streets of London," he launches into a new song to the absolute disgust of the audience who badger him into playing "Streets of London" over and over again for the whole set.
- A timid female singer shows her half finished song to a guitar player in a recording studio. The guitar player is very enthusiastic but completely drowns her vocals in layers of guitar distortion, which is only worsened by the arrival of the equally enthusiastic bass player and drummer.
- A classy dinner party is consistently interrupted by a guest's unfortunate tendency to start fighting the other male guests sixties spy-drama style when asked innocuous questions.
- In a series of recurrent sketches, a military leader (played by Simon Pegg) in various military campaigns (the English Civil War, Braveheart, etc) attempts to inspire his men to follow him to death and glory. Numerous factors - such as his mumbled commands or the size of the 'tiny pony' he's riding - prove less than inspirational, and he's usually left to face the enemy by himself.
- In a series of recurrent sketches, a man (played by Mark Heap) on the point of execution / being sealed in a vault for five years by himself / being fired out of a rocket is asked if he has any last words or messages. He shakes his head, only to remember at literally the last second what he wants to say by which time it is too late!
- A policeman is approached by members of the public requiring assistence, but allows his shyness and timidity to get the better of him, proving less than helpful.
Transmission details
Big Train originally aired on BBC2 on Monday nights during the following periods:
- Series one (6 episodes): 9 Nov-14 Dec 1998
- Series two (6 episodes): 7 Jan-11 Feb 2002
External links
Big Train also was the nickname of Washington Senators pitcher Walter Johnson.