London: it's a funny old place, as these sketches prove. From working class playwrights to punning Underground employees to gullible poshos, here's our roundup of the best comedy sketches set in London.
Working class playwright: Monty Python
"Hampstead wasn't good enough for you, was it? You had to go poncing off to Barnsley, you and your coal mining friends!" A good deal of the Pythons sketches were filmed in London, but this is the best send-up of the team's own luvvy London lifestyles — starring a near-Oscar worthy performance from Graham Chapman as a West End playwright disgusted at his son's career choice as a coal miner. The idea is simple; the execution, impeccable.
Tube stations: the Two Ronnies
When it comes to comedic wordplay, the Two Ronnies are second to none. In this utterly charming sketch where the punning pair play two London Underground workers, the sketch quickly becomes a game where you have to listen out for as many station names as possible. So go on, how many did you get?
London to Edinburgh train: Big Train
Ironically, one of Big Train's finest sketches involves a little train — one that the transport minister struggles to get her head around. When this sketch first came out, it was difficult to believe a minister could be so dense. Now? Not so much. (Side note: it's interesting to note that the genuine London-Edinburgh train journey here is given as three and a half hours. Did they fail to do their research, or were trains genuinely faster in the late 1990s?)
If tube lines were people: Muriel
More trains! This time, a contemporary(ish) sketch from Muriel, who humanise the tube lines with great aplomb. The Northern line is a dark and moody, straight-outta-Camden type. The Bakerloo line is is a fusty old so-and-so in a gravy-brown cardie. The Piccadilly line? A wide-eyed tourist in an I heart London tee. So much of this is spot on. As for the Central line being an Essex gal... well I guess the line does run to Essex after all.
Charles II: The King of Bling Song: Horrible Histories
The Great Watching Chamber and Great Hall form the backdrop for what is a Great Eminem/Restoration musical mashup from the Horrible Histories gang. Not everyone has the charm to persuade Historic Royal Palaces to allow them to film a goblet-sloshing romp around its hallowed halls, but of course with HH, you're always in safe hands, and the result is yet another tasty cocktail of fact and fun — this time round, courtesy of the Party King himself, Charles II.
Cockney Barrel Of Monkeys: The Fast Show
At a time when Guy Ritchie and other Guy Ritchie-like films were ten a penny, The Fast Show decided to take the mickey (Mickey Bliss (Piss)) with It's a Right Royal Barrel of Cockney Monkeys — a pitch-perfect pastiche of the Brit gangster genre, complete with gravelly voiceover, banging Fatboy Slim soundtrack, and more "muppets" than a Jim Henson convention. Also see: Another Fast Show bit, We're Cockneys.
I Saw You Coming: Harry Enfield
The Notting Hill set get it in the neck from a scathing Harry Enfield in this series of skits, in which super-rich, super-stupid folk are talked into buying utter tat off a not-so-smooth-talking blaggard running chichi boutiques with names like I Saw You Coming and Modern Wank. "Make up your mind," he demands at one point "Kate Moss wants it". Wonder if Kate herself ever watched this and cringed.
Peter O'Hanra-Hanrahan: The Day Today
"Peter! You've lost the news!" In the god-tier news spoof The Day Today, anchor Chris Morris does not suffer fools gladly, most certainly not poor, bumbling correspondent Peter O'Hanra-Hanrahan. Imagine if Clive Myrie treated Chris Mason like this.
Kitten Kong: The Goodies
This thoroughly silly sketch from the Goodies — which has Twinkles the giant kitten clawing at London's landmarks — would've been all the more potent when first aired in the in the 1970s, a time when seeing a respected news presenter like Michael Aspel joining in with the high jinx would've been altogether surreal. The scene of the terrorising puss knocking over the BT Tower is nothing short of iconic. Bad kitty!
Acting Masterclass with Michael Caine: The Peter Serafinowicz Show
Is this strictly a London sketch? Well Michael Caine is a Londoner I guess, but really this is an excuse to show one of Peter Serafinowicz's finest moments — this bizarre acting masterclass, which gets more bizarre by the second, and winds up using a packet of sausages /Benedict Wong to devastatingly funny effect. The funniest thing of all? This spoof isn't all that far off the ACTUAL acting masterclass Michael Caine did.
EastEnders goes highbrow: The Big Impression
While one of the best Alistair McGowan/Ronni Ancona sketches from their The Big Impression show imagined Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn running a roadside burger van, they essentially flipped the concept for this EastEnders parody, which has an extremely credible Peggy Mitchell and Frank Butcher discuss the finer points of Dostoevsky. Get outta my literary salon!
Paddington and the Queen have tea and marmalade sandwiches
The most unexpected double act of all time is also one of the most iconic. Having already hobnobbed with James Bond in a skit for the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, the Queen paired up with another British icon (albeit a more mild-mannered one) for her Platinum Jubilee celebrations, this time switching out a leaping-from-a-helicopter punchline to a visual gag involving a marmalade sandwich and a handbag. The schmaltz in this Paddington sketch is laid on thicker than a particularly generous layer of thick cut marmalade. Still, what was one of the Queen's final appearances to camera was also among her most memorable.
All of Trigger Happy TV
At the dawn of the new Millennium, it was as if sketch comedy changed overnight, with the arrival of Trigger Happy TV, a 'candid camera' type show in which the redoubtable Dom Joly is unleashed on the public (Londoners mostly) in the guise of a shouty mobile phone user, a depressed sketch artist in Trafalgar Square, and an overzealous traffic warden (see above). The entirety of the two original series are mirthfully mischievous while, viewed in today's climate of OTT punking, somehow rather civilised. You can watch Trigger Happy TV for free here.
Honourable mention
I remember a brilliant Victoria Wood/Julie Walters sketch in which they play too way-too-upbeat East-Enders who've just been bombed out of their home at Christmas. All I can find of it online though is these few seconds in a BBC trailer.
Got a suggestion? Email [email protected] — just bear in mind this is comedy sketches, rather than general comedies set in London. We've covered sitcoms here.
Featured image: Muriel
