British Life

1. British Life Humour & Comedy

2. British Humour • Humour (風趣) is of central importance in British culture • In normal everyday conversation there is always "some" humour- even if it isn't very funny (and isn’t meant to be) • irony 反話 • wit 機智 • banter 諧謔 • teasing 打趣 • understatement 謹慎的陳述 • humourous self-deprecation 自已反對 • mockery 自嘲 • silliness 愚蠢

3. British Humour • Many non-British people find everyday British humour confusing. • Especially irony, which is almost always present: e.g. A normal conversation: A: How are the children? B: Fine, thanks. A: Oh, Good. • The same conversation in Britain: A: How are the children? B: Oh, they're delightful - charming, helpful, tidy, studious... A: Oh dear. Been one of those days, has it? • Understatement is also a big part of British humour e.g. During a typhoon: "It's a bit wet out there, isn't it?"

4. British Comedy • Father Ted • Fawlty Towers • Men Behaving Badly • Only Fools and Horses • Whose Line is it Anyway? • The Young Ones • The Goodies

5. Father Ted • Father Ted is a 1990s television situation comedy set on the extremely remote fictional Craggy Island off the west coast of Ireland. • It first aired April 21, 1995 on the UK's Channel 4, and the final episode was broadcast on May 1, 1998. • Father Ted was written by Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan, who also co-created Big Train. All the interior scenes were shot at the LWT studios in London, while all of the location footage was shot in Ireland

6. Fawlty Towers • Fawlty Towers is set in a fictional hotel named Fawlty Towers in the Devon town of Torquay on "the English Riviera". • The hotel is owned and run by the eccentric Basil Fawlty and his wife Sybil, helped by the maid Polly, the Spanish porter Manuel who could barely speak English and (in the second series) the chef Terry. • Permanent guests were the half-senile Major Gowen and the bewildered old ladies Miss Tibbs and Miss Gatsby. Very few other guests ever stayed long.

7. Men Behaving Badly • Men Behaving Badly centres around two "blokes", Gary (Martin Clunes) and Tony (Neil Morrissey) (Tony replaced Dermot (Harry Enfield) from the second series on) sharing the ground floor flat owned by Gary in a converted house. • Gary is a branch manager of a security systems company; Tony drifts from job to job, including spells as a model, busker, mime artist, barman and driver

8. Only Fools and Horses • Derek "Del Boy" Trotter (played by David Jason) and his younger brother Rodney (Nicholas Lyndhurst) share a flat with their elderly Grandad (Lennard Pearce) several floors up Nelson Mandela House in a high-rise estate in Peckham, South London (although the actual high-rise shown in the show was in Acton, West London). • Del Boy runs Trotter's Independent Traders — he's a fast-talking Cockney market trader, a wheeler-dealer, a wide boy, always looking to try to make a quick buck, cash in hand, no questions asked.

9. Whose Line is it Anyway? • Whose Line Is It Anyway? is an improvised and largely unscripted comedy pseudo-game show. • It was originally a British radio programme, but moved to British and then American television.

10. The Young Ones • The Young Ones was a British sitcom about four male students sharing a house. It was written by Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, and Lise Mayer, with additional contributions by Alexei Sayle (usually involving his own performances). • The show was directed by Geoff Posner and produced by Paul Jackson for the BBC between 1982 and 1984. • The show developed a cult following throughout the English-speaking world