''The Karen Dunbar Show'' was a Scottish comedy sketch show that aired on

BBC One Scotland BBC One Scotland is a Scottish free-to-air television channel owned and operated by BBC Scotland and is a Scottish variation of the UK-wide BBC One. For all of the time the channel is referred to on screen as ''BBC One Scotland'', sometimes us ...

, starring comedian and actress

Karen Dunbar Karen Dunbar (born 1 April 1971) is a Scottish comedian, actress and writer. She first appeared on television on the BBC Scotland sketch comedy series ''Chewin' the Fat'' (1999–2002), and was subsequently given her own show by the channel titl ...

. It was produced by

BBC Scotland BBC Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: ''BBC Alba'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Scotland. It is one of the four BBC national regions, together with the BBC English Regions, BBC Cymru Wales and BBC Northern Ireland. I ...

. It also starred actor and musician

Tom Urie Tom Urie (born 1969, Paisley, Scotland) is an actor and musician. He is best known for his role as Big Bob (Bob O'Hara) in the BBC Scotland soap opera ''River City''. In November 2019, Urie played Gordie in the BBC Scotland drama ''Guilt''. C ...

Theme

The original theme tune which was used on Series 3, has a similar sound to the

David Essex David Essex (born David Albert Cook; 23 July 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, and actor. Since the 1970s, he has attained 19 Top 40 singles in the UK (including two number ones) and 16 Top 40 albums. Internationally, Essex had the most ...

song

Hold Me Close "Hold Me Close" is a pop song written and performed by English singer and actor David Essex. The song was released in October 1975, and reached the number one position on the UK Singles Chart, where it remained for three weeks. Song profile "Ho ...

Concept

There were many recurring characters, such as Shoeless Josie, a blonde drunkard, often seen carrying a bag of chips, and Almost Angelic, a Pub 'n' Club duo from Ayrshire, consisting of Angela Silvery and her tolerant husband Ricky.

Episodes

To date, there have been three series of 6 episodes each (2003–2005) and one, the 2006 series, consisting of four. Directors included

Ron Bain Ron Bain is a Scottish television actor, director, producer, comedian and former stage actor who now focuses primarily on directing. He is known for his work with comedian Rikki Fulton, with whom he first worked while performing Molière's ' ...

and Iain Davidson. Many writers contributed to the series, including: Gordon Robertson (2005),

Graeme Sutherland Dr Graeme Sutherland (born 25 December 1964) is a free-lance writer, mainly specialising in broadcast comedy. He has contributed to the BBC Radio 4 satirical sketch show ''Week Ending'' and three series of the BBC Scotland TV comedy ''The Karen D ...

(2003–2005) and Ben Verth (2005). *Series 1: 9 January 2003 to 12 February 2003. *Series 2: 20 February 2004 to 26 March 2004. *Series 3: 20 May 2005 to 24 June 2005. *Series 4: 17 March 2006 to 7 April 2006.

DVD release

Only Series 1 has received a DVD release (in the UK). As a result of being unable to obtain clearance for the use of copyrighted music, some sketches (including all of Almost Angelic's – despite being pictured on the artwork) are excluded from the DVD. The TV broadcasts however, contained them intact.

External links

* *
''The Karen Dunbar Show''
at The Comedy Unit * BBC Scotland television shows 2003 Scottish television series debuts 2006 Scottish television series endings 2000s Scottish television series BBC Scotland television sketch shows 2000s British television sketch shows {{BBC-tv-prog-stub