Big Top (2009 TV series) on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
''Big Top'' is a
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
television sitcom which first aired on 25 November 2009 and was set in and around a travelling circus. The show was broadcast on
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
and
BBC HD
BBC HD was a 24-hour high-definition television channel provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007 before its discontinuation on 26 March 2013. It broadcast ...
simultaneously. The series revolved around the performers and backstage staff of Circus Maestro. There were six episodes, each of which was thirty minutes in length. ''Big Top'' was not recommissioned for a second series and was formally cancelled by the BBC in February 2010.
Plot
Lizzie the ring mistress (Holden) must overcome all of the problems which get thrown at her during the production of the circus show. The circus features a husband and wife clown team (Thomson and Thompson), who aren't as funny as they believe they are, and Erasmus (Robinson) is a cynical soundman. Georgie (Madoc) is the grande dame of Circus Maestro, and Boyco (Mackinnon) is an east European acrobat who is still learning about the ways of the English world.
Cast
*
Amanda Holden
Amanda Louise Holden (born 16 February 1971) is an English actress, media personality, and singer. Since 2007, she has been a judge on the television talent show competition ''Britain's Got Talent'' on ITV. She also co-hosts the ''Heart Brea ...
as Lizzie the Ring Mistress
*: Lizzie is the daughter of Circus Maestro's founder, but when her father ends up in prison for fraud she becomes the ring mistress. Lizzie grew up in the circus and loves it with all her heart. Her only regret is that she has absolutely no circus skills. She can't juggle, can't spin plates and never even took the stabilisers off her unicycle.
*
John Thomson as Plonky the Clown/Uncle Geoff
*: Geoff is one half the clown double act, Plinky and Plonky, the husband and wife team involving him and his wife Helen. One problem being, their act isn't very funny since Geoff hasn't got a funny bone in his body.
*
Tony Robinson
Sir Anthony Robinson (born 15 August 1946) is an English actor, author, broadcaster, comedian, presenter, and political activist. He played Baldrick in the BBC television series ''Blackadder'' and has presented several historical documentarie ...
as Erasmus
*: Erasmus is the cynical soundman who has a scheme and con for everything. Anything that involves him getting cash he will try it.
*
Ruth Madoc
Ruth Madoc (born Margaret Ruth Llewellyn Baker; 16 April 1943 – 9 December 2022) was a British actress who had a career on stage and screen spanning over 60 years. She was best known for her role as Gladys Pugh in the BBC television comedy '' ...
as Georgie
*: Georgie is the grande dame of the circus and has an act with her dog, David, a West Highland Terrier. She cares a lot about David but often uses him as part of little schemes. When Boyco gets a job as advertising accident claims and compensation, Georgie tries to use David to claim saying he is suffering with stress.
*
Bruce Mackinnon
Bruce MacKinnon (born 1961) is a Canadian editorial cartoonist for ''The Chronicle Herald'' in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is the recipient of several awards of excellence for his work.
Biography
MacKinnon was born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, wher ...
as Boyco
*: Boyco is the acrobat of the circus and he's also madly in love with Lizzie. He is 28 years old and does juggling, high wire, balloon animals and trampoline.
*
Sophie Thompson
Sophie Thompson (born 20 January 1962) is a British actress who has worked in film, television and theatre. A six-time Olivier Award nominee, she won the 1999 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical for the London revival of ''Into the Woods' ...
as Plinky the Clown/Auntie Helen
*: Helen acts as the other half of Plinky and Plonky. Helen is Lizzie's auntie and always tries to help out Lizzie in any way she possibly can, even if she fails. She tries to help Lizzie with finding love but Lizzie doesn't like any of the men Helen matches her up with.
Guest stars
Episode 1
*
Patrick Baladi
Patrick Bashir Baladi (born 25 December 1971) is an English actor and musician. He is best known for playing Neil Godwin in the BBC sitcom ''The Office'', Michael Jackson in the Sky 1 drama '' Stella'' and Stephen Holmes in the ITV thriller ' ...
as Andy James
*Ross Gurney-Randall as Jimmy Steed
*Michael Elliot as an elderly man
Episode 2
*
Nick Holder
Nick Holder (born 1969) is an underground hip-hop and house music deejay and producer from Toronto, Ontario.
Holder began DJing in the early 1980s, and soon became influenced by the Detroit techno scene and DJs such as Derrick May and Carl Cra ...
as The immigration official
*Holly Hayes as the registrar
*Tom Goodman Hill as the advert voice-over
*
The Krankies
The Krankies are a Scottish comedy duo who enjoyed success as a cabaret act in the 1970s and on television in the 1980s, featuring in their own television shows and making pop records. Since this period, they have also regularly appeared in pant ...
as themselves
Development
The BBC released an announcement on 22 January 2009 that the series had begun filming. Big Bear Films produced the series. ''Big Top'' was filmed in front of a live studio audience at
Teddington Studios
Teddington Studios was a large British television studio in Teddington, London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, providing studio facilities for programmes airing on the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky1 and others. The complex also prov ...
and on location in and around
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
. The show was written by Daniel Peak, directed by Marcus Mortimer and co-produced by
John Stroud and Marcus Mortimer. It was commissioned by
Jay Hunt, Controller of BBC One, and Lucy Lumsden, Controller of Comedy Commissioning for the BBC. The executive producers were Jed Leventhall for Big Bear and Simon Wilson for the BBC. Prior to broadcast, the second and third episodes were in reverse order; "Skydiver" then "Visa".
Reception
Reception to the show was negative. In a review of the opening episode, Michael Deacon in ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' described it as "unfunny and outdated", saying that "the cast weren’t so much playing characters as reading aloud from a dog-eared joke book for half an hour."
Tom Sutcliffe in ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'' said that it was "one of those programmes that get you wondering about the commissioning process." Sam Wollaston of ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' commented that the jokes were so obvious that he invented a game, whereby he would pause the show after the set up and ask his girlfriend to guess the punchline.
The sitcom was named the worst new sitcom of 2009 by the visitors to the
British Comedy Guide
British Comedy Guide or BCG (formerly the British Sitcom Guide or BSG) is a British website covering all forms of British comedy, across all media. At the time of writing, BCG has published guides to more than 7,000 individual British comedies ...
. ''
Daily Mirror
The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print c ...
'' TV critic
Jim Shelley included the series on his list of the ''Top 20 TV flops'', describing it as "Mind-blowingly awful".
The harsh criticism that the sitcom received, and the likelihood that it would be axed after one season, led to its being used as a
cipher on
Richard Bacon's
BBC 6Music
BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC, specialising primarily in alternative music. BBC 6 Music was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years. It is available onl ...
show during 2009–10. To circumvent instructions given to 6Music presenters that they should not discuss on-air
the planned closure of the station, Bacon frequently voiced his strong objection to "the BBC's plans to cancel ''Big Top''" and encouraged listeners to do the same.
Cancellation
Following speculation that the series would be returning, the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
announced in February 2010 that they would not recommission ''Big Top'' for a second series.