50 Greatest Comedy Sketches

When we die... they'll show this on TV

There were three Little Britain sketches in the top 20 Channel 4's 50 Greatest Comedy Sketches, shown on 3rd April 2005. The placings were:

  • Lou & Andy swimming pool #1
  • Vicky Pollard swimming pool #4
  • Daffyd comes out to his parents #17

Matt and David were interviewed throughout the show.

Vic and Bob Masterchef

  • David: It is like a nightmare, that sketch, it's incredible
  • Matt: You had a nightmare about that sketch!
  • Matt: I was still at university when we were making that series and I was saying to my 'I really think it's time I actually left university and went full time into comedy' and my mum wasn't very keen. And then she saw the Masterchef sketch and said [Marjorie Dawes voice] 'I don't think that's really what you want to be doing Matthew!'
  • David: It sort of reminds me of Alice in Wonderland but towards the end. It all kind of goes wrong. It's really, really disturbing.
  • Matt: And I remember being delighted at the sight of Bob Mortimer's prosthetic nose.
  • David: It's brilliant isn't it? The moustasche is there and the nose sort of ends there. I've never seen anything like that in my life.
  • Matt: Or have you seen it since!
  • David: It's one of the best spoof sketches of all time
  • Matt: I think it's my favourite Vic and Bob sketch

17: Daffyd comes out to his parents

  • David: I think we thought - Oh to hell with it. Let's just be as funny and silly as possible.
  • Matt: We had started out all gritty. Our intentions were to really show the real Britain. And then it just became Dick Emery really [both laugh] .
  • [Daffyd clip montage to Bronski Beat's Smalltown Boy]
  • David: He knows he's gay but he's too scared to act on it. He wants to encounter homophobia wherever he goes but everyone in his village is kind of okay with his sexuality. Most people in the village we've painted are bisexual. Or Gay!
  • [Big Brother clip montage featuring Brian]
  • Matt: There was Brian and he was newly out, he'd just told his family that he was gay before he'd gone into Big Brother.
  • David: And when Josh came in who was much more the active gay man about town in Soho, Brian was a bit scared of him. We'd actually already written the sketch but it just struck a chord and we thought 'we're on to something here' because it's actually very true and I think the best sketches are when people go 'oh yes, I know a character like that'
  • [Montage of Daffyd's costumes]
  • David: I like that the outfits are themed and there's a Hamlet costume in the second series. I don't think that many gay people actually dress like that.
  • [Steve Furst interview]
  • David: We like old ladies saying things like 'what that boy needs is a big cock up his arse'. It's a great opportunity to get Ruth Maddock to say the word 'cock'.
  • Matt: In fact we put cock in Ruth Maddock's mouth, didn't we?
  • David: Yes. In a way.

4: Vicky Pollard Swimming Pool

  • Matt: Of all the characters in Little Britain, Vicky is one of the more satirical. It's like there's a Vicky Pollard on every street corner.
  • David: Yeah, it's like its the one that everyone says 'oh my daughter's like that', 'there's a girl down my road' or 'I'm the Vicky Pollard in my school'. Or even, some people think it's a great thing to be [laughs] and write to us and say 'I'm the Vicky Pollard in where I live' and I think 'yeah, I wouldn't be too proud of that'
  • [clips of Vicky to 'You're fit' by The Streets]
  • David: She has a euphamism for a lady's part which she calls a spider, which I rather like
  • Matt: We wrote one the other day where she calls it a strawberry mivvi.

1: Lou and Andy Swimming Pool

During the Lou & Andy sketch, bits of rare footage were shown including the infamous Ralph Little Show "Lou Reed and Andy Warhol" sketch (from which Lou and Andy developed), plus David's appearance on The Sunday Show.

  • Tom VO: It's Andy and Lou! They're showbiz friends of mine. Oh yes!
  • David: I think people have voted this sketch number 1 because we're in our swimming costumes. And I think that ultimately that's what people want to see
  • Matt: Can I also just take this opportunity, if you're watching, the makeup artists who made my prosthetic stomach [David giggles] for that sketch - thank you very much. Thank you.
  • Tom VO: Matt and David have had an enormous overnight success taking them only 10 years... they're still so young! Look at them.
  • [Clip of Matt as George Dawes from Shooting Stars]
  • [Clip of David doing a sketch from the Sunday Show]
  • [Clip of the Shirley Bassey/Tom Jones Rock Profile]
  • [Clip of the recording of the Little Britain Radio Series - Emily Howard sketch, then Vicky Pollard sketch]
  • [Clip of the Lou Reed/Andy Warhol sketch for the Ralph Little Show with Matt and David doing the characters at the same time]
  • David: Just as an image it looked great, of me pushing Matt in a wheelchair - Matt eating a bag of crisps. And Matt loves playing the character so much because he gets to sit in a wheelchair and eat food.
  • Matt: They need each other. It's like Steptoe and Son. They sort of define each other.
  • David: It's developing along the lines of Andy preventing Lou from having a life because Andy wants Lou to be waiting on him hand and foot. So Andy does a lot of cruel things - gets rid of Lou's love interest in the second series.
  • [clip of the swimming pool sketch]
  • David: We did it in one take - there's only one take of that. The reason we didn't retake it was that the moment that Matt hits the water, I say "he's afraid of water" and that's just an amazing accident. That's not going to get any better than that.
  • David: It's amazing that people seem to like it. And when we die - which we will - that will be the sketch they will probably play on the news.