The Funny Side

"The Funny Side", from Thames Television, lasted for six episodes on ITV in the summer of 1985. The cast included Derek Griffiths, Derek Waring, Debbie Arnold, Alden Harvey and Tony Barton, with one-off appearances by a few obscure actors.

The format of the series was sketch comedy, but it wasn't very good. Most of the sketches were written by Eddie Braben, who is best known as the comedy genius behind Morecambe and Wise (he wrote most of their best material). It's obvious that Braben was giving all his best scripts to Eric and Ernie, and skiving off whatever was left over onto "The Funny Side". Dick Vosburgh, an American who was long resident in England, wrote several sketches for this show.

Derek Griffiths is a very talented singer and dancer, but was given little chance to prove his musical talents here. The series was produced and directed by Mark Stuart, who didn't do well at either job.

One rather tantalising bit of frustration was the running gag: each episode of "The Funny Side" featured an elaborate striptease, but the striptease was invariably terminated just when it started to get to the naughty bits. Not much going on here, then.