Big Train
Encyclopedia
Big Train is a surreal British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

 comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 sketch show created by Arthur Mathews
Arthur Mathews (writer)
Arthur Mathews is an Irish comedy writer and actor who, often with writing partner Graham Linehan, has either written or contributed to a number of popular television comedies, most notably Father Ted. He is a graduate of the Dublin Institute of Technology...

 and Graham Linehan
Graham Linehan
Graham Linehan is an Irish television writer, actor, comedian and director who, often in partnership with Arthur Mathews, has written or co-written a number of popular television comedies...

, writers of the successful sitcom Father Ted
Father Ted
Father Ted is a comedy series set in Ireland that was produced by Hat Trick Productions for British broadcaster Channel 4. Written jointly by Irish writers Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan and starring a predominantly Irish cast, it originally aired over three series from 21 April 1995 until 1 May...

. The first series was broadcast on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

 in 1998, while the second, in which Linehan was not involved, aired in 2002.

Overview

Following in the tradition of Monty Python
Monty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...

, the comedy of Big Train is based on the subversion of ordinary situations by the surreal or macabre. For example, one scene
Scene (fiction)
In fiction, a scene is a unit of drama. A sequel is what follows; an aftermath. Together, scene and sequel provide the building blocks of plot for short stories, novels, and other forms of fiction.-Characteristics of a scene:...

 features a bad-mannered man casually stabbed to death by his embarrassed wife at a dinner party. The series is probably most famous for a recurring sketch from the first series, a stare-out
Stare-out
Stare-Out is a series of animated sketches written by Paul Hatcher and animated by Chris Shepherd, composited and additional animation by Rhodri Cooper and Jeff Goldner of Animation Post, that first appeared in the first series of the BBC sketch show Big Train...

 competition accompanied by commentary from BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 commentators Barry Davies
Barry Davies
Barry George Davies MBE is a British sports commentator. He has covered a wide range of sports in a long career, primarily for the BBC.-Broadcasting career:...

 and Phil Cornwell
Phil Cornwell
Phil Cornwell is an English comedian, actor, impressionist and writer. He is probably best known as being part of the Dead Ringers television and radio series...

. The stare-out competition was based on a comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

 by Paul Hatcher and was animated by Chris Shepherd
Chris Shepherd
Chris Shepherd is a BAFTA nominated television/film writer and director. Born in Anfield, Liverpool in 1967. He is mainly known for combining live action with animation. His work fuses comedy with commentary on the darker side of human nature....

.

Despite running for two series, Big Train attracted only a limited audience. Even so, the first series was voted "Best 'Broken Comedy' Show" at the prestigious British Comedy Awards
British Comedy Awards
The British Comedy Awards is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom celebrating notable comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year.-History:...

 in 1999. Both series were released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 on 25 October 2004.

Its stars included the actor Kevin Eldon, Mark Heap
Mark Heap
Mark Heap is an English actor. He began his acting career in the 1980s as a member of the Medieval Players, a touring company performing medieval and early modern theatre, and featuring stilt-walking, juggling and puppetry...

, and Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg is an English actor, comedian, writer, film producer, and director. He is best known for having co-written and stared in various Edgar Wright features, mainly Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the comedy series Spaced.He also portrayed Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the 2009 Star Trek film...

 in both series one and two, with Julia Davis
Julia Davis
Julia Davis is an English comedy writer and performer, best known for writing and starring in the BBC Three comedy Nighty Night.-Background:...

 and Amelia Bullmore
Amelia Bullmore
Amelia Bullmore is an English actress and writer. She was born in London and studied drama at the University of Manchester. Bullmore started working as an actor but turned to writing in 1995...

 in the first series, and Rebecca Front
Rebecca Front
Rebecca Front is a BAFTA Award–winning English comedian and actress best known for her performances in The Thick of It in the late 2000s, and series of critically acclaimed satirical comedies in the early 1990s: On The Hour, The Day Today and Knowing Me, Knowing You...with Alan Partridge...

, Tracy-Ann Oberman
Tracy-Ann Oberman
Tracy-Ann Oberman is an English television, theatre and radio actress, known for her role as Chrissie Watts in the BBC soap opera Eastenders...

 and Catherine Tate
Catherine Tate
Catherine Tate is an English actress, writer, and comedian. She has won numerous awards for her work on the sketch comedy series The Catherine Tate Show as well as being nominated for an International Emmy Award and four BAFTA Awards...

 in the second series. All its lead actors have starred in a variety of other comedy shows including I'm Alan Partridge
I'm Alan Partridge
I'm Alan Partridge is a BBC situation comedy starring Steve Coogan, of which two series of six episodes each were produced — the first in 1997 and the second in 2002...

, Look Around You
Look Around You
Look Around You is a British television comedy series devised and written by Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz, and, in the first series, narrated by Nigel Lambert...

, Spaced
Spaced
Spaced is a British television sitcom written by and starring Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, and directed by Edgar Wright. It is noted for its rapid-fire editing, frequent pop culture references and jokes, eclectic music, and occasional displays of surrealism and non-sequitur humour...

, Smack the Pony
Smack the Pony
Smack the Pony is a British sketch comedy show that ran from 1999 until 2003 on Channel 4. Its title was intended to sound like a euphemism for female masturbation; the working title was Spot the Pony. The main performers and writers on the show were Fiona Allen, Doon Mackichan and Sally Phillips...

, Brass Eye
Brass Eye
Brass Eye is a UK television series of satirical spoof documentaries. A series of six aired on Channel 4 in 1997, and a further episode in 2001....

and Green Wing
Green Wing
Green Wing is a British sitcom set in the fictional East Hampton Hospital. It was created by the same team behind the sketch show Smack the Pony, led by Victoria Pile, and stars Tamsin Greig, Stephen Mangan and Julian Rhind-Tutt....

.
Catherine Tate went on to get her own show on the BBC, The Catherine Tate Show
The Catherine Tate Show
The Catherine Tate Show is a British television sketch comedy written by Catherine Tate and Aschlin Ditta. Tate also stars in all but one of the show's sketches, which feature a wide range of characters. The Catherine Tate Show airs on BBC Two and is shown worldwide through the BBC...

. The first series was directed by Graham Linehan and other series contributors included David Mitchell
David Mitchell (actor)
David James Stuart Mitchell is a British actor, comedian and writer. He is half of the comedy duo Mitchell and Webb, alongside Robert Webb, whom he met at Cambridge University. There they were both part of the Cambridge Footlights, of which Mitchell became President. Together the duo star in the...

.

The pilot episode was directed by Chris Morris
Chris Morris (satirist)
Christopher Morris is an English satirist, writer, director and actor. A former radio DJ, he is best known for anchoring the spoof news and current affairs television programmes The Day Today and Brass Eye, as well as his frequent engagement with controversial subject matter.In 2010 Morris...

 but was never broadcast in full. Some sketches from the pilot are scattered through the series. Apart from Pegg, all of the first season regular cast members starred in Morris' sketch comedy Jam
Jam (TV series)
Jam was a postmodern British dark comedy series created, written and directed by Chris Morris, and broadcast on Channel 4 during March and April 2000...

(2000).

Although a sketch about a train being pushed by a giant appeared in the first series, the actual title of the show is derived from the song run during the credits, of which the writers were fond enough to name the show after. The song "Big Train" was recorded by Max Greger and his Orchestra. This has since been adopted for a commercial by Virgin Trains
Virgin Trains
Virgin Trains is a train operating company in the United Kingdom. It operates long-distance passenger services on the West Coast Main Line between London, the West Midlands, North West England, North Wales and Scotland...

.

Both series were shot entirely on location (series one on 35mm film and series two on DigiBeta) and later shown to a live audience so that a laugh track
Laugh track
A laugh track is a separate soundtrack invented by Charles "Charley" Douglass, with the artificial sound of audience laughter, made to be inserted into television programming of comedy shows and sitcoms.The term "laugh track" does not apply to the genuine audience laughter on shows that shoot in...

 could be recorded.

Transmission details

Big Train originally aired on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

 on Monday nights during the following periods:
  • Series one (6 episodes): 9 November – 4 December 1998
  • Series two (6 episodes): 7 January – 11 February 2002

External links

  • Big Train on TV.com
    TV.com
    TV.com is a website owned by CBS Interactive. The site covers television and focuses on English-language shows made or broadcast in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Japan...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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