If you look at Rich Johnston's review (see Lee&Herring website guestbook), he says that there is a sight-gag, 'Today's Special - Soup In A Basket'.
Soup In A Basket... first used on RadioActive(1985), the episode where Martin Brown is being trained as a stand-up ("The other day I went into an Irish restaurant, the only trouble was they gave me soup in a basket..."). Dan Gaster nicked it for some dismal show of his, I also remember.
I'm sure TGP is great, I'll try to go to see it. Just couldn't avoid a bit of old-gag-spotting...
I never really listened to RadioActive, so it wasn't a deliberate steal (though it's one of those jokes that is so obvious that I would have been surprised if it hadn't been done before).
However, I have deliberately copied something from "It Ain't Half Hot Mum" - namely the Landlord saying "Oh dear, what a pity, never mind". I believe a Windsor Davies catchphrase. This isn't a steal. I just think that the Landlord would like IAHHM and think it was funny to quote it (as it was it got a very big laugh)
There are a few bits of homage to old sit-coms and I hope you will spot them all. My favourite being the Old Geezer saying "Sometimes you want to go to a place where nobody knows your name".
The recording went well and the editted version (cut to 23 minutes from 26 recorded - only because it has to be that length, no conspiracy corpses) seems to zip along nicely. Now it's over to you the viewing public to decide if you like it or not.
I wanted to like it Rich :) But then, we didn't see it in fantastic circumstances. Why don't you do the warm-up in future?
It's probably not fair to judge it on the first episode, anyway. Good luck with it though.
Doing the warm up for Al is a daunting task for anyone. I would be absolutely shit at it.
I thought the guy did OK. He sort of did the job. And you can't be too funny or people will want the warm up bloke back.
I'm surprised you could come away from that audience thinking the show hadn't gone all that well. It seemed to go down a storm. But maybe Avalon some how fixed that, hey Corpses!
I was extremely pleased with it (epsecially given that it's a first episode). And am confident that time (gentlemen please) will prove you over critical Tanya. But we shall see.
A friend of mine who went - she's a friend of Nadia S's hence her presence - said much the same as Tanya.
I can never tell from seeing something live how it will be received when transmitted. Sometimes I really enjoy the recording and then am really disappointed when it's on TV and sometimes it's the other way round. So don't ever ask me!
It will be a success, as there's enough real life Al Murrays out there to make it such-as the first recording revealed. Talk about life imitating art.