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Everything That You Need to Know

Published 1st January 2026

TV Comedy

Something unexpected has happened with The Peter Serafinowicz Show over the years.

For a programme which had just eight episodes, one of which was a Best Of, and which has never been repeated by the BBC1, the show has become a fixed reference point for certain strata of comedy fans. When I first watched it back in 2007, I rather liked it, with a few reservations. In 2025, it lives rent free in my head. If you think people endlessly quoting Python are annoying, just wait until I do my Ringo Remembers. “I just thought it was inappropriate. Especially at Christmastime.“

But of all the characters in the show, the one with the longest life has turned out to be inept businessman Brian Butterfield. A character inspired by this ludicrous advert, but which became something stranger and wilder almost immediately. A character which ended up going on tour fifteen years after the series was first broadcast, with all the associated paraphernalia. Who would have predicted that back in 2007?

All of which means it’s high time I wrote something interesting about it. So let’s take the second episode of the show, broadcast on the 11th October 2007, and one of the most well-remembered sketches of the lot: the Butterfield Detective Agency.

Of all the incredible moments in that sketch, my favourite might be Peter’s eye-flick upwards on “Australian”, as though Brian has just begun to realise he might have got it wrong.

But if you know this site well enough, you can probably guess where I’m about to go. What about the fabulously inappropriate music for the sketch, trying desperately to give a sense of showbiz that Brian Butterfield is incapable of providing? Well, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that it’s a library track: “Theatre Land”, credited to David Arnold2 and Paul Hart, and first released in 1991 by Carlin on the album TV/Radio/Showbiz/Logos (CAR 188).

Specifically, it’s three different versions of “Theatre Land” bunged together. All three are included below.3 I shall leave where the edit points between them are in the original sketch as an exercise for the reader.

So, job done, yes?

Not quite.

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  1. Aside from the Christmas Special, which had a repeat a couple of days later in a different edit. I’ll write about that one day. ↩

  2. Ah, the everlasting confusion with there being two British composers called David Arnold. One scored multiple James Bond films. The other did the themes for The Big Breakfast and Live & Kicking. We are dealing with the latter. ↩

  3. There are nine versions of “Theatre Land” in total on the album. ↩

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“There Are Herrings on the Roof Again!”

Published 19th September 2025

TV Comedy

Doing a parody of Fawlty Towers would, at first glance, seem a most inadvisable thing. Parodies of comedy are always a tricky proposition; parodies of one of the funniest comedies ever made is even more so.

This hasn’t stopped many of the great and the good attempting it over the decades. So to celebrate 50 years of Basil and the gang, let’s take a look at all the different take-offs of Fawlty Towers over the years. The good, the bad, and The Laughter Show.1

The Mike Yarwood Christmas Show

TX: 27th December 1976 • BBC1

Mike Yarwood went through a spate of Basil Fawlty impressions, but this sketch from his 1976 Christmas show is the one to focus on. Partly because it’s so early; just a year after Series 1 of Fawlty Towers first aired, it’s by far the earliest parody of the show I could find.

Oh, and partly because the sketch clearly uses parts of the actual Fawlty Towers set, albeit rejigged to take less space in the studio:

The Mike Yawood Show: Yarwood as Basil, with Ballard Berkely as the Major

Fawlty Towers: John Cleese as Basil, and Trevor Adams as Alan. Although the main point here is that the set in both pictures is extremely similar.

Note that in the above, the window in the door to the office has been blanked out, so you can’t see that they haven’t erected the office set. And saving space in the studio is the clear rationale behind combining the lobby and the dining room, which gives a peculiar sense of visiting Fawlty Towers in an alternate universe:

The Mike Yawood Show: Yarwood as Basil, with various guests sitting along the wall to the dining room

Fawlty Towers: John Cleese as Basil, and of course nobody sitting in the lobby, because that's not how the show worked

Sadly, all the set nonsense above is pretty much the most interesting thing about the sketch, which is one of the the least effective parts of Yarwood’s 1976 show. I guess the ventriloquist stuff is making the point that Cleese occasionally talks through clenched teeth? Precious little of it is anything like Fawlty Towers at all; rather, it’s just an excuse for Yarwood to do his own material in a slightly different setting.

Nice to see Ballard Berkeley and Renee Roberts, though.2

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  1. Look, I allow myself one cheap shot per year on this site. ↩

  2. Speaking of Ballard Berkeley, I saw him in The Playbirds the other day. Sadly, he didn’t get to have sex with Mary Millington. Pity, it would have livened the film up a bit. ↩

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