Little Britain

Little Britain is a BBC radio and television sketch show written by and starring Matt Lucas and David Walliams. The original series debuted on BBC Radio 4 in 2001, running for two short series of five and four half-hour episodes respectively. In 2003, the show began as a television series on the BBC's digital-only channel BBC 3, running to 8 episodes. Most of the TV material was adapted from the original radio sketches, but there were also some original sketches featuring new recurring characters. Due to the success of the series, the first series was repeated on the mainstream channel BBC 2. Although reactions to the series were mixed, many critics were enthusiastic, and the show was recommissioned for another series. Interestingly, unlike many radio-based successes which have crossed over to television, it is understood that a new radio series of the programme is also planned. A second TV series featuring several new characters began on BBC 3 on October 19, 2004, and due to the show's popularity the scheduled repeat run was "promoted" to BBC 1, starting on December 3, 2004, guaranteeing higher ratings. However, the repeat showing did not feature material from the original run deemed too offensive for the BBC 1 audience.

Main characters - series 2

The characters of Des Kay, Gary and Jason, Dame Sally Markham, Ray McCooney, Denver Mills, The Record Breakers, Liz and Clive, April and Neville and Bernard Chumley have been discontinued (although some of them may/will return for the third series) in favour of new characters;

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Bubbles DeVere (Lucas) is an overweight, middle-aged woman who lives at a health spa (Hill Grange, a nod at Grange Hill) despite constantly being harassed for her payment by Mr Hutton (Walliams). The sketches are based on the shock factor, as Bubbles is the first character to go full-frontal - even though her 'wobbly' bits are made of latex. She is probably most famous for her 'Monte Carlo' number, darling - 123 456 789.

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Harvey (Walliams) is an upper-class mummy's boy who insists on 'bitty' - breast milk - from his mother (played by Geraldine James) even though he is in his early 30s, much to the dismay of his prospective wife and her parents.

Related Topics:
Breast milk - Geraldine James

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Florence (Lucas) is a wannabe transvestite and friend of Emily (Walliams). (S)he is even more unconvincing than Emily considering that (s)he has a moustache.

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Judy (Lucas) and Maggie (Walliams) are two elderly ladies from the Women's Institute who work at different voluntary or charitable events. They keenly partake in refreshments provided by their hosts, but when informed that anyone involved in its preparation is either from a non-white ethnic background or is not entirely heterosexual, Maggie proceeds to vomit copiously, often onto someone else, as Judy looks on horrified. The National Federation of Women's Institutes objected to this depiction and the BBC agreed to replace the Women's Institute logo and change the dialogue in subsequent showings of the programme.

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Carol (Walliams) works at a bank and has a very close relationship with her computer. When asked by customers if they can take a loan, her answer most of the time is "Computer says no", or for a change,"Computer says is Janie coming?" upon being invited to a dinner with colleagues, or whispers to the computer, still with a negative answer. She is unwilling to use any human initiative to help customers and will cough in their faces to make them go away.

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