On friday night I went to the BBC for a recording of the new series of the Armstrong & Miller Show, due to be shown on BBC in the Autumn. After applying for tickets on the web, I was delighted to discover that my tickets warranted “priority” which meant I didn’t have to wait in a huge queue outside the BBC and was quickly shown through to security. After depositing my jacket and handbag through the machine and walking through a detector – they asked me to roll-up my jeans as they were ‘bootcut’ and may have been hiding a gun(!) 🙂
Anyway, I was delighted to discover that my priority tickets meant I was sitting in the front row and I had a FANTASTIC time. I was worried that, as I had a cough (thanks to a chest infection I contracted on holiday in Budapest the week before), I may be asked to leave when they were recording. However, the Beeb had turned up the air-conditioning full-blast so everyone was coughing – recording sketches also meant that we could cough in between takes, so it worked out really well…except for Ben Miller who went through about 15 matches in one scene because of the draught. They’ll provide good material for the DVD out-takes though!
It’s been five years since the last series of Armstrong & Miller (Channel Four) which was released last year on DVD (still not sure why they released series 4 first, but who am I to judge?). Not that the guys haven’t been busy since then; Xander starred in Beast, Birthday Girl, Have I Got News For You, Life Begins and Saxondale to name a few. Ben starred in The Parole Officer, The Book Group, Johnny English, The Prince and Me, The Worst Week of My Life and, currently, Primeval – not to mention the recently resurrected “Monkey” adverts for PG Tips with Johnny Vegas (for those who don’t know, Ben is the ‘voice’ of Monkey).
In this new series, there appears to be no ‘Martin Bain-Jones & Craig Children’; no ‘Nude Practice’ or ‘Chuffie the imaginary train driver” but, from what I saw, I feel the new characters will stand the test of time in their own right. Look out for ‘The Airmen’, ‘The Hapless Cuckold’ and ‘The 18th/19th Century Dancing Couple’ – that’s all I want to say as I’d hate to spoil it for potential viewers – the new material is fresh and original and will have you rolling on the floor.
The guys came out to speak to the audience early-on and the BBC made the audience feel very welcome – I only wish I could wangle working in London each friday for the next few weeks so I could attend all of the recordings – I guess I’ll have to wait until it’s screened in the Autumn.
Tickets are still available for the show from the Hattrick website if anyone wanted to go.
Top night! 🙂