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Movember Millman

9 Nov

© Baby Cow Productions

Spencer Millman has joined the Movember cause to fight against cancer and other serious health issues that affect men in the UK.

For those who don’t know, every November 1st, men can register at Movember.com with a clean-shave face and then for the rest of the month, these selfless and generous men, known as Mo Bros, groom, trim and wax their way into the annals of fine moustachery. It’s not just the men who take part, either – Mo Sistas are the women who register to support the men in their lives, raising funds by seeking sponsorship for their Mo-growing efforts.

Mo Bros effectively become walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November and through their actions and words raise awareness by prompting private and public conversation around the often ignored issue of men’s health.   And at the end of the month, Mo Bros and Mo Sistas celebrate their gallantry and valor by either throwing their own Movember party or attending one of the infamous Gala Partés held around the world by Movember, for Movember.

This is where the fabulous Mr Millman comes in.  The Mighty Boosh producer has signed up this year, and has begun posting pictures of his progress on Twitter: as you can see below!

He’s already raised £436 as we write this article, but with your help, dear peelers, he could raise much, much more.

© Spencer Millman

You can sponsor Spencer by CLICKING HERE – and we urge you all to dig as deep as you can!

Sponsorship can come from all around the world, so let’s show Spencer, and the guys at Movember how awesome Boosh fans can be!

Boosh Producer Q&A

10 Oct

© Baby Cow Productions

Producer of The Mighty Boosh, Spencer Millman,  is participating in a live Q&A on 17th October as part of the Square Eyes 2 series.

Squares Eyes 2 is a monthly event aimed at celebrating the great, the good and the bad of television. The BAFTA-winning comedy producer will be joined by Karl Newton, Executive Producer of ITV’s This Morning, Loose Women and ITV’s Daybreak. In addition to producing the Boosh, Millman is also responsible for Harry Hill’s TV Burp and Bo’ Selecta – so it stands to be an interesting evening’s discussion to say the least!

If you’re interested in hearing from the people who have really made their mark on British television head down to the Roxy Bar & Screen on Monday (nearest tube: Borough). Doors open at 7pm for a 7.30pm start and tickets are only £5. For more information and to buy tickets click here.

Well Good Returns

1 Sep

© Baby Cow Productions

Spencer Millman has returned to the producer’s chair for a second run of Lee Nelson’s Well Good Show.

Millman, responsible for The Mighty Boosh, Man To Man With Dean Leaner, Bo Selecta, Does Doug Know? and most recently, Harry Hill’s TV Burp, produced the first series of the studio-based stand-up/sketch-show from the mind of Simon Brodkin last Summer, and has returned for its second run.

Despite a critical pummelling, the show received strong ratings for its first season and was granted a second run, which began last week.  We’re aware it divides audiences, including here at TVO, but nevertheless, the lovely Mr Millman’s involvement means we reckon it’s worth a belated shout-out, as you can catch the series on catch-up via BBC iPlayer now.

New episodes transmit every Thursday night at 10:30pm on BBC Three.

Forgotten Favourites: Man To Man With Dean Learner

1 Sep

© 4 DVD

Earlier this year, Richard Ayoade wowed audiences with his directorial movie debut, Submarine.

With his next feature in the writing stages, and his former collaborator Matt Holness also writing and directing a forthcoming film, we felt this was an opportune time to look back at their last project together – 2006′s Man To Man With Dean Learner.

To do this, we turned to friend of the Onion, Ashley Silverstein, who reflects on the six-part series below.

Man To Man With Dean Learner, aired just once for six weeks on Channel 4 in late October 2006.  Shot almost a year earlier (from 13th to 17th December 2005), before a live studio audience under its working title, Deano’s After Dark in Cambridge, Richard Ayoade and Matt Holness brought to Channel 4 much more than just Garth Marenghi’s long awaited return to tv sets in this twisted, almost anti-Alan Partridge chat show undertaking.

Produced by Boosh allumni Spencer Millman, the show is a study in the hauteur of characters first brought to life in its predeceasing show, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, and featuring  appearances by fellow Darkplace allumni Matt Berry, Kim Noble, Stuart Silver and Alice Lowe.  More a narrative continuation than a spin off, Man To Man of course focuses on the titular Dean Learner, a man whose character flirts with the boundaries of humour and odiousness, oftentimes leaning more toward the latter. (more…)

TV Choice Awards

17 May
© TV Choice

It’s time for the TV Choice Awards and there are quite a few categories featuring some of our Booshniverse favourites!

The first category is ‘Best New Drama’ and in this category is The Crimson Petal and the White, starring the multi-talented Chris O’Dowd.

Next up is the category ‘Best Drama Series’. Agatha Christies Marple and Misfits are in this category, in both of which Nicholas Burns (Nathan Barley, The Mighty Boosh and The IT Crowd) appears.

You would expect the next category ‘Best Comedy’ to be full of Booshniverse members and The IT Crowd is there of course. There are also a couple of others; Not Going Out, which stars Lee Mack who was the Boosh radio series’ Graham, and Friday Night Dinner had an appearance from Matthew Holness. The category also includes ‘Lee Nelson’s Well Good Show’, directed by Spencer Millman, and The Trip starring Steve Coogan. Remember that Noel Fielding made a short appearance on this season’s ‘Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow’!

© BBC

Not surprisingly, ‘Best Reality Show’ is short on talent from the Booshdom!

However, this year the category ‘Best Talent Show’ is relevant as it contains Let’s Dance For Comic Relief. Who can forget Noel Fielding’s stunning rendition of Wuthering Heights and Mr Barratt’s dapper Heathcliff?

Next up is ‘Best Entertainment Show’, which is where you will find Never Mind the Buzzcocks (Noel Fielding again), and Shooting Stars (Noel appeared season 6). Also listed is Harry Hill’s TV Burp produced by Spencer Millman.

The ‘Best Lifestyle Show’ category contains Come Dine With Me, in which Paul Foot famously made an appearance on the soap stars episode as one of the contestants’ helpers.

That’s the end of the categories that are of interest to the wide world of Booshdom. If you would like to vote in any of these or the many other categories then head to the website for the TVChoice Awards.

Booshniverse Buzzing With Royal Fever

1 May

You may have noticed that the last 48 hours have been unusual for The Velvet Onion: there has been no news. Our lack of news coverage wasn’t in deference to any wedding – no, there was no news because the people we write about appeared to be glued to their TVs instead of creating news for us. Thankfully though, they were tweeting about it.  So here it is: The Souvenir TVO Guide to The Booshinerse Twittersphere, Royal Wedding Edition:

© Dave Brown

Active tweeter Dave Brown is a good place to start, and Dave helpfully provided a running commentary throughout the day, starting with Boosh references like “You may now drink Baileys from the bride’s shoe” and “Fossil’s doing the first dance”, moving on to more general insults about the guests later in the day: “The Dirty duke is all over Pippa like a rash” and  ”And now 4 hours freakshow interviews”. Dave also put his artistic talents to good use by creating his own royal wedding commemorative plates (see photo, left).

Sporadic tweeter Noel Fielding stood his ground in the shadows where fantasy and reality combine, telling us “I cried all through the wedding and then ate a union jack. Just burped up one of the blue triangles….used it to chop up a mango”. Then afterwards, sparking off a philosophical debate about the true nature of Will and Kate’s union by asking, “I know they are married but are they really married?”

Rich Fulcher was unexpectedly absent from royal wedding twitterings, perhaps because at the moment each of his tweets is so precious, or perhaps because he’s used up his Kate Middleton tweet quota pre-nuptuals, with classics like “I just saw Kate Middleton passed out on the District Line” (7th December 2010).

(more…)

Voting Season’s Open!

10 Jan

© comedy.co.uk

The British Comedy Guide Annual Awards Poll is now open! The awards cover all aspects of British Comedy, including radio, so you really do have a lot of choice. The poll features Booshniverse favourites including The IT Crowd, Zimbani, Little Crackers, Lizzie and Sarah, Chekov Comedy Shorts, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and many more. Hurry if you want to cast your vote as the poll closes tomorrow!

While you’re in a voting mood, there’s still time to vote for the acts that we cover on TVO in the NME Awards, where they also happen to have a ‘Best Website’ category.  If you’re feeling generous, why not cast a vote for your favourite Booshniverse-based website (hint, hint)?

The Boosh Trend

29 Jun

© NME.com

Tonight’s seemingly random repeat of two classic episodes of The Mighty Boosh on BBC3 has proven popular with social networkers on Twitter, who have made ‘Mighty Boosh’ into one of the trending topics in the UK.

Twitter, for those who don’t know, offers micro-blogging of 140 characters or less, and several members of the Boosh and those in the wider world of Booshdom have accounts on there, including Noel Fielding, Dave Brown and Rich Fulcher amongst others.  Even we at TVO have an account on twitter @thevelvetonion!

A trending topic is simply a subject that is being mentioned in a large number of posts, and given the millions of people who use Twitter daily, anything getting into that list must be big news indeed… so, despite this being an unexpected repeat of an episode filmed almost three years ago, its still done wonders for the cult of Boosh tonight!

Over on our Twitter page, you can see the numerous people in the world of Booshdom who are worth following, and if you missed the episodes on BBC3 and don’t currently have them on dvd (and why not? They’re available from The Velvet Onion Amazon Store!) you can catch them again on the BBC’s iPlayer service for the next seven days right here and here.

And rest assured, BBC3 will be showing further episodes next Tuesday to ensure newcomers and long term fans alike get their Boosh fix!

Russians Get Booshed!

11 Jun

Original Image © NME

The Mighty Boosh is now entertaining audiences in Russia via satellite station 2×2.

The channel, which was founded in 1989 and relaunched in 2007 after a period of closure, focuses on animation imports during the day, and it seems, comedy at night.

As well as the Boosh, Russian viewers can also watch Dan Clark in How Not To Live Your Life and Matt Berry in The Wrong Door, as well as Peep Show, Trigger Happy TV and the magnificent creation that is The Peter Serafinowicz Show.

It’s unclear to us non-Russian speaking peelers how long the channel has been broadcasting these shows, but YouTube user DamnRuTube uploaded this fascinating (and rather well made) trailer this week.

Check it out, and if there are any Russian readers out there, we’d love to hear more from you about how well the show is performing in your country!

More Childmen In California

2 Jun

© Dave Brown

Oliver Ralfe’s documentary on The Future Sailors tour will be shown on Sunday 6th June at 9.25pm at The Art Theatre, 2025 E 4th St, Long Beach, CA, 90814.

This will be followed by a live Q and A with Oliver Ralfe himself, so this is a great opportunity for you lucky Californians to see the whole film and ask questions about it.

Extracts from the documentary appeared on the Future Sailors tour dvd back in November, but the full length film has not been released yet. To see the trailer click here

The film, offers a great insight into how the boys worked together during their five months on tour and features a soundtrack by the wonderful Ralfe Band, and the glorious Fielding-inspired Amongst The Dandies by Antony Elvin.

For more info and to book tickets click here

Penelope And The Barratt Cat!

14 May

 

© Avalon

Flight Of The Conchords star Kristen Schaal has revealed more details on the possible future of Penelope Princess Of Pets – her tv project for UK broadcaster Channel 4 which features Julian Barratt.

The pilot was broadcast last month as part of Channel 4′s experimental Comedy Lab series, and saw the titular character (Schaal) pitting her wits against Barratt’s wicked MP Thomas Stone. Simon Farnaby and Barunka O’Shaughnessy also appeared, and a cameo from Alice Lowe was mooted but vetoed due to scheduling conflicts.

Produced by Spencer Millman, we here at The Velvet Onion would love further episodes to be made – and whilst speaking to Vanity Fair, Schaal has suggested if the series goes ahead, she and cowriter/star Kurt Braunohler have a loose story arc in place in which Thomas Stone would have a very dark secret indeed!

At present, there are no concrete plans for more episodes, but rest assured if this situation changes we here at TVO will be straight on the case to let our faithful peelers know all the juicy details.

In the meantime, check our Kristen’s interview with US style magazine Vanity Fair online here.

If you missed the pilot’s transmission, you can still see it via 4oD and YouTube until May 21st.  Unfortunately, these links are for UK viewers only – we currently have no news on a broadcast outside Great Britain.  Still, if you like what you see, tell Channel 4 you’d like some more via their contact page.

Editors note: Belated thanks to ‘Kimmunism‘ for this news!

A Future For Penelope?

21 Apr

© Avalon

The pilot episode of Penelope Princess Of Pets has aired on Channel 4 this evening, and is naturally now available via 4od to UK viewers.

The show was the brainchild of Flight Of The Conchords star Kristen Schaal, alongside collaborator Kurt Braunohler – and was produced by Mighty Boosh producer Spencer Millman.  Not only did it feature Julian Barratt as wicked MP Thomas Stone, but the ever wonderful Barunka O’Shaughnessy (Beehive, Bo! In The USA, The Mighty Boosh) and the sublime Simon Farnaby featured in surprise cameos!

To view the show again, visit the 40D website now.  A YouTube version will be available soon, and we’ll provide a link as soon as possible.  If we hear anything about an international broadcast, or even a link to a version our readers outside the UK can legally view, we’ll let you know!

We here at The Velvet Onion utterly adored the show.  It was quirky, lo-fi and utterly charming, and had some wonderful one-liners – my personal favourite being: “Something to remember me by, when you’re dead!” .  And if the feedback to the pilot on Twitter is anything to go by, the demand for more episodes is very strong indeed.

Yet despite all this talent on offer, at the moment, there are no plans for Penelope to return – unless Channel 4 are convinced to commission a series.  And with Thomas Stone escaping to be evil for another day at the climax of the episode, we really need to see Penelope take him down.  Plus, a mooted Alice Lowe cameo in the pilot wasn’t possible due to schedule clashes, which just makes us long for further episodes all the more!

This is where you, dear readers, can get involved. The campaign for Penelope’s return starts here!

Simply visit the Channel 4 website and tell them how much you loved the show and would like to see more.  Click here to be taken straight to the place where the pleas must go.

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