Features
After more than eight years chronicling the exploits of an interconnected alternative comedy family, The Velvet Onion is taking an extended hiatus. Editor in chief, Paul Holmes, explains why, below… If you’re out there reading this, there’s a good chance that at some point since
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May 18, 2018 // 6 Comments
With The League of Gentlemen back on our screens this month, we’re taking a look at what the group’s four members have been up to since the original TV series ended in 2002. Now that Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Mark Gatiss have been covered, Sophie turns her attention to Jeremy
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December 15, 2017 // 0 Comments
With The League of Gentlemen back on our screens this month, we’re taking a look at what the group’s four members have been up to since the original TV series ended in 2002. Now that Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton have been covered, Sophie turns her attention to Mark Gatiss… During the
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December 14, 2017 // 0 Comments
With The League of Gentlemen back on our screens this month, we’re taking a look at what the group’s four members have been up to since the original TV series ended in 2002. Now that Reece Shearsmith has been covered, Sophie turns her attention to Steve Pemberton… Not long
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December 13, 2017 // 0 Comments
With The League of Gentlemen back on our screens this month, we’re taking a look at what the group’s four members have been up to since the original TV series ended in 2002. First of all, Sophie focuses on Reece Shearsmith… During the two years after The League of
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December 12, 2017 // 1 Comment
Christmas is now only two weeks away, and that means one of two things: you’re either already sorted for present-buying this year, or you’ve got a stressful fortnight ahead. Well, if you’re in the latter camp, we’ve got you covered, as 2017 has been a bumper year for great
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December 10, 2017 // 0 Comments
The festive season is upon us and there’s plenty to keep you entertained on the tellybox. Here’s our roundup of this year’s most essential Christmas viewing… Taskmaster: Champion of Champions Wednesday 13th and Wednesday 20th December at 9pm, Dave Taskmaster series 5 champion Bob
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December 4, 2017 // 0 Comments
We here at The Velvet Onion were very excited to find out earlier this year that the legendary alternative character comedian Simon Day was going out on tour across the UK. Now the tour is underway, and runs through October and early November, it has transpired that Simon is merely directing the
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October 4, 2017 // 1 Comment
This week sees the release Adam Kay’s medical memoir, This is Going to Hurt, in which the former Mongrels and Crims writer and musical satirist revisits his seven years as a practicing Doctor. TVO took a sneak peek at the results, to find out if you should buy a copy yourselves. As
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September 4, 2017 // 0 Comments
It can’t have escaped your attention that our very own Noel Fielding is the new co-host of The Great British Bake Off, which returned to TV screens this week, introducing the comedian to a whole new audience. Of course, one glimpse at a tabloid may lead you to believe that Noel’s been
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August 29, 2017 // 4 Comments
It’s that time of year again: the Edinburgh Fringe is almost upon us, and once again a cavalcade of TVO regulars are heading across the Scottish border to entertain the masses on a daily basis. We’ve rounded up all the Onion-flavoured Fringe shows taking place between 2nd and 29th
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July 18, 2017 // 0 Comments
The next 12 months are going to be jam-packed with brilliant TV comedy. Detectorists, Upstart Crow, W1A and The Windsors are among those set to return shortly, and we here at TVO are looking forward to a number of brand new shows too. Here’s a quick guide to the some of the upcoming new
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June 26, 2017 // 0 Comments
Today marks five years since The Velvet Onion Live, and as luck would have it, we recently managed to salvage some footage previously thought lost forever from the star-studded one-off live event. On 31st May 2012, we packed 21 Velvet Onion regulars, and the disembodied voice of one other, into
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May 31, 2017 // 1 Comment
Alice Lowe’s smash hit film Prevenge is released on DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK on 5th June, which gave TVO an ample excuse to revisit a film we’d previously called “a startling debut from an incredibly talented individual”. With the film also available to download from
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May 29, 2017 // 0 Comments
So many podcasts, so little time. Here’s a handy list of British podcast episodes that feature the people we cover at TVO. The Comedian’s Comedian In this long-running podcast, stand-up comedian Stuart Goldsmith interviews fellow stand-ups about how and why they do comedy. Things
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April 21, 2017 // 0 Comments
As we count down to the official release of Mindhorn, the new film written by and starring Julian Barratt and Simon Farnaby, we bring you the inside story of the development and making of the film, as told by the stars, cast and crew. Ten years ago, Julian and Simon decided they wanted to make a
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April 14, 2017 // 1 Comment
Alice Lowe‘s sensational film Prevenge is in UK cinemas this weekend, with US distribution to follow next month. We’ll be catching up with Alice for an in-depth natter soon, but while our combined diaries continue to wrestle it out to find a suitable slot, we couldn’t let the
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February 10, 2017 // 0 Comments
Series 1, 2 and 3 of Inside No. 9 are available for the first time on Blu-ray. To mark the occasion, Sophie has picked out her two favourite episodes from each of the two series that we’ve seen so far… The thing about Inside No. 9 is that each episode of Reece Shearsmith and
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February 2, 2017 // 0 Comments
No matter what else occurred in 2016, it was a bit of a cracking year for ‘our sort’ of comedy on TV. Within the first few months we were treated to new dark comedies Stag, Camping and Flowers, shortly followed by specials from both Alan Partridge and Philomena Cunk. We also got a
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January 29, 2017 // 1 Comment
WARNING: This post contains spoilers for Season 4 of Sherlock and references to episodes in previous series. It’s one of the biggest shows in television and as secretive as its stars are lucrative, so it was a pleasant surprise even to TVO that Katy Wix appeared in the latest episode of
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January 11, 2017 // 0 Comments
The Velvet Onion 