Heroes of Comedy

Heroes of Comedy is a British television series, produced by Thames Television, and broadcast on Channel 4, which devotes each episode to a legend of British comedy. It was produced by John Fisher. Beginning in 1995, it followed a 2½ hour more general programme from 1992.

Episodes

Series one

Episode number Subject Original air date
Pilot
Frankie Howerd
1 January 1995
1
Tommy Cooper
13 October 1995
2
Joyce Grenfell
20 October 1995
3
Max Miller
27 October 1995
4
Arthur Haynes
3 November 1995
5
Terry Thomas
17 November 1995

Contributions from Roy Hudd and Bob Monkhouse. An animatronic Miller was created for the programme and performed by David Barclay, Dave Chapman and Mike Quinn.

Series two

Episode number Subject Original air date
1
Les Dawson
16 April 1997
2
Kenny Everett
23 April 1997
3
Alastair Sim
30 April 1997
4
The Goons
7 May 1997

The first group subject and the first where, two of the performers covered (Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe) were alive at the time of broadcast.

Series three

Episode number Subject Original air date
1
Benny Hill
12 January 1998
2
Peter Cook
19 January 1998
3
Arthur Askey
26 January 1998
4
Tony Hancock
2 February 1998

This series examined dead performers.

Series four

Episode number Subject Original air date
1
Norman Wisdom
25 September 1999
2
Ken Dodd
2 October 1999
3
Eric Sykes
9 October 1999
4
Thora Hird
16 October 1999
5
Barry Humphries
30 October 1999

All subjects in this series were living at the time of broadcast.

Series five

Episode number Subject Original air date
1
Kenneth Williams
7 October 2000
2
Bernard Manning
11 November 2000
3
Ronnie Barker
28 December 2000
4
Leonard Rossiter
27 December 2001

This series examined living and dead performers.

Series six

Episode number Subject Original air date
1
Mike Yarwood
16 February 2002
2
Sid James
23 February 2002
3
Spike Milligan
2 March 2002
4
Hattie Jacques
9 March 2002
5
Ronnie Corbett
16 March 2002
6
Dick Emery
13 April 2002

Previously covered as part of the Goons episode.

Series seven

Episode number Subject Original air date
1
Max Wall
2 January 2003

External links