Lead Balloon
Encyclopedia
Lead Balloon is a British
television series produced by Open Mike Productions for BBC Four
. The series was created and is co-written by comedian Jack Dee
and
Pete Sinclair. It stars Dee as Rick Spleen
, a cynical and misanthropic comedian whose life is plagued by petty annoyances, disappointments and embarrassments. Raquel Cassidy
, Sean Power
and Tony Gardner
also star. The first series of six episodes was broadcast on BBC Four in 2006, with the first episode achieving the highest ratings for a comedy on the channel. Repeats of the series were run on BBC Two
and BBC HD
, bringing it to a larger audience. A second series of eight episodes aired on BBC Two in November 2007, and a third series began airing in November 2008. A fourth and final series commenced broadcast on 31 May 2011 on BBC Two and ended on 5 July.
Comparisons were made by critics to the successful American comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm
, and positive comments were made about Lead Balloons characters, particularly Magda, the Eastern European housekeeper. The first series was released on DVD
in November 2007. The show's theme tune is a cover version
of "One Way Road", written by Noel Gallagher
and performed by Paul Weller
.
, in which he turned down the lead role in a series, Dee began writing the character that would become Rick Spleen. He focused the writing on Spleen's domestic life, rather than his professional, but did highlight the clash between the two. A pilot, commissioned by BBC Four
and recorded in December 2005, received positive feedback and led to a full series of six 30-minute episodes being ordered in January 2006 for broadcast later in the year.
that made "natural conversation" funny without a studio audience being present. Dee cites the early films of Woody Allen
, Seinfeld
and Curb Your Enthusiasm
as other "cultural influences" that helped set the tone of the series. Controller of BBC Four Janice Hadlow stated the series was in the "same ballpark" as Curb, though it is not quite as autobiographical. The name Lead Balloon comes from the expression "To go down like a lead balloon", meaning to be received badly by an audience.
as a dry cleaner, which was reused in the fifth episode, "Pistachio". Location filming for the first two series, particularly Rick and Mel's house, was done in Willesden
.. Michael's cafe used Gracelands Cafe in Kensal Green
for the first two series, and Hugo's restaurant in Lonsdale Road, Queen's Park, London for the third. Most moped shots in the third series were filmed in Ladbroke Grove
. Scenes are separated by the insertion of a person writing ideas for comedy material on a writing pad.
Dee's character Rick Spleen
(born Richard Shaw) is a stand-up comedian
living in London
who struggles to get decent gigs and makes ends meet by hosting corporate events such as the Frozen Goods Awards Evening. Dee and Sinclair based the character on the "comedians who hated being comedians" who performed alongside Dee in his early years of stand-up. Rick is a habitual and incompetent liar who often attempts practical tasks himself in an attempt to avoid paying professionals. His partner Mel (Raquel Cassidy
) is a talent agent
whose clientele of everyday people getting their 15 minutes of fame
serves to highlight Rick's failing career. Her calm, perceptive and considerate personality contrasts strongly with Rick's. Rick's American co-writer, Marty (Sean Power
), writes the majority of Rick's material, often working with him at Rick's home or Michael's café. Though he tries to moderate Rick's desperate behaviour, he is quietly frustrated with him, and conspires against Rick's interests. Michael (Tony Gardner
) owns and runs the café that Rick and Marty frequently visit to escape the chaos of Rick's home. He is socially awkward, possibly to the extent of having a mental disorder, although he was actually a high-flying city banker who suffered from burn-out. His father turns out to be gay in later series, to which Michael reacts negatively.
Rick's daughter Sam (Antonia Campbell-Hughes
) attends sixth form college
and regularly extracts money from her father, often by expressing sympathy at his misfortunes. Sam's slacker
boyfriend Ben (Rasmus Hardiker
) goes through numerous jobs and interests in the first series, such as taking a circus skills
course, and a short-lived shelf-stacking job. Magda (Anna Crilly
) is the Spleens' morose Eastern Europe
an housekeeper, who is often puzzled by British attitudes, language and, in her view, softness. She is a willing worker and generally suffers Rick's selfish eccentricities in sullen silence.
Neighbour Clive (John Biggins
) had a part in a single scene in the first series, but had a larger part in an episode of the second series; by the third series he had become a prominent character, concerned about the wellbeing of his elderly mother who is very delicate and has had problems with losing her cat and having teenagers throwing rubbish over her wall.
ran with the headline "Dee writes BBC's answer to Curb Your Enthusiasm". The Stage
s Mark Wright called it "a curious oddity" and called comparisons to Curb "inevitable". Ian Johns of The Times
"obsessed" over the similarities to Curb, though singled out Crilly and Gardner for their performances, and described Dee's characterisation of Rick as "turning childish pettiness into something almost endearing".
A. A. Gill
, in The Sunday Times
, wryly praised the style of humour and the reaction it provoked in viewers. Hermione Eyre of The Independent on Sunday called it "a delectable comedy of everyday embarrassment", but "unfortunately, Lead Balloon shows awkward joints where Curb Your Enthusiasm has invisible seams"; the reviewer cited Larry David
as being a good man driven to obnoxious behaviour, whereas Spleen is just obnoxious. Thomas Sutcliffe of The Independent named the series the best new comedy of 2006.
When appearing on a panel of comedy judges at the 2007 Edinburgh International Television Festival
, Frank Skinner
, in response to The Vicar of Dibley
and The Catherine Tate Show
being voted the best comedies in a public poll, called it "the best sitcom that anyone from the comedy circuit has done [...] Obviously I was hoping it would be shit" (Skinner starred in his own failed sitcom, Shane
in 2004).
The first episode broke BBC Four's audience record for a comedy series, with 383,000 viewers. Despite dropping to 199,000 by the third episode, it still won a multi-channel slot. "Rubbish"'s BBC Two repeat received 2.1 million viewers, with 122,000 seeing "Allergic" afterwards on BBC Four. The final episode of the first series, "Fatty", received 2.3 million for its BBC Two repeat.
The first series was nominated for a British Comedy Award in 2007, with Dee also nominated for best comedy actor.http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/nov/07/itv.television
between 4 October and 8 November 2006 in the 10:30 p.m. timeslot. The ratings success of the first episodes led to the series having a repeat run on BBC Two, starting on 26 October. A second series of eight episodes was commissioned by the controller of BBC Two following the conclusion of the first series. The third series began on 13 November 2008. The fourth series premiered on BBC 2 on 31 May 2011.
Lead Balloon was the first comedy series to be broadcast on the BBC's high-definition
service, BBC HD
, with another repeat run beginning on 21 December 2006. Episodes were also made available as streaming downloads on bbc.co.uk during the first series run.
Jack Dee announced during an interview on Alan Carr: Chatty Man
that a fourth series was in the works. Shooting finished in autumn 2010 and the series is scheduled for transmission starting on 31 May 2011 in the UK on BBC2 at 10pm.
In Australia
, series one and two were first aired back-to-back on ABC1
each Tuesday at 8pm from 3 February 2009 until 7 April when the network shifted the remaining episodes to the later 9:30pm slot until 5 May 2009. Both seasons have since been repeated on the lower-rated ABC2
channel and uploaded to the ABC iView
catch-up service. Series three is yet to air in Australia.
on 12 November 2007 and the second on 24 November 2008. The third and fourth series were released on 6 June 2011 and 11 July 2011 respectively. All 4 series were also released as a DVD boxset on 11 July 2011.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television series produced by Open Mike Productions for BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
. The series was created and is co-written by comedian Jack Dee
Jack Dee
James Andrew Innes "Jack" Dee is an English stand-up comedian, actor and writer known for his sardonic, curmudgeonly, and deadpan style.-Early life:...
and
Pete Sinclair. It stars Dee as Rick Spleen
Rick Spleen
Rick Spleen is a character in the BBC situation comedy Lead Balloon, played by comedian Jack Dee. Spleen is a world-weary comedian who is forced to make ends meet by hosting corporate events.-Character profile:...
, a cynical and misanthropic comedian whose life is plagued by petty annoyances, disappointments and embarrassments. Raquel Cassidy
Raquel Cassidy
Raquel Josephine Dominic Cassidy is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her television roles as Susan Gately in Teachers , the Home Office Junior Minister Jo Porter in Party Animals, and Mel in Lead Balloon, as well as her various stage works.-Filmography:-Selected...
, Sean Power
Sean Power (actor)
Sean Power is an American actor, writer and director. Power has resided in Canada, the United States, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom...
and Tony Gardner
Tony Gardner
Tony Gardner is an English actor and doctor. He qualified as a doctor at Guy's Hospital in 1987, then as a General Practitioner in 1993...
also star. The first series of six episodes was broadcast on BBC Four in 2006, with the first episode achieving the highest ratings for a comedy on the channel. Repeats of the series were run on BBC Two
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
and BBC HD
BBC HD
BBC HD is a high-definition television network provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007...
, bringing it to a larger audience. A second series of eight episodes aired on BBC Two in November 2007, and a third series began airing in November 2008. A fourth and final series commenced broadcast on 31 May 2011 on BBC Two and ended on 5 July.
Comparisons were made by critics to the successful American comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Curb Your Enthusiasm is an American comedy television series produced and broadcast by HBO, which premiered on October 15, 2000. As of 2011, it has completed 80 episodes over eight seasons. The series was created by Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, who stars as a fictionalized version of himself...
, and positive comments were made about Lead Balloons characters, particularly Magda, the Eastern European housekeeper. The first series was released on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in November 2007. The show's theme tune is a cover version
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of "One Way Road", written by Noel Gallagher
Noel Gallagher
Noel Thomas David Gallagher is an English musician and singer-songwriter, formerly the lead guitarist, backing vocalist and principal songwriter of the English rock band Oasis. He is currently fronting his solo project, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds.Raised in Burnage, Manchester with his...
and performed by Paul Weller
Paul Weller
Paul Weller is an English singer-songwriter. Starting with the band The Jam , Weller then went on to branch out musically to a more soulful style with The Style Council...
.
Development
The genesis of the series came towards the end of recording the 2005 series of Jack Dee Live at the Apollo, when Dee speculated as to whether his experiences of "witless" interviews could be turned into a television programme. Following a meeting with his agentTalent agent
A talent agent, or booking agent, is a person who finds jobs for actors, authors, film directors, musicians, models, producers, professional athletes, writers and other people in various entertainment businesses. Having an agent is not required, but does help the artist in getting jobs...
, in which he turned down the lead role in a series, Dee began writing the character that would become Rick Spleen. He focused the writing on Spleen's domestic life, rather than his professional, but did highlight the clash between the two. A pilot, commissioned by BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
and recorded in December 2005, received positive feedback and led to a full series of six 30-minute episodes being ordered in January 2006 for broadcast later in the year.
Writing
Dee's frequent collaborator Pete Sinclair joined him to write the pilot script. The two worked for two weeks developing the characters and forming storylines from them, which prepared them for writing the series proper when it was commissioned. The two were strongly influenced in their writing by the "paradigm shift" of The OfficeThe Office (UK TV series)
The Office is a British sitcom television series that was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 9 July 2001. Created, written, and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the programme is about the day-to-day lives of office employees in the Slough branch of the fictitious...
that made "natural conversation" funny without a studio audience being present. Dee cites the early films of Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
, Seinfeld
Seinfeld
Seinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...
and Curb Your Enthusiasm
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Curb Your Enthusiasm is an American comedy television series produced and broadcast by HBO, which premiered on October 15, 2000. As of 2011, it has completed 80 episodes over eight seasons. The series was created by Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, who stars as a fictionalized version of himself...
as other "cultural influences" that helped set the tone of the series. Controller of BBC Four Janice Hadlow stated the series was in the "same ballpark" as Curb, though it is not quite as autobiographical. The name Lead Balloon comes from the expression "To go down like a lead balloon", meaning to be received badly by an audience.
Filming
The non-broadcast pilot features a scene with Omid DjaliliOmid Djalili
Omid Djalili is a British Iranian stand-up comedian, actor, television producer and writer.-Personal life:Djalili was born in Chelsea, London to Iranian Bahá'í parents and is a Bahá'í himself...
as a dry cleaner, which was reused in the fifth episode, "Pistachio". Location filming for the first two series, particularly Rick and Mel's house, was done in Willesden
Willesden
Willesden is an area in North West London which forms part of the London Borough of Brent. It is situated 5 miles north west of Charing Cross...
.. Michael's cafe used Gracelands Cafe in Kensal Green
Kensal Green
Kensal Green, also referred to as Kensal Rise is an area of London, England. It is located on the southern edge of the London Borough of Brent and borders the City of Westminster to the East and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to the South....
for the first two series, and Hugo's restaurant in Lonsdale Road, Queen's Park, London for the third. Most moped shots in the third series were filmed in Ladbroke Grove
Ladbroke Grove
Ladbroke Grove is a road in west London, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is also sometimes the name given informally to the immediate area surrounding the road. Running from Notting Hill in the south to Kensal Green in the north, it is located in North Kensington and straddles...
. Scenes are separated by the insertion of a person writing ideas for comedy material on a writing pad.
Characters
Rick Spleen
Rick Spleen is a character in the BBC situation comedy Lead Balloon, played by comedian Jack Dee. Spleen is a world-weary comedian who is forced to make ends meet by hosting corporate events.-Character profile:...
(born Richard Shaw) is a stand-up comedian
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
living in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
who struggles to get decent gigs and makes ends meet by hosting corporate events such as the Frozen Goods Awards Evening. Dee and Sinclair based the character on the "comedians who hated being comedians" who performed alongside Dee in his early years of stand-up. Rick is a habitual and incompetent liar who often attempts practical tasks himself in an attempt to avoid paying professionals. His partner Mel (Raquel Cassidy
Raquel Cassidy
Raquel Josephine Dominic Cassidy is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her television roles as Susan Gately in Teachers , the Home Office Junior Minister Jo Porter in Party Animals, and Mel in Lead Balloon, as well as her various stage works.-Filmography:-Selected...
) is a talent agent
Talent agent
A talent agent, or booking agent, is a person who finds jobs for actors, authors, film directors, musicians, models, producers, professional athletes, writers and other people in various entertainment businesses. Having an agent is not required, but does help the artist in getting jobs...
whose clientele of everyday people getting their 15 minutes of fame
15 minutes of fame
15 minutes of fame is short-lived, often ephemeral, media publicity or celebrity of an individual or phenomenon. The expression was coined by Andy Warhol, who said in 1968 that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." The phenomenon is often used in reference to...
serves to highlight Rick's failing career. Her calm, perceptive and considerate personality contrasts strongly with Rick's. Rick's American co-writer, Marty (Sean Power
Sean Power (actor)
Sean Power is an American actor, writer and director. Power has resided in Canada, the United States, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom...
), writes the majority of Rick's material, often working with him at Rick's home or Michael's café. Though he tries to moderate Rick's desperate behaviour, he is quietly frustrated with him, and conspires against Rick's interests. Michael (Tony Gardner
Tony Gardner
Tony Gardner is an English actor and doctor. He qualified as a doctor at Guy's Hospital in 1987, then as a General Practitioner in 1993...
) owns and runs the café that Rick and Marty frequently visit to escape the chaos of Rick's home. He is socially awkward, possibly to the extent of having a mental disorder, although he was actually a high-flying city banker who suffered from burn-out. His father turns out to be gay in later series, to which Michael reacts negatively.
Rick's daughter Sam (Antonia Campbell-Hughes
Antonia Campbell-Hughes
Antonia Campbell-Hughes is a Northern Irish actress of English and Irish descent, best known for appearing in Jack Dee's sitcom Lead Balloon....
) attends sixth form college
Sixth form college
A sixth form college is an educational institution in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, Belize, Hong Kong or Malta where students aged 16 to 18 typically study for advanced school-level qualifications, such as A-levels, or school-level qualifications such as GCSEs. In Singapore and India, this is...
and regularly extracts money from her father, often by expressing sympathy at his misfortunes. Sam's slacker
Slacker
The term "slacker" is used to refer to a person who habitually avoids work. Slackers may be regarded as belonging to an antimaterialistic counterculture, though in some cases their behavior may be due to other causes ....
boyfriend Ben (Rasmus Hardiker
Rasmus Hardiker
Rasmus Kip Hardiker is an English actor from Sutton Coldfield. He is best known for his roles as Raymond in Steve Coogan's sitcom Saxondale and Ben in the Jack Dee comedy Lead Balloon. Hardiker was also in the BBC3 sketch series The Wrong Door.-Personal life:Hardiker was born in Sutton Coldfield,...
) goes through numerous jobs and interests in the first series, such as taking a circus skills
Circus skills
Circus skills are a group of pursuits that have been performed as entertainment in circus, sideshow, busking or variety/vaudeville/music hall shows. Most circus skills are still being performed today. Many are also practiced by non-performers as a hobby....
course, and a short-lived shelf-stacking job. Magda (Anna Crilly
Anna Crilly
Anna Crilly is an English actress and comedian. Secondary school: Kent College, Pembury. Crilly attended Middlesex University where she studied performing arts...
) is the Spleens' morose Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an housekeeper, who is often puzzled by British attitudes, language and, in her view, softness. She is a willing worker and generally suffers Rick's selfish eccentricities in sullen silence.
Neighbour Clive (John Biggins
John Biggins
John Biggins is an actor in England.Biggins became a professional actor in 1983. Since then, he has worked consistently on stage, television and radio....
) had a part in a single scene in the first series, but had a larger part in an episode of the second series; by the third series he had become a prominent character, concerned about the wellbeing of his elderly mother who is very delicate and has had problems with losing her cat and having teenagers throwing rubbish over her wall.
Reception
Immediately following the commission of the series, reviewers compared it to Curb Your Enthusiasm; a story in The IndependentThe Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
ran with the headline "Dee writes BBC's answer to Curb Your Enthusiasm". The Stage
The Stage
The Stage is a weekly British newspaper founded in 1880, available nationally and published on Thursdays. Covering all areas of the entertainment industry but focused primarily on theatre, it contains news, reviews, opinion, features and other items of interest, mainly to those who work within the...
s Mark Wright called it "a curious oddity" and called comparisons to Curb "inevitable". Ian Johns of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
"obsessed" over the similarities to Curb, though singled out Crilly and Gardner for their performances, and described Dee's characterisation of Rick as "turning childish pettiness into something almost endearing".
A. A. Gill
A. A. Gill
Adrian Anthony Gill is a British writer who uses the byline A. A. Gill. He is currently employed by The Sunday Times as their restaurant reviewer and television critic and Vanity Fair magazine as a restaurant reviewer...
, in The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
, wryly praised the style of humour and the reaction it provoked in viewers. Hermione Eyre of The Independent on Sunday called it "a delectable comedy of everyday embarrassment", but "unfortunately, Lead Balloon shows awkward joints where Curb Your Enthusiasm has invisible seams"; the reviewer cited Larry David
Larry David
Lawrence Gene "Larry" David is an American actor, writer, comedian and producer. He is best known as the co-creator , head writer, and executive producer of the television series Seinfeld from 1989 to 1996, and for creating the 1999 HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, a partially improvised sitcom in...
as being a good man driven to obnoxious behaviour, whereas Spleen is just obnoxious. Thomas Sutcliffe of The Independent named the series the best new comedy of 2006.
When appearing on a panel of comedy judges at the 2007 Edinburgh International Television Festival
Edinburgh International Television Festival
The Edinburgh International Television Festival, founded in 1976, is held annually over the British August bank holiday weekend at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre....
, Frank Skinner
Frank Skinner
Frank Skinner is a British writer, comedian and actor. He is best known for his television presenting, often alongside David Baddiel, with whom he also collaborated for the football song "Three Lions."He is a radio presenter on the Saturday morning slot on Absolute Radio.-Youth and early career...
, in response to The Vicar of Dibley
The Vicar of Dibley
The Vicar of Dibley is a British sitcom created by Richard Curtis and written for its lead actress, Dawn French, by Curtis and Paul Mayhew-Archer, with contributions from Kit Hesketh-Harvey. It aired from 1994 to 2007...
and The Catherine Tate Show
The Catherine Tate Show
The Catherine Tate Show is a British television sketch comedy written by Catherine Tate and Aschlin Ditta. Tate also stars in all but one of the show's sketches, which feature a wide range of characters. The Catherine Tate Show airs on BBC Two and is shown worldwide through the BBC...
being voted the best comedies in a public poll, called it "the best sitcom that anyone from the comedy circuit has done [...] Obviously I was hoping it would be shit" (Skinner starred in his own failed sitcom, Shane
Shane (UK TV series)
Shane was an ITV sitcom written by and starring Frank Skinner and directed by Audrey Cooke, with the first series originally broadcast in 2004. Reviews were generally poor, but a second series was commissioned...
in 2004).
The first episode broke BBC Four's audience record for a comedy series, with 383,000 viewers. Despite dropping to 199,000 by the third episode, it still won a multi-channel slot. "Rubbish"'s BBC Two repeat received 2.1 million viewers, with 122,000 seeing "Allergic" afterwards on BBC Four. The final episode of the first series, "Fatty", received 2.3 million for its BBC Two repeat.
The first series was nominated for a British Comedy Award in 2007, with Dee also nominated for best comedy actor.http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/nov/07/itv.television
Broadcast history
The first series aired on BBC FourBBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
between 4 October and 8 November 2006 in the 10:30 p.m. timeslot. The ratings success of the first episodes led to the series having a repeat run on BBC Two, starting on 26 October. A second series of eight episodes was commissioned by the controller of BBC Two following the conclusion of the first series. The third series began on 13 November 2008. The fourth series premiered on BBC 2 on 31 May 2011.
Lead Balloon was the first comedy series to be broadcast on the BBC's high-definition
High-definition television
High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...
service, BBC HD
BBC HD
BBC HD is a high-definition television network provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007...
, with another repeat run beginning on 21 December 2006. Episodes were also made available as streaming downloads on bbc.co.uk during the first series run.
Jack Dee announced during an interview on Alan Carr: Chatty Man
Alan Carr: Chatty Man
Alan Carr: Chatty Man is a British comedy chat show presented by comedian Alan Carr. The award-winning show is on Channel 4. The show features interviews with celebrity guests, sketches, topical chat and music....
that a fourth series was in the works. Shooting finished in autumn 2010 and the series is scheduled for transmission starting on 31 May 2011 in the UK on BBC2 at 10pm.
In Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, series one and two were first aired back-to-back on ABC1
ABC1
ABC1 was a United Kingdom based television channel from Disney using the branding of the Disney owned American network, ABC.The channel initially launched exclusively on the British digital terrestrial television platform Freeview on 27 September 2004. On 10 December 2004 it was launched on...
each Tuesday at 8pm from 3 February 2009 until 7 April when the network shifted the remaining episodes to the later 9:30pm slot until 5 May 2009. Both seasons have since been repeated on the lower-rated ABC2
ABC2
ABC2 is a national public television channel in Australia. Launched on 7 March 2005, it is the responsibility of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television division, and is available nationally to digital television viewers in Australia...
channel and uploaded to the ABC iView
ABC iView
ABC iview is a video on demand and Catch up TV service run by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The service became available on 24 July 2008. This was the next step after the podcasting of programmes since July 2006. Currently, this site is only viewable to users in Australia. The site...
catch-up service. Series three is yet to air in Australia.
DVD releases
The first series was released on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
on 12 November 2007 and the second on 24 November 2008. The third and fourth series were released on 6 June 2011 and 11 July 2011 respectively. All 4 series were also released as a DVD boxset on 11 July 2011.