Man Stroke Woman
Encyclopedia
Man Stroke Woman is a British television comedy sketch show directed by Richard Cantor and produced by Ash Atalla
and starring Amanda Abbington
, Ben Crompton
, Daisy Haggard
, Meredith MacNeill
, Nicholas Burns and Nick Frost
. In addition to being broadcast on digital channel BBC Three
in the United Kingdom
, all the episodes were available for streaming
from the BBC website. Series 2 started in January 2007 and is also available for streaming from the BBC website.
There is no studio audience
or laugh track
.
on 26 March 2007 and in the United States
on 7 August 2007. The second series of Man Stroke Woman was released in the United Kingdom on 19 November 2007.
Ash Atalla
Ash Atalla is an Egyptian-born television producer responsible for producing several British TV series such as The IT Crowd , The Office and Man Stroke Woman. He has also made cameo appearances in productions such as Ricky Gervais' Politics...
and starring Amanda Abbington
Amanda Abbington
Amanda Abbington is an English actress and comedienne who has appeared on both television and stage. She is best known for her roles in the 2005 comedy sketch show Man Stroke Woman and the 2007–2008 comedy After You've Gone with Nicholas Lyndhurst...
, Ben Crompton
Ben Crompton
Ben Crompton is an English actor, best known as one of the stars of the BBC sketch show Man Stroke Woman. In addition he appears as Colin in the BBC Three sitcom Ideal with Johnny Vegas. He also appeared in the 2002 film All or Nothing , the TV series Clocking Off, and the TV movie Housewife, 49...
, Daisy Haggard
Daisy Haggard
-Family:The daughter of film director Piers Haggard and his wife Anna Slovsky, she was raised and educated in Dulwich, South London at the James Allen's Girls' School.-Career:...
, Meredith MacNeill
Meredith MacNeill
Meredith MacNeill is an actress originally from Nova Scotia, Canada, but now lives in the United Kingdom. She studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art....
, Nicholas Burns and Nick Frost
Nick Frost
Nicholas John "Nick" Frost is an English actor, comedian and screenwriter. He is best known for his work with Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg in the role of Mike Watt in the television comedy Spaced, as well as the film characters Ed in Shaun of the Dead, PC/Sgt...
. In addition to being broadcast on digital channel BBC Three
BBC Three
BBC Three is a television network from the BBC broadcasting via digital cable, terrestrial, IPTV and satellite platforms. The channel's target audience includes those in the 16-34 year old age group, and has the purpose of providing "innovative" content to younger audiences, focusing on new talent...
in the United Kingdom
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...
, all the episodes were available for streaming
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
from the BBC website. Series 2 started in January 2007 and is also available for streaming from the BBC website.
There is no studio audience
Audience
An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature , theatre, music or academics in any medium...
or laugh track
Laugh track
A laugh track is a separate soundtrack invented by Charles "Charley" Douglass, with the artificial sound of audience laughter, made to be inserted into television programming of comedy shows and sitcoms.The term "laugh track" does not apply to the genuine audience laughter on shows that shoot in...
.
Series One
- A woman (Abbington) who appears in front of her husband (Burns) wearing an ensemble which includes one ludicrous item of clothing (e.g. a hat which floats six inches above her head or a top emblazoned with red lights spelling out the word "WHORE"). She asks her husband how she looks and he tries to tell her—as tactfully as possible—what is wrong with the outfit: "The dress is... just a little... loud?" She then responds, "You can never just say I look nice, can you?"
- A man (Crompton) who has recently been dumped by his girlfriend (Haggard). He sees her in various locations and, after starting a conversation with her, bursts in to tears, and begins to speak unintelligibly through his sobs. The rest of the episode cuts back to this sketch as the ex-girlfriend tries to guess what he's saying.
- Two workers at a cosmetics counter in a department storeDepartment storeA department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
(Haggard and Abbington), and their boss (MacNeill). A customer will walk up to the counter and ask for assistance. The women behind the counter behave very rudely in a childish fashion (e.g. by repeating what the customer says, or by surreptitiously making rude hand gestures) while trying to hold back their laughter. The customer asks them to stop, and eventually asks to see their manager, who appears and behaves in exactly the same way until the customer walks off.
- A young father (Burns) who is talking to his baby son Josh (who is off-camera) about the activity that they are currently undertaking (e.g. cooking a roast turkey, burying a dead cat, putting bottles in a bottle bank). His wife then appears and asks where Josh is. We then see that in the place where you would expect a baby (e.g. push chair/high chair), is the object that you would expect the initial activity to be performed on (e.g. an uncooked turkey, a dead cat, a pile of bottles, a Rugby ball). The dad then shifts nervously.
- Two friends (Crompton and Frost) are together in public, where they encounter some totally normal activity (e.g. fishing, dancing). Crompton enquires as to what the activity is, and the surprised Frost explains it, clearly disconcerted by his friend's lack of knowledge of this basic activity. Crompton invariably asks when this started, the reply inevitably being, "while back". Further in the conversation, Frost mentions a noun related to this activity, still very mundane (e.g. music, fish), to which Crompton replies "what the fuck is a [noun]?!" The conversation continues for a short while, before Crompton says, "Do I look like an idiot?", and Frost smiles. Each friend thinks the other has been pulling his leg, and Frost is relieved that his friend was just kidding. Then something involving the first activity happens (fish is caught, dancing seen), and Crompton responds with genuine astonishment.
- Two friends (Crompton and Frost) are participating in some unsavoury activity in which they seem out of place (e.g. aerobics, sumo wrestling). After a particularly unpleasant or dull incident, Crompton looks accusingly at Frost and says, "You said there'd be girls here!"
- A man (Burns) who is often asked for things that he doesn't want to give (such as the final figures for his boss from a report he hasn't done, or his mobile number from an annoying girl). He ends up repeating the number 4 until the right number of digits has been reached. The other party never seems to understand that he is lying.
- A man (Crompton) who brings his office worker girlfriend (Haggard) a present based on something she has previously told him (such as that she likes minstrels, or that she's sick of the fax machine.) The present is something stupid relating to this (such as an absolutely huge minstrel, or the destroyed fax machine in a box.)
- A young couple (Burns and Haggard) who are shopping for their wedding. When they see a product that they like, Burns asks the price. However, when the vendor discovers that the product is required for a wedding, they swap it for an identical 'wedding product' that is a lot more expensive. Burns argues that the wedding product is exactly the same as the ordinary product, and continues to fight with the vendor, until Haggard screams that she wants the wedding product. The vendor then looks sympathetically at Haggard.
- A man (Frost) attempts to perform an apparently simple task (e.g. feeding the dog, tuning in a tv set) while his girlfriend (MacNeill) offers him the instructions provided for such task. After he refuses to read the instructions and starts performing the task, claiming how easy it will be for him to perform such task without any instructions, everything goes unpredictably wrong (the dog explodes, the tv starts leaking water). MacNeill looks back at Frost, handing him out the instructions once more. Frost then says "I think I better have a look at that".
Series Two
- A woman, Karen, who phones a police call centre where her friend and flatmate, Natasha, works, and pretends to need the police. She then recounts a story — usually a thinly-disguised fairy tale — before collapsing in giggles, maybe trying to convince Natasha to come home. Natasha pretends that she is coming, but then goes on to another call.
- A couple (Frost & MacNeill) participate in some sexual roleplay, with the woman wearing a different kinky uniform in each sketch. Sadly for him, the woman takes her roleplaying all too seriously (e.g. during a nurse rolepley she informs him that he has cancer), which leads the man to conclude "Jenny, I don't think we should do roleplay any more."
- An office worker (Crompton) is giving a serious presentation about an outlandish idea, apparently under the impression that this is what he's been asked to do. His co-workers eventually put him straight, but not before he's admitted to having already put his plan into action.
- An alcoholic man called Jack (Frost), is out with his 12 year old nephew, the man is so drunk that he doesn't realise how old the nephew is, and does inappropriate things, such as urinating against the side of his car or goes to inappropriate places such as a stripclub.
- Two people (one of whom is Abbington) are at a playground where their children are playing. Abbington notices something about the other person's child, and comments on it amiably (e.g. "is that your little boy, the one playing on his own?"). The other parent doesn't seem too concerned — until Abbington gives an insight into what life could be like for the child, such as explaining a boy who finds it hard to make friends will go on a killing spree, ending in suicide as a teenager. Upon seeing the look of horror in the other parent's face, Abbington character backtracks, saying "Or — he'll be fine!"
- A male frontman of a fictional band (Burns) is shown introducing a song in a gig, which always seems to have a dark twist about its writing process. The crowd doesn't seem to notice how dodgy his inspiration is, even if he reveals the song to have been written for a man he once ran over, and killed.
- A man (Crompton) is seen offering to help women (Haggard, and in one case, MacNeill) out in various circumstances, e.g. washing the dishes after a meal, or removing a spider. Whilst the woman is facing away from him, she begins a grateful monologue along the lines of, "Most men would expect something in return for this - i.e. SEX. Not you, you're a true friend." This punchline sees Crompton, who has been walking quietly up behind her dressed in a kinky masochistic/BDSMBDSMBDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
outfit, freeze, then slip away.
- Two friends (Frost & Crompton) are sitting in a pub or club. Frost explains some aspect of male behaviour that he believes women find attractive (e.g. treating them meanly, acting as though you have a dark mystery). He persuades Crompton to approach a woman while exhibiting this kind of behaviour, telling him he's certain to pull. Crompton then goes entirely too far, e.g. shooting a woman in the leg, or telling her that he's committed a murder. Upon realising that he has made a faux pas, he returns to Frost and asks "Too mean?", to which a shocked Frost fervently agrees "Too mean!".
Theme music
The theme is a song called 'Dive' by a London-based band called The Sanderson Pitch.DVD releases
The first series of Man Stroke Woman was released in the United KingdomUnited 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...
on 26 March 2007 and in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on 7 August 2007. The second series of Man Stroke Woman was released in the United Kingdom on 19 November 2007.