The Armstrong and Miller Show is a British

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...

 sketch comedy

Sketch comedy

A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...

 television show produced by Hat Trick Productions

Hat Trick Productions

Hat Trick Productions is a British independent production company that produces television programmes, mainly specialising in comedy.-History:...

 for BBC One

BBC One

BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...

. It features the double act

Double act

A double act, also known as a comedy duo, is a comic pairing in which humor is derived from the uneven relationship between two partners, usually of the same gender, age, ethnic origin and profession, but drastically different personalities or behavior...

 Armstrong and Miller

Armstrong and Miller (comedians)

Armstrong and Miller are a British standup comedy double act consisting of the actor-comedians Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller. They have performed in two eponymous television sketch shows, the satirical Timeghost podcast, and many individual television appearances.-Radio show:Armstrong and...

 and a number of notable scriptwriters including Andy Hamilton

Andy Hamilton

Andrew Neil Hamilton is a British comedian, game show panellist, television director, comedy screenwriter and radio dramatist.-Early life:...

 and The League of Gentlemen

The League of Gentlemen

The League of Gentlemen are a group of British comedians formed in 1995, best known for their radio and television series.The League of Gentlemen may also refer to:* The League of Gentlemen ,...

's Jeremy Dyson

Jeremy Dyson

Jeremy Dyson is an English screenwriter and, along with Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, a participant in The League of Gentlemen.-Early life:...

.

The series followed four series of Armstrong and Miller on the Paramount Comedy Channel and Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 between 1997 and 2001.

Some recurring characters and jokes

• Two World War II
  World War II
  World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
  
   airmen who speak in upper-class accents
  Received Pronunciation
  Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
  
   but have the language and attitudes of chav
  Chav
  A chav is a term that is used in the United Kingdom to describe a stereotype of teenagers and young adults from an underclass background.-Etymology:...
  
   stereotypes, using colloquialisms such as "blood" and peppering their speech with "like" and "and shit".
• Brabbins and Fyffe, a pair of Flanders and Swann
  Flanders and Swann
  The British duo Flanders and Swann were the actor and singer Michael Flanders and the composer, pianist and linguist Donald Swann , who collaborated in writing and performing comic songs....
  
  -like musicians who sing bawdy songs, sometimes hastily censored by the BBC
  BBC
  The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
  
  .
• An insensitive but caring father (played by Armstrong) with the inability to sugar-coat difficult issues for his son (played by Tyger Drew-Honey).
• Roger (played by Miller) who continually returns home early, oblivious to clues that his wife and best friend Pete are having an affair. He accepts the increasingly ludicrous explanations.
• Two Neanderthal
  Neanderthal
  The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...
  
  s who negotiate their way anachronistically through modern social difficulties such as job interviews and baby naming.
• Vox pops in which characters describe their quirks and mental illnesses and end with "so that's why I became a teacher".
• A plain-speaking satellite navigation system that advises a driver to avoid certain roads for non-traffic-related reasons.
• Dennis Lincoln-Park, a TV historian (played by Miller) who accidentally destroys priceless historical treasures.
• A man who accidentally reveals too much information about his strange and disturbing hobbies while in polite company, following them up with "Was that a bit too weird?".
• A dentist who recounts sordid tales of tasteless encounters to which his patient, whose mouth is full of dental equipment, is unable to object.
• Parodies of public information films, voiced by Armstrong.
• Various characters (played by Armstrong) including a children's TV presenter with two puppet sidekicks and a marriage counsellor, who after other characters have left the room says the words "Kill them" into an intercom in a distinctly "evil" accent.
• A Geordie
  Geordie
  Geordie is a regional nickname for a person from the Tyneside region of the north east of England, or the name of the English-language dialect spoken by its inhabitants...
  
   window cleaner who gives a philosophical monologue before finishing with "but what do I know?"
• Jim (played by Miller), on honeymoon in Hawaii alone after his wife left him for the DJ on their wedding day.
• A businessman (played by Armstrong), who is pursued by a team of researchers providing him with apparently useless and random information. He is fired in the final episode of series 2.
• A guy who regularly wanders into a shop to browse, only to be told by the salesman on hand to "fuck off" if he's not buying anything.
• An MI6 agent is trying to do serious work, but his over-caring boss makes light of these situations and forces the agent to partake in fun, children's activities.
• Various suave male characters whose intentions are dashed when the other characters in the sketch notice their hairstyle, with the words "Ugh. Ponytail!", and start vomiting.
• Miranda (played by Armstrong) and Pru (played by Miller) who run the Dandylions vegetarian restaurant, politely trying not to argue in front of the customers, until a customer's comment highlights their difficulties. A brawl is instigated by the proprietors with the words "Pru, it's kicking off!"
• A selection of Regency-era suitors and spinsters whose mid-dance conversational advances are unexpectedly explicit.
• The British Prime Minister (played by Miller), who invariably leaves something vitally important behind after a successful meeting, but is too embarrassed to return and collect it.
• Doctor Tia (played by Armstrong), who "lives in Botswana, saving lives. Do you?". He addresses the camera about his insights into local culture, and the fruits of his work, only for the camera to reveal that he is secretly despised by the people he is trying to help.
• Various characters experiencing extraordinary success, only to reveal to the camera: "I'm wearing my wife's knickers."
• Three children's TV presenters who are publicly humiliated for their inappropriate behaviour, and have to apologise and explain their actions to their audience in child-friendly language.
• A parody of Jeeves and Wooster
  Jeeves and Wooster
  -External links:*—An episode guide to the series, including information about which episodes were adapted from which Wodehouse stories.*—Episode guides, screenshots and quotes from the four series....
  
  , with Mr Stafford (played by Armstrong) and his butler Veal (played by Miller). Stafford is a bigot who acts with criminal disregard for others, and then asks for Veal's help sorting out the mess. Veal is horrified.
• A put-upon English football manager (Tony)who has sold out and now works for Russian Oligarch boss Dimitri. Tony lives in fear of Dimitri's fond spot for him, and his boss's Mafioso tendencies, and is never quite sure how to play the situation.
• Two out-of-touch Dracula
  Dracula
  Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
  
  -like vampires trying to get virgin blood as though they're 'on the pull', yet often beaten by more modern vampires..
• A series of dramatic or odd situations in which the climax is spoilt by someone remembering that they forget to put the bins out.
• An accident happening to Armstrong, then Miller coming on screen as himself, saying "Um, this isn't funny, and it actually happened to a friend of mine, so..." He then makes slight gestures toward the viewers, such as shrugging his shoulders and raising his eyebrows.
• Simpkins (Miller), a recent expatriate to France, who has forgotten his mother tongue. He eventually asks someone for twenty euros.
• Wild Cooking with Flint and Rory, a show about a pair of Geordie campers who say that they are going to cook something from the wild, but opt out for an easier, modern alternative due to small 'problems' with the thing they were going to cook.
• Couples being interviewed, which at the end of each one, reveals a fact that would end or cause difficulties in normal relationships.
• A seemingly ordinary man (played by Miller) who suddenly acts out various inappropriate scenarios, imagining he is with his wife, Sandra, and children, Jessica and Oliver.
• A serious and sometimes dramatic scene involving armstrong and two women. At the end, Armstrong says, "Any chance of a threesome
  Threesome
  A threesome is a group of three engaged in the same activity. In relation to a sexual activity a threesome refer to the activity involving three people of any gender or sexual orientation...
  
  ?" He then says, "No, ok," and agrees with whatever they were giving him in the scene.

Chronology

Series	Episodes	First aired
1	7	26 October – 14 December 2007
2	6	16 October – 27 November 2009
3	6	30 October 2010 - 11 December 2010

Awards

Visitors to British Comedy Guide

British Comedy Guide

The British Comedy Guide or BCG is a British website covering all forms of British comedy, across all media. At the time of writing, the BCG has published guides to more than 1,200 individual British comedies - primarily TV and radio situation comedy, sketch shows, comedy dramas, satire, variety...

 voted The Armstrong and Miller Show the "Best Sketch Show of 2007".

"The Armstrong and Miller Show" was nominated for and won the 2010 Bafta award

British Academy Television Awards 2010

The 2010 British Academy Television Awards were held on 6 June 2010. The nominations were announced on 10 May.This year new awards were added including the award for Best Actor/Actress in a Supporting Role. Graham Norton hosted the ceremony...

for the Best Comedy Programme.

Reception

The series has received widespread acclaim, with the RAF Pilot characters being the most popular from the show. "Recommended last week, recommended this week. It's the funniest thing on television at the moment. If you didn't laugh at the experimental doctor or fighting grandads from the first episode, you're even more callous and humourless than we thought."
- tvBite

"Not many comedians could get away with spinning a sketch out of the differences between English and French sentence construction, but thankfully Armstrong and Miller aren't afraid to go somewhere a bit wordy and esoteric with their comedy. Awkward collisions between high and low culture, or the old world and the new, are their speciality: this week, their haughty 18th-century Viennese vampires fail to get into a West End club and are forced to go and skulk in Subway, while the slang-spouting Second World War officers attempt to skive off cracking the Enigma code."
Sam Richards, The Daily Telegraph.

"The trouble with sketch shows is that, as they average perhaps 30 gags per episode, they need an almost impossibly large supply of comic energy to keep them from slipping into the doldrums. Ben Miller and Alexander Armstrong are talented, and they do just about keep this show afloat"
The Daily Telegraph

"Sketch shows are a notoriously tough act to pull off but Saturday night's opener found Armstrong & Miller at the top of their game, with scarcely a dud in sight. Mitchell & Webb will need to pull their finger out to match them."
Keith Watson, Metro

"The Armstrong & Miller Show felt more consistently funny than before. Maybe their 300 writers, including Graham Linehan and The League of Gentlemen's Jeremy Dyson, are exerting more quality control this year."
Paul Whitelaw, The Scotsman

"This exceptionally witty, sharp and endearing duo do manage to serve up something for everyone, even if the majority of their material is aimed at the comfortably off whose biggest worry in life is whether or not they've correctly separated their waste for recycling."
Jamie Steiner. On The Box

"The boys keep up the high quality level that has been typical of this series, with hapless historian Dennis Lincoln-Park becoming a firm favourite. It might be the same gag week in, week out, but that's the absolute beauty of it. Guaranteed to put a smile on your face at the end of the week."

"It's gentle, it's cosy, it's very British, and above all, it's a sketch show that's funny. Hurrah for Armstrong and Miller!"

DVD releases

• The 1st series has been released as a single DVD in Region 2.
• The 2nd series has also been released as a single DVD.
• Series 1 and 2 have been released as a box set.
• The 3rd series has been released as a single DVD in late 2010, to coincide with the airing of the series.
• All 3 series have been released as a box set.

External links

• The Armstrong And Miller Show Official Site