''Count Arthur Strong'' is a
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
sitcom written by
Steve Delaney and
Graham Linehan. Delaney portrays the title character in the series, a stage creation of Delaney's who has also featured in the
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...
programme ''
Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show!''
Plot
The series begins with the meeting of Count Arthur Strong, an eccentric, septuagenarian, former
music hall
Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was most popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850, through the World War I, Great War. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as Varie ...
performer, with Michael Baker, the bookish son of his former comedy partner.
The television project heralds a new chapter in the life of Count Arthur Strong as compared to the character in the radio series: none of the characters from the radio programme are featured (Geoffrey, Wilf Taylor, Sally Marsden etc) and the series is set in London in and around Arthur's home and his local
café
A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café (), is an establishment that serves various types of coffee, espresso, latte, americano and cappuccino, among other hot beverages. Many coffeehouses in West Asia offer ''shisha'' (actually called ''nargi ...
rather than in
Doncaster
Doncaster ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, Yorkshire, River Don, it is the administrative centre of the City of Doncaster metropolitan borough, and is the second largest se ...
. The café is run by its belligerent Turkish owner Bulent who is helped by his sister Sinem; the other main characters are the regular pension-age customers at the cafe.
Cast
*
Steve Delaney as Count Arthur Strong, an elderly, pompous, out-of-work actor from
Doncaster
Doncaster ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, Yorkshire, River Don, it is the administrative centre of the City of Doncaster metropolitan borough, and is the second largest se ...
with delusions that he is a show-business legend. The character has been described as "a mixture of physical and mental clumsiness, mirthful malapropisms and
Tourettic tics, whose pride forbids him from ever conceding fallibility, even as his world crashes around him".
*
Rory Kinnear as Michael Baker, a writer. Michael, a shy, bookish, often childlike, effeminate and pathetic man, is using Arthur's anecdotes to help write his late father's biography.
* Chris Ryman as Bulent, the irascible, hot-tempered owner of Arthur's local café, who is constantly irritated by Arthur's bumbling.
*
Zahra Ahmadi
Zahra Ahmadi (; born 1982) is a British actress from Plymouth, England of Persian descent. She is best known for playing the original Shabnam Masood in ''EastEnders''.
Career
She is known for her role as Shabnam Masood in the British televis ...
as Sinem, Bulent's younger sister with a mischievous sense of humour.
*
Andy Linden as John the Watch, an enigmatic regular at the café and close friend of Arthur's.
* Dave Plimmer as Eggy the
human billboard
A human billboard is someone who displays an advertisement on their person. Most commonly, this means holding or wearing a sign of some sort, but also may include wearing advertising as clothing or in extreme cases, having advertising tattooed on ...
, a quiet, gentle, melancholy café regular, whose sign (possibly inspired by that of
Stanley_Green) reflects his obsession with the supposed evils of eggs and other conspiracy theories.
*
Ruth Posner as Katya, a café regular and Arthur's greatest fan. (Series 1)
*
Bronagh Gallagher as Birdy, a café regular (Series 3)
Production
In 2009, it was reported that Delaney would be working on making a television version of ''Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show!'' for
Talkback Thames
Talkback Thames is a British television production company, a division of Fremantle (company), FremantleMedia (now Fremantle), part of the RTL Group, which in turn is owned by Bertelsmann. It was formed by the merger of Talkback (production com ...
and
BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...
, and further that
Graham Linehan and
Jeremy Dyson were working on a project for TV called ''Count Arthur Strong's Entertainment Game''. The quiz show format was subsequently dropped in favour of a sitcom.
The series was recorded in front of a live audience from January to February 2013 at
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London.
The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to t ...
. The first episode of ''Count Arthur Strong'' was recorded on 10 January 2013 at
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London.
The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to t ...
. Written by Steve Delaney and Graham Linehan, it co-starred Rory Kinnear as the son of the recently deceased Max Baker, Count Arthur's erstwhile comedy partner. Michael Baker (Kinnear) sets out to track down Count Arthur after the death of his father in order to write a biography.
Episodes
Series overview
Series 1 (2013)
The first series was shown on
BBC Two
BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...
.
Series 2 (2015)
The second series of ''Count Arthur Strong'' sees a shift to
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...
and a later time slot of 10:35pm.
Series 3 (2017)
The third series started on 19 May 2017 on BBC One, at the earlier timeslot of 8:30 p.m. Broadcasts were delayed in the first half of June due to the
2017 UK election and moved to BBC Two due to
Wimbledon
Wimbledon most often refers to:
* Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London
* Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships
Wimbledon may also refer to:
Places London
* W ...
, while the episode "Safari Park" was pushed to the end of the series' broadcast due to the
death of a zookeeper in late May.
Broadcast history
The first series of six episodes was broadcast on BBC Two on 8 July 2013, with one episode each week airing thereafter. The first episode was watched by 971,000 viewers, less than half of BBC Two's slot average over the previous three months. Episodes 4, 5 and 6 were subsequently moved from Mondays, 8.30 pm, on BBC Two, to Tuesdays, 8 pm, on the same channel.
The second series aired on
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...
rather than BBC Two. The series was recorded at
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a British film and television studio located in the village of Iver Heath, England. It is approximately west of central London.
The studio has been the base for many productions over the years from large-scale films to t ...
between 6 June 2014 and 18 July 2014. The second series began broadcasting on
BBC One
BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...
on 6 January 2015.
The third and final series was recorded at Pinewood Studios in August 2016. It was due for broadcast later that same year,
but was pushed back to 2017.
Reception
Awards
The first series of ''Count Arthur Strong'' was nominated for three
British Comedy Awards
The National Comedy Awards (known as the British Comedy Awards from 1990 to 2014) is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom, celebrating notable comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year.
The British Comedy Awards (1 ...
– Best Sitcom, Best New Comedy and Steve Delaney being nominated for Best Comedy Breakthrough Artist. Steve Delaney and Graham Linehan were nominated as Best Comedy Writers at the 2014 BAFTA Craft Awards and the show was also nominated for Best Situation Comedy at the 2014
BAFTA
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...
awards.
Home media
The first series of ''Count Arthur Strong'' was released on 19 August 2013. In September 2013, BBC WorldWide recalled all the DVDs due to a picture fault. Series two of Count Arthur Strong was released on DVD by Network on 26 September 2016.
Series 3 was released by Network on DVD on 17 July 2017 with a Complete Series 1-3 Boxset released by Network on 26 February 2018.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Count Arthur Strong (Tv Series)
2013 British television series debuts
2017 British television series endings
2010s British sitcoms
BBC high definition shows
BBC television sitcoms
British English-language television shows
Fictional counts and countesses
Television series about actors
Television series based on radio series
Television series by Fremantle (company)
Television series created by Graham Linehan
Television series set in restaurants
Television shows set in London