''Stella Street'' is a British

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

programme, originally screened in four series 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 ...

between 22 December 1997 and 11 December 2001. It takes the form of a

mockumentary A mockumentary (a portmanteau of ''mock'' and ''documentary'') is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events, but presented as a Documentary film, documentary. Mockumentaries are often used to analyze or comment on current event ...

filmed on a

camcorder A camcorder is a self-contained portable electronic device with video and recording as its primary function. It is typically equipped with an articulating screen mounted on the left side, a belt to facilitate holding on the right side, hot-sw ...

, based on the fantastical premise that a group of British and American celebrities have all decided to move into Stella Street in

Surbiton Surbiton is a suburban neighbourhood in South West London, within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (RBK). It is next to the River Thames, southwest of Charing Cross. Surbiton was in the Historic counties of England, historic county of ...

(actually Hartswood Road, London, W12). The show (and subsequent film) was conceived and written by

John Sessions John Sessions (born John Marshall; 11 January 1953 – 2 November 2020) was a British actor and comedian. He was known as a regular performer on comedy improvisation show '' Whose Line Is It Anyway?'', as co-creator, co-writer and co-star of the ...

Phil Cornwell Philip Cornwell is an English actor, comedian, impressionist and writer. He is part of the '' Dead Ringers'' television and radio series, and is the voice of Murdoc Niccals in the virtual band Gorillaz. Cornwell has co-written and performed pri ...

and Peter Richardson (who also directed). The main characters are played by Sessions, Cornwell and

Ronni Ancona Veronica Jane Ancona (born 4 July 1966) is a British actress, comedian, impressionist and writer best known for '' The Big Impression'', which she co-wrote and starred in and was, for four years, one of BBC One's top-rated comedy programmes, win ...

. The characters themselves are

impressions An impression is the overall effect of something. Impression or impressions may also refer to: Biology * Colic impression, a feature of the gall bladder * Duodenal impression, medial to the renal impression * Gastric impression, a feature of th ...

of famous celebrities such as

Marlon Brando Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Widely regarded as one of the greatest cinema actors of the 20th century,''Movies in American History: An Encyclopedia''

Michael Caine Sir Michael Caine (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, 14 March 1933) is a retired English actor. Known for his distinct Cockney accent, he has appeared in more than 160 films over Michael Caine filmography, a career that spanned eight decades an ...

Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. Nicholson is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of the 20th century, often playing rebels fighting against the social structure. Over his five-de ...

, and, idiosyncratically, UK football pundit

Jimmy Hill James William Thomas Hill, Order of the British Empire, OBE (22 July 1928 – 19 December 2015) was an English football in England, footballer and later a television personality. His career included almost every role in the sport, including pla ...

. ''Stella Street''s depiction of celebrities is mainly rooted in the popular stereotypes surrounding them. For example, ''Stella Street''s Jack Nicholson is an inveterate womaniser, drug taker, and has a tacky line in Hawaiian shirts. Michael Caine is seen as an awkward wanna-be cognoscente in horn-rimmed glasses and a shock of ginger hair.

Dirk Bogarde Sir Dirk Bogarde (born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde; 28 March 1921 – 8 May 1999) was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a matinée idol in films such as ''Doctor in the House (film), Doctor in the Hous ...

is a posh buffoon only interested in his rose garden and '' Country Life'' magazine.

Al Pacino Alfredo James Pacino ( ; ; born April 25, 1940) is an American actor. Known for his intense performances on stage and screen, Pacino is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. His career spans more than five decades, duri ...

is deluded that he is a "tall actor, like

Danny DeVito Daniel Michael DeVito Jr. (born November 17, 1944) is an American actor and filmmaker. He gained prominence for his portrayal of the taxi dispatcher Louie De Palma in the television series ''Taxi (TV series), Taxi'' (1978–1983), which won him ...

and

Dustin Hoffman Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for Dustin Hoffman filmography, his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable charac ...

", despite the viewer knowing that he (and the others) are of short stature.

Joe Pesci Joseph Frank Pesci ( , ; born February 9, 1943) is an American actor and musician. He is best known for portraying tough, volatile characters, in a variety of genres, and for his collaborations with his best friend, Robert De Niro in the films ' ...

is portrayed in the light of his most well-known roles in violent gangster films, while Jimmy Hill inevitably appears dull when talking about the

FA Cup Final The FA Cup Final is the last match in the FA Cup, Football Association Challenge Cup. It has regularly been one of the List of sports attendance figures, most attended domestic football events in the world, with an official attendance of 89,472 ...

to plainly uninterested greater celebrities. Sessions and Cornwell also play other non-celebrity roles including elderly housekeeper and lifelong Stella Street resident Mrs Huggett, couple-from-hell Pam and Graham Slurry, dopey builder Dean Barraclough and the potentially murderous gardener Len MacMonotony. The show returned for a "fifth" series in 2008 on the comedy website log.tv, but this consists of only seven five-minute pieces of

and Peter Richardson talking about featured clips from the original series.

Themes and plot

Stella Street depicts its celebrities as finding refuge from the madness of their famous lives in the banality of suburbia and the "everyday" situations they may come across, albeit tinged with a hint of surrealism and comedy referenced from their own stereotyped behaviour. Examples include Roger Moore visiting David Bowie at Christmas in order to give him a face flannel as a present, a game of ''

Monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

'', Michael Caine trying to instruct Dean the builder on how to build him a kidney shaped swimming pool, and

Mick Jagger Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English musician. He is known as the lead singer and one of the founder members of The Rolling Stones. Jagger has co-written most of the band's songs with lead guitarist Keith Richards; Jagge ...

and

Keith Richards Keith Richards (born 18 December 1943) is an English musician, songwriter, singer and record producer who is an original member, guitarist, secondary vocalist, and co-principal songwriter of the Rolling Stones. His songwriting partnership wi ...

running the local

corner shop A convenience store, convenience shop, bakkal, bodega, corner store, corner shop, superette or mini-mart is a small retail store that stocks a range of everyday items such as convenience food, groceries, beverages, tobacco products, lotter ...

Style

The show is mainly filmed in a ''

cinéma vérité Cinéma vérité (, , ) is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about '' Kino-Pravda''. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or highlight subje ...

'' style using handheld cameras, often with Cornwell as Michael Caine talking to the camera to introduce characters or situations in the same way he does in the 1966 film '' Alfie''. Stella Street was originally broadcast in 10–15 minute segments on BBC2. For foreign broadcasts, two or more episodes were concatenated into a 15- to 20-minute format. When released on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

(and subsequently on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

), the series were condensed into feature-length programmes with additional link footage added. The theme music is titled "Art of Art". It was written and performed by Gary DiMichele and was originally used in the 1996 American film ''

Big Night ''Big Night'' is a 1996 American comedy-drama film co-directed by Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci. Set in the 1950s on the Jersey Shore, the film follows two Italian immigrant brothers, played by Tucci and Tony Shalhoub, as they host an ev ...

''.

Celebrity characters

Film adaptation

After completing series 4, Richardson, Sessions and Cornwell produced a film adaptation. The team added

to the cast to play numerous female celebrity characters. In March 2004, ''Stella Street: The Movie'', was premiered at the

Aspen Comedy Festival The Comedy Festival, formerly known as the US Comedy Arts Festival, was a comedy festival that ran from 1995 to 2008. The festival included stand-up comedy performances, appearances by the casts of television shows, and has a film component calle ...

, where it earned Cornwell and Sessions the festival's Film Discovery Jury Best Actor Award. It received mostly unfavourable reviews, Anita Gates in the New York Times writing "the concept doesn't translate well to the longer form. The sense of the absurd is watered down." while Michael Rechtshaffen in the Hollywood Reporter said "What might have achieved a degree of cult status across the pond when it was aired in 10-minute installments, struggles to pass big-screen scrutiny in a feature-length treatment that hinges on the flimsiest of plot lines." However Derek Elley in ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' thought it "Manages to sustain its single-joke premise...over feature length." The film opened in 10 screens in the US and took $2,574 on the opening weekend. The film has since been released on DVD. It has a 12% (rotten) rating from 17 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and a 5.3 rating on Internet Movie Database.

Cast

;

*Jack Nicholson, Mick Jagger, Michael Caine, Jimmy Hill, Barry Saddler, Muthatrucker, Len McMonotoney, Vince Crush, Tour Guide, Nick Duggan, Costumier, CNO Bob, David Bowie ;

*Mrs. Huggett, Keith Richard, Jeremy Hickman, Joe Pesci, Dean Baraclough, News Reader, Jack Flatley, Johnny Van Damm, Muthatrucker, Lord Tony Stanford, Dustin Hoffman, The Vicar, Policeman, Al Pacino ;

*Tara, Madonna, Posh Spice, Penélope Cruz, Jerry Hall, Vicar's Wife, Check-out Girl, Stephanie Giraffe, Jenny Saddler

References

External links

* * Comedy Guide (Archived BBC Comedy Guide page) * *
''Stella Street'' – A comprehensive fan site
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