Limmy's Show

Limmy's Show!
Limmy's Show! title card
Created by	Brian Limond
Written by	Brian Limond
Directed by	Brian Limond
Starring	Brian Limond Paul McCole Alan McHugh Kirstin McLean Raymond Mearns (Series 1) Tom Brogan (Series 1) Debbie Welsh (Series 1)
Country of origin	Scotland
No. of series	3 (1 Special)
No. of episodes	20 (including pilot)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Jacqueline Sinclair
Producer(s)	Rab Christie
Running time	30 minutes
Production company(s)	The Comedy Unit
Release
Original network	BBC Two Scotland
Original release	11 January 2010 (2010-01-11) – 22 December 2013 (2013-12-22)

Limmy's Show! is a Scottish comedy sketch show broadcast on BBC Two Scotland, written and directed by Brian Limond. Limond stars as himself and a variety of characters in a series of observational, surreal, dark and bizarre sketches. Limmy frequently breaks the fourth wall by directly talking to viewers through the camera. The show stars Brian Limond, Paul McCole, Alan McHugh, Kirstin McLean and Ryan Fletcher. The first series featured a completely different supporting cast, consisting of Debbie Welsh, Tom Brogan and Raymond Mearns.

Development

Limmy's Show! was created as a result of the success of Limmy's live performances at The Fringe and the Glasgow International Comedy Festival based on his successful 2006 podcast Limmy's World of Glasgow. Several of the characters seen in Limmy's Show were originally created through this podcast, including Jacqueline McCafferty, Wee Gary and Dee Dee. The first series, which was approved following a successful pilot in February 2009, first aired on 11 January 2010 and ran weekly for six episodes. In July 2012, it was revealed by Limond via Twitter that he was currently filming the third series, which was aired from 12 November 2012.^[1] Additionally, a Christmas special was broadcast in December 2013. Limmy has said that he doesn't want to make any more episodes of the show after the Christmas special. Limmy proposed a sitcom based around Falconhoof, aka "Ped", but the show was turned down by BBC Scotland.^[2]

Recurring characters

• Limmy – Limmy appears as himself making blunt observations on life and modern culture. "Have you ever noticed…?", "You know what I hate?", "What would you do?" and "Let me tell you something about life..." are common intros to these musings. He appears as himself in frequent, short segments ranging from short pieces of satire to dancing and complete non-sequitur jokes. On several occasions, he criticises Top of the Pops performances, with himself keyed in over the footage.
• Jacqueline McCafferty – An ex-junkie who spent three years of her life on heroin and a further five years on a methadone treatment programme. Jacqueline tries her hardest to fit in with the middle and upper classes and is very bitter about people looking down their nose at her. Jacqueline can be seen trying to buy clothes from Versace and getting a family portrait of her and her daughter from an in-store photographer for her living room, much to the dismay of the shop's security guard.
• Falconhoof – The humble, soft-spoken and consistently well intentioned costumed host of "Adventure Call", a live televised call-in show in which he guides players through a fantasy role-playing game in order to win cash prizes. He regularly has to deal with angry, unexpected and sometimes misleading or threatening callers and situations, such as those who have wasted money as a result of calling the premium rate service. In the Christmas special, he puts his own job on the line to help a seemingly broke caller unable to buy any gifts for his family become the first and only winner depicted in the entire run of the show only to find out the caller is rich anyway.
• Derek "Dee Dee" Durie – A spaced-out waster who spends his time doing absolutely nothing but over-analysing trivial things and bringing his kitchen to life through hallucination. In one memorable sketch, he rings his father to check "whether or no" they had held a party "up that Finnieston Crane" (pronounced "cran"). In another, he stays up for hours to check how the phrase "mmmmm...Danone" is pronounced on a TV advert. He can usually be saying 'It just disnae add up.' A further sketch involves Dee Dee going to Yoker on a bus and believing the experience to be a very exciting adventure, despite him living half an hour away. He prefaces each monologue with "Fockin'..."
• Raymond Day (series 2-3) – A smug, sadistic cold reading television psychic medium based on Colin Fry who imparts terrible information on particular members of his otherwise happy crowd, such as informing them that their loved ones have "gone downstairs", that spirits are lying/playing pranks and even goes as far as insinuating a widow's deceased spouse instructs they commit suicide to be reunited. He (as well as the other members of the audience) seem to be completely oblivious as to the emotional horror he is putting those members through.
• Larry Forsyth Experiments (series 2-3) – These sketches are a series of experiments which the title character "Larry Forsyth" conducts with old drugs, which often have strange hallucinatory effects, and always end up with a nurse coming into the room and subduing him. The sketch is presented as a black and white TV show from the 1950s, modelled on an infamous unaired episode of Panorama in which Christopher Mayhew carried out a similar experiment using mescaline. Each sketch ends with Larry intoning dryly, "At this point in the experiment, I had to be subdued," as a nurse injects him with a drug that makes him comatose.
• Mr. Mulvaney (series 1 & special) – A mischievous 60-year-old businessman constantly coming up with ways to avoid trouble with the law as he struggles with his tendencies to set off fire alarms, shoplift and graffiti bus shelters late at night.
• Wee Gary (series 1) – A primary schooler who spends his breaks and lunch times trying to capitalise upon his fellow pupils with manipulative tact and by selling anything and everything including spare plimsolls and advice to beat bullying. Not all goes as planned with his advice, but the trickster keeps the payment anyway.
• Supercomputer (series 1) – Limmy controls a supercomputer to wreak havoc on the things he hates in society and cause mischief in everyday life.
• John Paul (series 1) – A teenage working class ned and all-round trouble maker who terrorises and humiliates his victims, behaving in a loutish way. He has a persistent, negative social media presence.
• Major Boo Boo (series 2, only two sketches) – An animated character, who although is dressed in a major's uniform, doesn't actually seem to be in the army. He makes mistakes frequently, or "major boo boos".
• The Spies (series 2) - Two inept spies who are intent on 'getting something' on the other one, yet foiled by their inability to predict one another's actions, such as carrying the antidote to poison in yet another antidote to poison they've put in the opposite's drink.

Honours

Limmy's Show! has won a Scottish BAFTA award for Best Entertainment Programme twice, the first time in November 2011^[3] and the second one in 2013 ^[4]

References

External links

• Limmy's Show at BBC Programmes
• Limmy's Show on IMDb
• Limmy's Show at British Comedy Guide