Category Archives: Comedy

Billy Liar, Bradford and the birth of the dollybird

Posted on May 1, 2013 by samiraahmed

“A lazy, irresponsible young clerk in provincial Northern England lives in his own fantasy world and makes emotionally immature decisions as he alienates friends and family.” Everyone loves Billy Liar. Apart from whoever wrote imdb’s current bizarrely censorious plot summary … Continue reading →

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Alan Bennett: Why spilling all is not the art of the monologue

Posted on March 8, 2013 by samiraahmed

I was lucky enough to be asked to chair an In Conversation with the playwright, diarist and screenwriter Alan Bennett at the British Film Institute last night. It was focussed on his skills with the monologue, as part of a season of TV monologues. … Continue reading →

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Murder, Mirth and Care Bears: The uses of an Oxford English degree

Posted on February 13, 2013 by samiraahmed

Writing for news bulletins, writing for standup comedy, writing murders for tv drama, writing for comics and fantasy gaming novels. These were some of the uses to which a group of graduates from my old Oxford College have put our … Continue reading →

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That Was Then, This Is Now – Satire from JFK to Savile

Posted on November 28, 2012 by samiraahmed

Last night I went to the British Film Institute’s celebration of 50 years of the breakthrough TV satire programme, That Was The Week That Was. (TW3). It featured many of the original cast, writers and modern satirists, and clips including … Continue reading →

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Anglos, Diphthongs & Perfect Snogging: Saving the German A-level

Posted on August 22, 2012 by samiraahmed

This piece was written for The Guardian in August 2012, after A-level results showed the number of UK students taking German had declined to below 5,000 for the first time. There were also significant drops in French and other modern … Continue reading →

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Can we laugh about this? Race on film

Posted on March 21, 2012 by samiraahmed

I spent an hour with the Film Club charity in Battersea Park School in South London today,(I’m a trustee) discussing the treatment of race and racism on film. It was Anti-Racism Day, apparently. I chose clips from a sample of … Continue reading →

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Noooooo Uderzo Nooooo: Asterix and the afterlife

Posted on September 29, 2011 by samiraahmed

This article originally appeared in The Guardian online on September 29th and in the print edition on October 1st. In Obelix and Co, a devious young Roman general, Caius Preposterus (a thinly veiled Jacques Chirac) tries to corrupt Asterix’s proud … Continue reading →

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America’s sweetheart and the star malfunction: Doris Day and Jennifer Aniston

Posted on July 30, 2011 by samiraahmed

In Jeanine Basinger’s book on the old Hollywood studios’ star-making system, The Star Machine there is a great little section on how Doris Day became a huge name, while the similarly talented and wholesome Rosemary Clooney did not. Basinger put … Continue reading →

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The Truth About The Jam Generation (80s remix)

Posted on May 10, 2011 by samiraahmed

Since David Cameron claimed class war anthem “Eton Rifles” as one his Desert Island Discs, many political journalists seem to have bought the argument that they are “The Jam Generation”; the subject of a recent Radio 4 series. It seemed … Continue reading →

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Women Prefer Jane Russell

Posted on March 1, 2011 by samiraahmed

Ain't There Anyone Here For Love by avinot In my early 20s I started working my way through a lot of old movies I hadn’t yet seen. When I sat down to watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes this eye popping clip of Jane … Continue reading →

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