Al Murray's Happy Hour
| Al Murray's Happy Hour | |
|---|---|
Title card for Al Murray's Happy Hour
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| Directed by | Peter Orton |
| Starring | Al Murray |
| Opening theme | Queen - "Don't Stop Me Now" |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of series | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 29 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Location(s) | The London Studios |
| Running time | 60 minutes (including adverts) |
| Release | |
| Original network | ITV, STV, UTV |
| Original release | 13 January 2007 – 24 October 2008 |
Al Murray's Happy Hour was a chat show presented by comedian Al Murray and produced by Avalon TV. The first series aired in early 2007. It is broadcast on the British terrestrial TV network, ITV, and the first series was broadcast on Saturday nights at 10pm. The second series aired on Fridays at 10pm. A third series returned to ITV on 12 September 2008, in the same 10pm Friday night slot. However, UTV in Northern Ireland did not show the third series in the 10pm Friday night slot with the other ITV regions. They now show it the following Thursday at around 11.40pm, due to UTV regional programming on Friday nights. Murray presents the programme in his Pub Landlord persona: a stereotypically nationalistic, chauvinistic character.
The show contains stand-up, guest interviews and live music. The show ends with Murray performing a Queen song with the musical guest.
The programme has a large studio audience, and at the start of the show, Al interacts with them, talking to some of them in the front row, and usually remarking that they have "beautiful British names", even if the name is clearly not British (such as "Dominique" or "Ming Ming"). He often points out any celebrities in the audience, such as Vanessa Feltz and Uri Geller, and the members of the 'Pub of the Week'.
Around this time, Al points out a regular audience member on the show by the name of "Big Bob". Bob has his very own song which is chanted along the lines of: 'Big Bob, Big Bob, Big Bob'. Right at the end of the song, Al says, " and his wife Anne", who is considerably smaller than her husband. Big Bob's full name is Bob Carlisle and he is a printer from Nottinghamshire who first got involved with the show after winning tickets to a performance in a radio show competition. Al also makes a passing joke about Big Bob's weight, usually sending up excuses other overweight people use. Examples include Al Murray saying "It's a slow metabolism, isn't it, Bob? And a very fast pie arm", "It's a weight problem; you can't wait for lunch", or "It's big bones, isn't it, Bob? Yeah – big bones covered in fat". At the start of series three, Al launched a campaign to get Big Bob on I'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!
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