Alfresco

Alfresco is a British sketch comedy television series starring Robbie Coltrane, Ben Elton, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Siobhan Redmond and Emma Thompson, produced by Granada Television and broadcast by ITV from May 1983 to June 1984. Running for two series, it totalled 13 episodes and was named Alfresco (from the Italian al fresco, meaning "in the fresh air") because, unusually for a comedy sketch show of the time, it was shot on location rather than in a studio. Production The programme is a sketch show which was intended as an answer to the BBC's highly successful Not the Nine O'Clock News. The main writer was Ben Elton, with Fry and Laurie receiving writing credits by the second series. Of the original team, Tony Slattery was supposed to join the cast for the three-part pilot There's Nothing to Worry About! in 1982, but accepted an offer from Chris Tarrant to join Saturday Stayback, his follow-up to O.T.T. After There's Nothing to Worry About!, which featured Elton, Fry, Laurie, Redmond, Thompson and Paul Shearer and was shown in the Granada region only, a first series of Alfresco was commissioned, broadcast nationally and replacing Shearer with Robbie Coltrane. The third of the seven transmitted episodes in 1983 was in fact a compilation show of the pilot series, featuring some additional material. The sketches of the first series had a very odd and surreal mood to them. In the second series in 1984 the overall style changed slightly. A linking device in form of a "Pretend Pub" was created, and the sketches themselves were less dark than in the first series.