Come Fly with Me

Production

In June 2010, it was announced that Little Britain stars Lucas and Walliams had reunited to star in a new comedy series set in an airport, a spoof of British documentaries Airport and Airline. Filming for Come Fly with Me began in early August, with the duo spending two weeks at Robin Hood Airport Doncaster Sheffield. A further three weeks were spent shooting at London Stansted Airport, with scenes also being filmed at Liverpool John Lennon Airport and Pinewood Studios. A "making of" documentary titled Come Fly on the Wall aired on BBC One on 8 February 2011. On 28 January 2011, BBC announced it had commissioned a second series. Two years later in early January 2013, Walliams confirmed that a second series would not air, after Lucas refused to make a second series and the show was cancelled indefinitely.

Airlines

FlyLo is a low-cost, no frills airline owned by Omar Baba. Providing service across Europe and selected destinations across the Atlantic and South East Asia, it uses many hidden charges and unorthodox schemes in order to cut costs. These include £1 flights to New York City with a £480 booking fee, upright flatbeds in economy class, and a very small hand baggage allowance. FlyLo also offers budget package holidays that do not go down very well with its passengers.

Our Lady Air, "the Catholic airline", is an Irish low-cost airline, providing routes across Europe. It saves money by flying to airports further away from the actual city centre, such as landing a flight to Barcelona in Ireland, with an included c.2300km "short coach transfer".

Great British Air (callsign: Swift bird) is a major British flag carrier airline, providing a high class service around the world from the United Kingdom. The airline is renowned for having the finest first-class service in the world, with champagne and chocolates on boarding, and well-cooked meals on long haul flights. On short-haul flights, both first and economy class passengers are given a small glass of fresh orange juice and a complimentary browse of The Daily Mail.

Characters

Main characters

Omar Baba (Walliams) – The double-chinned, flamboyantly asinine Arab owner of low-cost airline FlyLo. Baba is a parody of the Greek-Cypriot "low-cost flying" entrepreneur Stelios Haji-Ioannou (the founder of easyJet).

Precious Little (Lucas) – A Jamaican woman in her 50s who professes to be a devout Christian, she is the manager of the airport's coffee kiosk. Precious deliberately causes problems that force the closure of the kiosk, allowing her to take the day off. Her main catchphrase is shouting "Praise the Lord!"

Moses Beacon (Walliams) – The gushing, effeminate executive passenger liaison officer for Great British Air. Moses also runs a charity called WishWings which supposedly funds holidays for sick children, but usually involves Moses simply using the money to enjoy the local gay nightlife, leaving the child in the hotel or even at home. His catchphrase is "if you'll pardon the pun" when he seems not to have made a pun.

Ian Foot (Walliams) – The pompous, racist, and bigoted chief immigration officer who often comes up with ridiculous reasons not to allow a foreign person into the country, which includes people such as the Polish ambassador to the United Kingdom. Ironically, he is initially shown to be allowing an elderly man into the UK on a little girl's passport that has clearly been stolen, thus illustrating his hypocritical incompetence.

Tommy Reid (Lucas) – A young, obtuse Scottish man working at Happy Burger, one of the airport's fast-food eateries. He hopes to work his way up to becoming a pilot, unaware that the two jobs are completely unrelated. His dream would later amount to nil after an interview at a flying school, in which he reveals he has no qualifications, no hobbies whatsoever, and can't read.

Taaj Manzoor (Lucas) – Taaj is a young British-Pakistani man who works as part of the roving ground crew for FlyLo. He sports a shaved head and a chin curtain beard, and is something of a film buff.

Melody Baines (Walliams) and Keeley St Clair (Lucas) – Two snarky check-in girls for FlyLo who hail from Liverpool. Later on in the series, the girls fight for the position of check-in manager and it is later revealed that Keeley got the job, only to lose it when Omar replaces his whole staff with children to cut costs.

Additional characters

Hetty Wolf (Lucas) – A 92-year-old German passenger who pretends to be on her first flight, scamming Moses Beacon into buying her a number of luxury products, including an Yves Saint Laurent scarf and an iPad, and getting her a seat in first class, before revealing she has flown many times before. (Appears in: Episode 1)

Sue (Lucas) and Geoff Stott (Walliams) – A couple who are flying to Disneyland to get married. (Appear in: Episode 1)

Asuka and Nanako (Walliams & Lucas) – Two Japanese girls who have flown to the airport to see their idol, Martin Clunes. (Appear in: Episode 1)

Geri Halliwell (herself) – whose photo resident paparazzi Mickey and Buster are waiting to take as she disembarks a plane, only to miss the shot as they're too busy comparing the virtues of each of the Spice Girls to camera. (Appears in: Episode 1)

Mrs. Mbutu (Ellen Thomas) – Liberian passenger whom Ian accuses of making up her country. (Appears in: Episode 2)

Ashley (Walliams) – The supervisor who is there to help Tommy serve his first customer at Happy Burger.

Lee Lodge (Walliams) – Trainee steward for Our Lady Air. He has a girlfriend and is heterosexual, but has homosexual intercourse with Fearghal whilst drunk, in a hotel in Dublin. (Appears in: Episode 2)

Captain Stirrick (Ted Robbins) – A drunk airline pilot who causes a commotion. (Appears in: Episode 2)

David Schwimmer (himself) – Stopped by customs whilst trying to smuggle transsexual porn DVDs into the UK, which he blames on his Friends co-stars Matt LeBlanc and Jennifer Aniston. (Appears in: Episode 2)

Mr Akhmed (Stewart Scudamore) – A Muslim passenger that orders the halal meal option on the flight to Rome, but instead was given the kosher meal (intended for a Jewish passenger) by Fearghal, who insists "It's all the same isn't it?". (Appears in: Episode 3).

Episodes

Come Fly with Me began airing on Christmas Day 2010 to mixed reviews from critics, and gained more than 12.47 million viewers. The second episode, which aired on New Year's Day 2011, gained more than 8.80 million viewers, while the remaining four episodes averaged around 7 million viewers throughout the rest of the series. The series began airing in the United States on BBC America on 18 June 2011, edited to fit a 30-minute time slot with commercials.

Come Fly on the Wall (2011)

Come Fly on the Wall discussed the making of Come Fly with Me with Walliams and Lucas. The programme featured clips from filming, outtakes and interviews with the show's creators as they developed the series. It featured pre production discussions and rehearsals, and showed the actors filming at some of the United Kingdom's busiest airports. It also showed Walliams and Lucas transforming into their new characters in the make up chair, and bringing them to life in front of the camera.

The programme was broadcast on BBC One on 8 February 2011.

Cancellation

On 28 January 2011, the BBC announced that the show had been commissioned for a second series. The new series was set to air during early 2013. In January 2013, Walliams confirmed that a second series would not air, stating that Lucas did not wish to continue the show.

Home media

Digital Editions were released on Amazon Prime Video and iTunes / Apple TV.

Web content

In conjunction with the television episodes, a selection of extra online content was published on the programme website. The extra content, featuring some of the main characters played by Matt Lucas and David Walliams, was presented as spoof versions of real life airline websites, for example an on line check in service for fictional airline FlyLo, with Melody and Keeley. The content was written by Kevin Cecil, who also contributed to the television scripts. Cecil was inspired by his own work on comedy tie-in books over the years.

Reception

Come Fly with Me received mixed reviews, with the Daily Express calling it "the worst sketch show, or sitcom to have ever gone out on a Christmas Day" and expressed concern over its screening on the day, considering the perceived lack of quality. The Daily Mirror, however, claimed it was a resounding success and the claims of racism and lack of humour made by the Express were unfounded and hypocritical.

The show was the most watched comedy of 2010, with ten million viewers, but also had thousands of viewer complaints, and criticism for perceived racist content. It was the third most-watched show on Christmas Day in the United Kingdom.

Controversy

In June 2020, Come Fly with Me, alongside Little Britain, was removed from Netflix for its use of blackface, brownface and yellowface; six months prior it had also been removed from BritBox. It had not been available on iPlayer. A spokesperson for the BBC said: "There's a lot of historical programming available on BBC iPlayer, which we regularly review". On its decision to remove the shows, BritBox added: "Times have changed since Little Britain first aired, so it is not currently available on BritBox. Come Fly With Me has not been available on the service for six months".

International versions

A Dutch version of the show was created, using an almost exact copy of the script and characters (translated to Dutch). It was broadcast on RTL 4 from August 2011.