The Russ Abbot Show

"The Russ Abbot Show" was a British television comedy series which starred Russ Abbot and ran on the BBC from 1986 to 1991, and for 14 episodes on Granada Television from 1994 to 1995. It featured comedy performers Les Dennis, Bella Emberg, Tom Bright, Maggie Moone, Suzy Aitchison, Gordon Kennedy, Paul Shearer and Sherrie Hewson among others.

The series originated on radio before making the transition to tv, and included characters such as Basildon Bond, a James Bond parody, 'Cooperman', a cross between Tommy Cooper and Superman, and C.U. Jimmy, a virtually unintelligible red-headed Scotsman. The series show-cased Abbot's talents as an all round entertainer and attracted millions of viewers weekly. The show was very popular amongst younger viewers, prompting two annuals to be published in 1982 and 1983. The annuals featured comic strips based on popular characters Abbot had created in the various series of the show.

The series returned to radio on BBC Radio 2 for 42 episodes from November 1997 to February 2002. [http://epguides.com/RussAbbotShow/]

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379139/ 'The Russ Abbot Show' on the Internet Movie Database]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/russabbotshow/ 1986 'The Russ Abbot Show' on the BBC website]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0396366/ 1994 'The Russ Abbot Show' on the Internet Movie Database]
* [http://epguides.com/RussAbbotShow/ 'The Russ Abbot Show' Titles & Air Dates Guide]