Grant Unto Him Eternal Rest his body works differently from other people". The executives were bemused by an incomplete story where one of the main characters was dead, but commissioned the series soon after receiving the full script. In retrospect, Linehan and Mathews noticed that the plot was very similar to that of the "Fawlty Towers" episode "The Kipper and the Corpse". Despite being fans of the show, they only noticed the parallels afterwards, and would likely have abandoned the episode if they had seen them earlier. Kevin Sharkey, who plays the black Donegal priest, was a friend of the writers', and was brought in
The Kipper Kids months of improvisation they invented a character they called Harry Kipper and began experimenting with different theatrical formats to use him in. Upon being expelled for being "too experimental" they took to the road, touring constantly. When von Haselberg and Routh coined the name Kipper Kids, they were originally called Harry and Alf Kipper and had two distinctly different characters. Because von Haselberg and Routh could never remember who was Harry and who was Alf, they dropped the name Alf and decided to call each other Harry. At the same time they decided to make their characters identical. Thus the