A Kick Up the Eighties A Kick Up the Eighties A Kick Up the Eighties was a 1981-1984 BBC 2 sketch show starring Robbie Coltrane, Tracey Ullman, Richard Stilgoe, Miriam Margolyes, Rik Mayall, Ron Bain and Roger Sloman. The series was created by Tom Gutteridge (producer/director) and Sean Hardie (executive producer). Colin Gilbert was script editor. The show was the first break into television for Rik Mayall, who played the anorak-wearing investigative reporter Kevin Turvey; it was also the start of Tracey Ullman's television comedy career. Peter Capaldi, a trained graphic artist from Scotland, contributed to designing the show's opening sequence prior to launching his
Alfresco (TV series) Alfresco (TV series) 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. The programme is a sketch show which was intended as an answer to the BBC's highly successful "Not the