British comedy less cerebral humour of Benny Hill and his ITV sketch series "The Benny Hill Show". Other notable sketch-based series include "Morecambe and Wise", "The Two Ronnies", "The Goodies", "French and Saunders", "Absolutely", "Little Britain", "The Catherine Tate Show" and "The Fast Show". In the 1980s, alternative comedy was spearheaded by Ben Elton and The Comic Strip group which included Alexei Sayle, Rik Mayall, and French and Saunders. "Vic Reeves Big Night Out" influenced the style of a whole new generation of comics in the 1990s until the present day. The 1990s and 2000s (decade) have also seen the rise of
Cyrano De Bergerac (sketch) Cyrano De Bergerac (sketch) Cyrano De Bergerac (1977) was the final "play" made as part of "The Morecambe & Wise Show" (1968) and featured in their final festive edition originally broadcast on Christmas Day 1977 on BBC1, achieving the highest ever terrestrial viewing figures of over 28,500,000 people. The play starred Eric Morecambe, Ernie Wise, Penelope Keith and Francis Matthews, with cameo appearances from Valerie Leon, Paul Eddington and Richard Briers (the latter two in a reference to their appearance with Keith in the situation comedy "The Good Life", which was hugely popular at the time. The plot was (very!)