Tomorrow's telly: The Cricklewood Greats

Peter Capaldi! There, now you're interested. Tomorrow (Sunday 5th of February) BBC4 is showing The Cricklewood Greats, a spoof documentary about a made-up British film studio, covering its history from the early days of film right up to the 1980s, when an overblown Terry Gilliam film brought the studio to its end. (Gilliam also plays a part in the programme.) You can't make a programme like this without having a deep knowledge of the thing you're spoofing, and Capaldi, who also wrote the script and directed the programme, genuinely loves British film. It sounds like a programme for anyone who loves the history of the British film industry, that splendid melting pot for the theatrical, the tawdry the and genuine genius.

I watch a lot of telly and haven't seen a single trailer for it, and only realised it was on listening to last night's What's So Funny? on 4Extra (hey, I was waiting for Elvenquest, that's the only reason it was on...). From WSF? I got the impression that the programme uses footage from real films pretending they're from Cricklewood Studios, but from press releases and so on it appears the film fragments are also done for the spoof. I shall wait and see!

There's an interview with Peter Capaldi about the show over at the Daily Telegraph.


  1. I tuned into the last 15 minutes of this last night.
    Something felt a bit off about it, then a moment later I realised it was a spoof when they visited the former home of an actress who'd died accidentally after suffocating herself in a gas oven. How did I realise it was a spoof? The chap with Capaldi shows us how she may have died by stuffing his torso in a cupboard where the cooker used to be. I laughed and then set the PVR to record the late night repeat.

  2. Someone appears to have found my blog having taken it seriously (a Google search for 'films made at Cricklewood Studios'). I was quite taken aback by that!

    I love Capaldi. He can have it any time he wants it...


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