About: The BBC's View
Taken from the BBC's Comedy Guide.
The BBC weren't very kind about the show but we don't care! I bet if it was on the BBC they'd have been praising it!!
Dare To Believe
UK, ITV (The Children's Company/Dare To Believe), Sketch, colour, 2002
Starring: Mark Crossfield, Chris England, Paul Simpkin
A surreal sketch show in which a large cast performed an array of skits few of which were meant to be funny in the accepted TV comedy sense. Rather, with its chill-out music, frequent repetition and bizarre juxtapositions, the show was most likely to be appreciated by anyone removed from the present by means herbal or alcoholic, which - with its Friday-night twilight zone placement in the schedules - is probably what it got.
Although a few of the sketches were based on familiar themes - spoof TV commercials, odd apology notices and the like - most of the 13 shows comprised wacky, in themselves unfunny ideas that could only be humorous after seemingly endless revisits. An odd mixture then, and a show which slipped past without receiving - or especially meriting - much attention.
The principal guiding light behind Dare To Believe was Tim Scott, who appears elsewhere in this book under the name Tim de Jongh. As part of the team that made the BBC Radio 4 comedy And Now, In Colour (piloted on TV as It's A Mad World, World, World, World, surreal comedy is obviously his forte. His colleague from that show, Tim Firth (see Cut And Run and Once Upon A Time In The North was involved again here, as was the celebrated horror and sci-fi author Michael Marshall Smith.
Cast:
Mark Crossfield
Chris England
Paul Simpkin
David Savage
Marius Kain
Steve Kynman
Karl Jonat
Martin Smith
Jennie Linden
Susie Barrie
Dave MacCreedy
James Dennis
Alex Tofield
Samantha Woodrow
John Moore
John Shippey
Guy Brown
Michael Marshall Smith
Tim Firth
Crew
Michael Marshall Smith - Additional Material
Tim Firth - Additional Material
Tim Scott - Writer / Director
Robert Howes - Executive Producer
Transmission Details
Number of episodes: 13 Length: 30 mins
19 Apr-19 July 2002 · ITV1 Fri mostly 1am |
