A Tangled Webb and Mitchell

Some of you know I detest televisions in waiting rooms. I don’t even own a telly. I do sporadically watch television, but on my computer and many of the programs are British. One I enjoy is QI on the BBC with host Stephen Fry.

QI is a brainy and hilarious quiz show of sorts. The ‘contestants’ represent the brightest lights in comedy, and on rare occasions when participants might not be professional comedians, they hold their own. American Rich Hall is an occasional visitor. Forget the meaningless tally– the answers are everything. You have to watch to see what I mean.

An occasional guest is David Mitchell, master of a slyly warped sense of humor, known for his ‘logic’. You may have heard the news that female prisoners asked for ‘slimming’ stripes on their uniforms. Here’s Mitchell’s take (on stripes, not incarcerated women)…

And that brings us to today’s television special, the Mitchell and Webb Look (also starring Robert Webb) treatment of police shows like Major Crimes.

Next Sunday, we welcome back Dale Andrews and in two weeks, Jim Winter interrupts this broadcast to bring us a special report. See you then!

Mitchell and Webb versus Holmes and Watson

We've had some fun here with those great British sketch artists David Mitchell and Robert Webb.  Here they are shedding an unfamiliar light on two well-known detectives.

Early Early EARLY Mysteries

If I asked you what was the first mystery story, what would you say?

Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue?"  Sorry.  Published in 1841, that's practically current events.

How about Shakespeare?  There was that whiny prince trying to figure out who killed his father.  Uh uh.  Hamlet only goes back to 1600.

Well, there was the story of Susannah, which appears in some editions of the Book of Daniel.  The prophet solves a crime by using a technique known to every modern police force.  But that only dates back to around 200 BC.

How about Sophocles' play about a king interrogating various witnesses to discover the murderer of his predecessor?  Nice guess, but no.  At 400 BC, he's still an Oedipus-come-lately.

Enough suspense.  Here is the true answer, courtesy of those brilliant British comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb.