40 Fun Facts About The Fast Show

Which Hollywood star and devoted fan played a customer of Ken and Kenneth in The Fast Show's farewell special?

Johnny Depp called his cameo in the 2000 farewell one of his proudest achievements. He once described Paul Whitehouse as the greatest actor in the world.

Ken and Kenneth unsettle customers with relentless innuendo in The Fast Show while working in which trade?

Tailors Ken and Kenneth run a men's formal wear shop. The pair are thrown in just two episodes, once by a customer who is as keen to talk about his love life as they are.

In The Fast Show, what does the bouffant-haired Swiss Toni sell while likening every task to seduction?

Cars are Swiss Toni's trade, and he usually delivers his comparisons to a bemused trainee called Paul. The character went on to a sitcom of his own in 2003.

Fast Show star Mark Williams played which wizarding father in seven of the Harry Potter films?

Arthur Weasley first appeared in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in 2002. Williams has said people wrongly assumed he was a comedian, which he insists he has never been.

Fast Show regular Caroline Aherne also found fame as which acerbic host of a mock television chat show?

Mrs Merton put outrageous faux-naive questions to real celebrity guests in front of an audience of pensioners. The Mrs Merton Show won a BAFTA for Best Talk Show in 1997.

Fast Show co-creator Charlie Higson wrote five novels about the Eton schooldays of which fictional British spy?

James Bond's teenage years fill Higson's Young Bond series, which opened with SilverFin in 2005. In 2023 he also wrote an adult 007 novel to mark the Coronation of King Charles III.

Which song, a 1967 UK number one for Engelbert Humperdinck, served as the theme tune of The Fast Show?

Release Me kept the Beatles' Penny Lane off the top of the UK chart in 1967. In the first series Paul Whitehouse sang it over the opening credits as a crooner named Kenny Valentine.

Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson of The Fast Show once worked as tradesmen on a house shared by which comedy duo?

Fry and Laurie's shared house needed decorating, and the job inspired the two tradesmen to start writing comedy. Whitehouse later appeared in a sketch on A Bit of Fry and Laurie.

On The Fast Show's Chanel 9, which segment does Caroline Aherne's Poula Fisch present with identical results every time?

The weather forecast on Chanel 9 gives 45 °C for every location, announced with apparent surprise each time. In one episode a single cloud appears and causes widespread panic.

Which animator, parodied in a Fast Show claymation sketch, loved it enough to send copies as a video Christmas card?

Nick Park loved the sketch, in which Charlie Higson's earnest animator describes his craft in excruciating detail until a bored onlooker sneaks away.

Fast Show performer John Thomson played Pete Gifford in which long-running ITV comedy drama about three couples?

Cold Feet earned Thomson a Best TV Comedy Actor nomination at the British Comedy Awards 2001. The part of Pete was written specifically for him.

Which British television channel first broadcast The Fast Show after a rival broadcaster turned the idea down?

BBC Two picked it up because its new controller needed replacements for several high-profile series recently lost to BBC One. ITV had already said no.

Paul Whitehouse of The Fast Show teamed up with which fellow comedian for televised fishing trips around Britain?

Bob Mortimer joined him for Gone Fishing after both men had major heart problems. The series began in 2018, with the two friends reflecting on life as they fish.

Before The Fast Show, Paul Whitehouse created Stavros and Loadsamoney for which comedian's act on Saturday Live?

Harry Enfield was a neighbour Whitehouse met in a pub, and a place on Channel 4's Saturday Live brought an invitation to write for him. Whitehouse also played his sidekick Lance.

Which colour, once mentioned, tips The Fast Show's outdoor landscape artist Johnny Nice Painter into wild despair?

Black sets him off whether he or his wife Katie says it, despite her best efforts to calm him. His look is said to be based on the bearded TV painter Alwyn Crawshaw.

Which Fast Show character, played by Paul Whitehouse, answers questions in rambling sentence fragments?

Ron Manager was based on Alec Stock, who managed Queens Park Rangers, Luton Town and Fulham. He tends to launch into a monologue whenever a question is put to someone else.

Which retired barrister in The Fast Show tells mostly unintelligible fireside stories and blames them on drink?

Rowley Birkin was based on Andrew Rollo, a friend Paul Whitehouse met on a fishing trip. A 1999 documentary showed how closely the character's speech matched the real man's.

Arabella Weir's bestselling novel took its title from the catchphrase of which of her Fast Show characters?

Insecure Woman turns up in all sorts of places asking the same anxious question about her outfit. Weir's novel was subtitled the Diary of an Insecure Woman.

Which taciturn Fast Show countryman, played by Mark Williams, reports his strange diets in a single sentence each week?

Jesse appears in series two and three, announcing his fashion tastes and experiments as tersely as his diets. In one sketch he simply reports that he has not been hungry.

Bob Fleming, the ageing Norfolk host of Country Matters in The Fast Show, struggles to present because of what?

A terrible cough interrupts him throughout, and his surname is a pun on phlegm. One regular guest cannot stop sneezing, while another keeps shouting a rude word.

Which ultra laid-back presenter hosts Jazz Club in The Fast Show, turning to another camera to deliver a single word?

Louis Balfour, played by John Thomson, was based on a blend of Bob Harris and Roger Moore. His guests usually turn out to be talentless experimentalists, to his bemusement.

Which Fast Show pub know-it-all, played by Simon Day, moved to Norfolk under witness protection in the spin-off Grass?

Billy Bleach is relocated after witnessing a gangland killing in Grass, which aired in 2003. In The Fast Show his confident advice usually ends with other people losing money.

A run of Fast Show sketches portrays the odd townsfolk of which island as living in a desolate cultural wasteland?

Isle of Man residents in the sketches include a brother and sister who refuse to live anywhere else, and a man inviting visitors to see his liver and bacon collection.

For its third series The Fast Show filmed abroad among the volcanoes, waterfalls and hot springs of which country?

Iceland's scenery forms the backdrop to sketches for two regular characters. Before that, most outdoor filming was done around the North East of England, unusually for a sketch show.

Charlie Higson based the voice of The Fast Show's Swiss Toni on his own poor impression of which film star?

Sean Connery's accent was the model for the character, who joined The Fast Show in its third series in 1997 after first appearing in another BBC sketch show two years earlier.

Some Fat Sweaty Coppers sketches in The Fast Show open by parodying the walking-feet titles of which ITV police drama?

The Bill's opening is copied with two sets of legs walking down a street, dropping sweet wrappers, cups and fast food containers as they go. Another sketch sends up the film Speed.

Which lager brand sponsored The Fast Show's online-only comeback, made without original cast member Mark Williams?

Foster's commissioned the new episodes in 2011, with Williams declining because of scheduling clashes. The cast had earlier made adverts for Holsten Pils in 1999.

In The Fast Show, the shy aristocrat Lord Ralph Mayhew is secretly in love with Ted, who works as his what?

Groundsman Ted worked for Ralph's late parents before Ralph inherited the estate. The pair were created for the series by the two writers behind the sitcom Father Ted.

In an early Fast Show sketch, the aristocrat Lord Ralph nervously invites the taciturn Ted to a concert by which singer?

Tina Turner was the invitation in the sketch its writers read aloud to Paul Whitehouse in a pub. He stood up and performed Ted's part on the spot, in an Irish accent.

Which footballer's name crops up amid the invented Mediterranean-sounding language of Chanel 9 in The Fast Show?

Chris Waddle's name is among the incongruous English words dropped into Chanel 9's speech, a concoction loosely based on Italian, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese.

Chanel 9 in The Fast Show broadcasts from a fictional republic ruled by a dictator known by which title?

El Presidente rules the country known as Republicca, and resembles a stereotypical Latin American dictator. Its low-budget channel later added a children's strand and a variety show.

Chris the Crafty Cockney in The Fast Show openly warns people about which habit before giving in to it?

Stealing is his compulsion, and he is so upfront about it that people assume he is joking. Left alone with anything valuable, he invariably takes it.

Jazz musicians on The Fast Show's Jazz Club, such as Theydon Bois and Stamford Brook, are named after what?

London Tube stations supply the names, with Theydon Bois on drums and Stamford Brook on bass. The host introduces each guest with learned comparisons to avant-garde players.

Which Mike Oldfield hit introduces Simon Day's unlikely environmental activist Dave Angel in The Fast Show?

Moonlight Shadow, a number four UK hit in 1983 sung by Maggie Reilly, plays him in. His well-meaning monologues are then undermined by the actions of his wife.

Archie the pub bore in The Fast Show claims to share every stranger's job, then steers the chat to which singer?

Frank Sinatra is his obsession, and he usually ends up weakly singing a line from one of the star's hits. He appears in the third series as an elderly teddy boy with bad teeth.

In The Fast Show, the performer John Actor stars as which hard-nosed television inspector named after a fish?

Monkfish also turns up as a doctor in Monkfish M.D. and as a vet in All Monkfish Great and Small. After John Actor dies, his drama simply carries on without him.

The Fast Show's first national tour in 1998 shared the stage with the cast of which surreal BBC comedy quiz?

Shooting Stars joined them on the road for that first tour, and a second outing, named the Farewell Tour, followed in 2002. The cast reunited for a 30th anniversary tour in 2024.

Rubbish Dad in The Fast Show scorns nearly everything but approves of Elvis, Hitler and which sports presenter?

Des Lynam completes the short list of things he likes. Played by John Thomson and usually found in an industrial scrapheap, he is the gloomy opposite of his relentlessly upbeat son.

Simon Day of The Fast Show starred as Brian Pern, an ageing rock star spoofing which former Genesis singer?

Peter Gabriel is the target of the affectionate parody, which Day wrote with Rhys Thomas. Brian Pern began as a web series before moving to television in 2014.

Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse play Simon and Lindsey in The Fast Show, hugely confident but useless at which hobby?

Off-road driving is their passion, pursued alongside extreme sports with unusually high self-esteem and no skill at all. The pair appear in every series.