bbc comedy

The classic Fawlty Towers scene in which Basil Fawlty tries not to mention the war while serving German guests, ending in goose-stepping and mocking. It is a two-minute BBC comedy clip with John Cleese.

A Yes Minister sketch in which Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey meet the BBC and discuss its independence from government pressure. It is a satirical look at the relationship between the state and the broadcaster.

A Blackadder the Third scene in which Dr Johnson delivers his dictionary, which lacks Blackadder's invented insults such as contrafibularity.

A short Yes Minister clip in which Sir Humphrey explains why a hospital with no patients still needs a large administrative staff. It is a satirical look at bureaucratic bloat in the public sector.

A short clip from the BBC sitcom Yes, Prime Minister in which Jim Hacker explains which kind of person reads which British newspaper. It is a satirical take on press readership and bias.

A classic sketch from A Bit of Fry and Laurie in which a man at a police station has a surname that is very hard to pronounce. Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie play it out as a comic exchange.

A BBC comedy sketch from The One Ronnie starring Ronnie Corbett and Harry Enfield, built around a word-play misunderstanding about a broken BlackBerry. It is about three minutes long.

A short That Mitchell and Webb Look sketch in which a rocket scientist and a brain surgeon trade jibes over whose job is harder. It is a BBC comedy clip from 2009.

A scene from the BBC's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series in which Arthur argues vegetarianism in a restaurant where the dish of the day cheerfully offers up parts of its own body.

An Every Frame a Painting video essay analysing how Edgar Wright creates visual comedy through framing, camera movement, editing, sound effects and music.

A short clip of Stephen Fry explaining the differences between American and British comedy. He attributes them to cultural attitudes such as optimism versus pessimism.

A short Fry and Laurie sketch in which a man returns from vacation to find his local police station has been privatized, with paid tiers of service. It satirizes privatization of public services.

Five hours of the late-night BBC Radio 4 Shipping Forecast, uploaded to mark its 150th anniversary. It can be used as sleep audio or to learn the sea areas named in the broadcast.

A Yes, Prime Minister scene in which Sir Humphrey shows how leading questions can make a poll produce either answer on national service.

Patrick Stewart on the BBC's Parkinson talk show talks humorously about going bald, how it affected his career and relationships, and how he came to accept it.

A short BBC clip in which David Attenborough shows a lyrebird imitating sounds, including camera shutters, car alarms and chainsaws. It comes from the BBC natural history series Life on Earth.

A BBC Earth clip from Inside the Animal Mind in which a crow named 007 solves an eight-step puzzle to get a reward. It showcases crow problem-solving.

A BBC Earth clip from The Hunt showing Portia jumping spiders, which leap many times their body length and ambush prey larger than themselves.

A BBC Weird Nature clip about vervet monkeys in the Caribbean that drink alcohol, and how they split into heavy drinkers, social drinkers and teetotalers.

A BBC Earth clip from Super Powered Owls in which the team uses sensitive sound equipment to compare owl flight with other birds. It shows why owls fly almost silently.

The BBC TV version of the Babel Fish passage from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with Ford and Arthur aboard a Vogon ship, narrated over the show's hand-drawn animated Guide entry.

A 2019 BBC News report by John Sudworth, who was given rare access to the secure facilities in Xinjiang where more than a million Muslims are thought to be held. Authorities call them training schools, and the report examines what the visit reveals about the system and conditions inside.

A 1979 BBC Nationwide report asking whether word processors and networked microprocessors could end office commuting. It shows early word processing and a woman working from home, with surprisingly prophetic predictions.

A BBC Earth clip from The Hunt showing an octopus species from northern Australia that leaves the water at low tide to hunt crabs on land.

A 1969 BBC Tomorrow's World segment about Nellie, a school computer used by pupils at Forest Grammar School to solve equations and play music. Students learn programming and maintenance, and act out binary arithmetic.

A BBC Politics Live interview in which Andrew Neil presses conservative commentator Ben Shapiro on his past statements and an incident involving Corey Lewandowski and a reporter. It is a tense, widely shared exchange.

A clip from BBC's Last Chance to See in which Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine meet Sirocco, a kakapo, who famously tries to mate with Carwardine's head. The kakapo is a critically endangered flightless New Zealand parrot.

Short BBC Earth clip from Life of Mammals in which David Attenborough shows orangutans imitating human behaviors like washing clothes with soap and using tools.

BBC Earth shows killer whales working as a pod to create waves that wash seals off ice floes, with the producer explaining how the crew captured behavior once thought a myth.

A BBC News clip of Putin pressing Russian foreign intelligence chief Sergei Naryshkin to speak clearly during a televised meeting on recognizing the rebel-held Ukrainian regions in February 2022.

A 1979 BBC Tomorrow's World segment where Michael Rodd tries an experimental British cordless mobile phone prototype.

A short satirical segment from Charlie Brooker's Newswipe that lampoons the formulaic conventions of television news reporting, from stock shots to filler street interviews and news-speak.

A Red Dwarf clip where Kryten fixes a toaster and finds it to be the most annoying machine in the universe, endlessly offering toast.

A Nathan For You sketch in which Nathan Fielder tackles customers' privacy fears at computer repair shops with an awkwardly absurd business solution. It is a comedy clip from the Comedy Central show.

A classic Yes, Minister sketch in which the Minister visits a brand-new, fully staffed hospital with no patients and demands that some be found.

Every Frame a Painting analyzes how Jackie Chan stages action comedy, with nine principles such as starting from a disadvantage, using the environment, clear shots, and keeping action and reaction in the same frame.

The BBC radio play adaptation of William Gibson's cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, running about two hours. It features professional voice acting, sound effects and music.

Mike of mikeselectricstuff shows his heavily modified old BBC Micro system in a 28-minute tour of 8-bit hardware archaeology.

A 1997 BBC documentary on Black Wednesday in 1992, when sterling was forced out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism. It covers the crisis from the British government side, including George Soros's trade and political mistakes.

Part one of a 1996 BBC Modern Times documentary on the training to become a London black cab driver. It follows candidates learning the Knowledge and facing stressful repeated exams with Public Carriage Office examiners.