With an opening shot of a bomb falling on a map of England, The Comic Strip Presents exploded on to our screens in 1982. Not since the satire boom of the 1960s, which launched the careers of Peter Cook, John Cleese et al, had a set of comics shaken up the status quo in such a manner. Unlike their (mostly) Oxbridge- educated 1960s counterparts the “alternative” comedians of the Comic Strip were angry subversives, working from outside the system. How ironic then, that, as the complete collection of The Comic Strip Presents films is released this week, those angry young people who formed the core of the group have blossomed into the comedy establishment.

It is hard to credit that French and Saunders, among others, began their career in a Soho strip club in 1980, where a collection of comedians put on a show financed by the theatrical impresario Michael White. Two years later the alternative comedians found a home on the “alternative channel”, Channel 4.

As a statement of intent, the appearance of the Comic Strip’s Five Go Mad in Dorset in Channel 4’s opening-night schedule was perfect. Five go Mad may have been a not-so-subtle parody of Enid Blyton’s tales, but it was also a sly dig at the sort of cuddly middle-class sitcom that had dominated the schedules for years — the likes of The Good Life and Terry and June. The Comic Strip Presents was an antidote to all that, a collection of self-contained social and political send-ups mixed with pastiches of films and TV styles filled with violent imagery and savage lines.

The group hit a peak in 1988 with The Strike, in which Alexei Sayle plays a miner-turned-scriptwriter whose tale of turmoil during the miner’s strike is hijacked by Hollywood. It won the Golden Rose at the Montreaux Festival. Everyone wanted a piece of the action and the likes of Emma Thompson and Kathy Burke popped up in various episodes.

Alternative or established, though, the vital thing now is whether they are still funny — thankfully, they are.

The Comic Strip Presents: The Complete Collection 1982-2000 is out on Monday

1. PETER RICHARDSON & NIGEL PLANER
The driving force behind the group’s move to TV, Richardson starred in most of The Comic Strip Presents . . . as well as writing and directing many of them. His other work has included directing Eddie Izzard on stage and the popular Stella Street on TV, starring the occasional Comic Strip star Phil Cornwell. On stage he formed one of the three partnerships at the heart of the group with Planer, who is still best known as the hippie Neil in The Young Ones, a show that was greenlit by the BBC after the success of the first The Comic Strip Presents on Channel 4, and of course also starred Planer’s fellow Strippers Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson.

2. RIK MAYALL & ADRIAN EDMONDSON
The second comic partnership in the group who took the violent antics of Rik and Viv from The Young Ones and transformed them into an artform as Richie and Eddie in Bottom, a TV series that has been turned into a very successful stage show. Separately, Mayall became one of the biggest TV stars of the 1980s, thanks to his role as Alan B’Stard in the award-winning The New Statesman. Edmondson has fared less well, last seen on Comic Relief’s Fame Academy and quite often in the shadow of his wife, Jennifer Saunders.

3. JENNIFER SAUNDERS & DAWN FRENCH
The third double-act has proved to be the most successful, both as a pair with their sketch show and separately in sitcom land. Saunders has gained most acclaim for her creation Absolutely Fabulous, while French’s The Vicar of Dibley was (mystifyingly) voted Britain’s third-best sitcom in a BBC poll. A sure sign of their appeal is the annual presence of at least one of their shows in the Christmas schedules. Not to be outdone by Saunders, French also has a comedian husband, Lenny Henry, who played one the finest Comic Strip characters — Steve “Zoo, Zoo, Off Come My Pants” Wild in the 1990 show Oxford.

4. ALEXEI SAYLE & ROBBIE COLTRANE
The seventh member of the stage act was a late-comer to the TV series. Sayle first appeared in The Strike, in the same year as he got his own series, Stuff, on the BBC. It was his absence, however, that opened the way for a friend of Mayall’s to take part — Coltrane. The Scotsman is the one Stripper to rival French and Saunders for popularity, but as much for his straight acting work as comedy. His role as the police psychologist Fitz in the ITV series Cracker was a huge hit and he has been in countless films, including The Pope Must Die — directed by none other than Peter Richardson.

5. KEITH ALLEN
“I am nothing to do with the Comic Strip,” claimed Allen in 1993, despite his huge part in its success, particularly writing and starring in The Yob (1988). This outsider status probably wasn’t helped by his Vindaloo — the alternative 1998 World Cup Song.

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