The Brian Conley Show

Did You Know?

• In 10 Years of Telly Addicts (1994), Richard Lewis wrote that the show had been 'welcomed by traditionalists'.
• Repeats began on Granada Plus a few years later, stopped before that channel closed, and resumed on Rewind TV in January 2026.

Synopsis

The programme was commissioned after Conley's earlier series Brian Conley: This Way Up. It combined comedy, music, sketches and variety acts. The first two series were recorded at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley rather than a television studio, which gave the show a live atmosphere. Conley performed musical numbers, stand-up and sketches on sets wheeled onto the stage, often changing costume in front of the audience. For series three and four the show moved to The London Studios and adopted a new look; sketches were performed on a rotating platform that switched between different sets as it spun. Conley's trademark characters were either given their own set or were pre-recorded. Conley decided the fourth series would be the last, telling TV Times he wanted to pursue stage work. After he compered the 1999 Royal Variety Performance, the show returned in 2000 as a chat show, retaining Conley's opening stand-up and special guests but dropping sketches and characters. Some fans were unhappy, but the revival attracted guests such as Leslie Nielsen and Kathleen Turner. It ran for three series: series six aired on Fridays, and the seventh and final series returned to Saturdays.

Features

Most of Conley's characters were revived from This Way Up, with the exception of Septic Peg. All characters were dropped after the original series run and did not return for the 2000 revival. Nick Frisbee was a children's in-vision continuity presenter with a squirrel puppet sidekick, Larry the Loafer, operated by Ray Tizzard. The character mocked children's television presenters of the time who had puppet sidekicks; Larry was loosely based on Going Live's Gordon the Gopher and had a voice similar to Sweep from Sooty & Co. Nick was crude and often treated Larry harshly, hitting him with a club and reminding the audience 'it's a puppet!' He read out letters and poems from viewers with double-entendre names and showed spoof movie trailers. In the final episode, Larry dropped a studio light on Nick. 'Dangerous Brian' Conley was Conley's stuntman alter ego who performed stunts varying in danger and ludicrousness, often not performing them. From the second series, commentator John Sachs accompanied him and mocked him. Dangerous was occasionally joined by Nearly Dangerous Norris (played by Ray Tizzard), a scrawny helper in a pink costume who had no idea what he was doing. Septic Peg, introduced in series four, was an astrologist in sketches called Septic Peg Predicts, parodying Mystic Meg from the National Lottery draws. She made obvious predictions with her crystal ball, often giving funny looks to camera. Mystic Meg appeared as herself in Conley's 1996 special Alive and Dangerous.

Transmissions

A year after the series ended, Alive and Dangerous aired on ITV on 28 September 1996. This live special featured Conley's sketch characters, more songs and stand-up, and a performance as Al Jolson. It was released on VHS and DVD with extra material, though neither is currently in production. Crazy Christmas, broadcast on ITV on 23 December 1997, was an extended Christmas special with more sketches less reliant on his characters.