Don’t miss a rare second chance to see Michael Palin in BAFTA nominated drama, The Wipers Times, tonight on BBC2
Tonight BBC2 offers viewers a rare opportunity to watch 2014-BAFTA nominated comedy drama, The Wipers Times. Written by Have I Got News For You star Ian Hislop and celebrated cartoonist Nick Newman the single feature-length drama airs tonight at 9pm on BBC2.
The Wipers Times tells the uplifting true story of a group of British soldiers who stumbled across a working printing press while stationed in Ypres in Belgium during the First World War. They decide to have a little fun with the misery of their hellish predicament… but not everyone approved!
The 90 minute drama is a who’s who of British male comedy actors, most notably Monty Python adventurer Michael Palin, Green Wing’s Julian Rhind-Tutt, Game On star Ben Chaplin and W1A’s Hugh Skinner. The impeccable Emilia Fox (Silent Witness) also stars.
Tragic and comic in turns, The Wipers Times, was the brainchild of Ian Hislop, who explained:
“If you watch the film and you think we’ve made it up, we won’t have, it’ll be true!
“They were incredible. To think in the middle of it all they were sitting there writing jokes and then printing them up, under fire, is just amazing.
“Nick and I both work on a satirical newspapers now. The truth is that theirs, written in 1916 in the trenches, was funnier and much harder to do.”
The Wipers Times also marked comedy cult hero Michael Palin’s first return to a comedy role in 22 years when it first aired in 2013
