Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 7.4

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 7.4
Channel Four
18 August 1995
Improv Game Show
VHS
C+

Ah, so I do have Caroline's Whose Line debut after all.  The best thing here is probably Helping Hands, where Richard seems unsure whether he's going to provide piano accompaniment to Ryan-Colin's lounge singer act, although it's also fun to see the Press Conference where Tony's head has been attached to a dog.

Room 101: Caroline Quentin

Room 101: Caroline Quentin
Channel Four
15 September 1995
Talk Show
DVD
B

I was going to go with a B- on this, but the closing clip of a horribly choreographed '60s rendition of "Dancing in the Streets" bumped it up.  Poor Caroline gets only one item (rats) into the Room, but it is interesting to know that she was in the chorus of the first cast of Les Miserables, and that her then hubby Paul Merton was bad at gift-giving.  (The Teasmade does not make it into the Room either, but it is nice to finally see one after Tony Slattery referred to the product on an early Whose Line Is It Anyway? episode.)

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 7.9

Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Episode 7.9
Channel Four
22 September 1995
Improv Game Show
VHS
C+

The best game here, not necessarily the funniest but the one showing the most talent, is Josie and Caroline's love duet about a beached whale.  The two old friends are affectionate there and in their FATS.  (Quentin will still married to Paul Merton at this point by the way, but Paul was long gone from WLIIA and so they'd never work together on this programme.)

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.5

Merton and Quentin

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 2.5
Channel Four
1 October 1993
Sketch Comedy
DVD
C+

The best sequence here comes last, with Quentin as a chanteuse as Merton floats by using special effects.  John Woodnutt, who had played Sir Watkyn Bassett on Jeeves and Wooster, is Lord Coatbridge here.  Robert Harley, Ben Miller, Kathryn Pogson, and Bill Thomas return.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.4

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.4
Channel Four
16 October 1991
Sketch Comedy
DVD
B-

This episode gets a little too Monty-Pythonic for my tastes (more surreal than funny), especially the first half, with its layers of dreams, ultimately dreamed by a cat.  Still, the newstand stuff, especially Paul's video game and the bit about the first Tube station, is solid.  The best sketch is last, where Paul is a bishop admonishing a dead-raising priest.  (He's played by Lee Simpson, who you may recognize from his Whose Line Is It Anyway? appearance.  He didn't work with Paul there, but they've been Comedy Store Players onstage for years.)

Geoff McGivern makes his second appearance on the show, as the Elephant Man, while this is also the second for Judy Elrington and Tim de Jongh.  William Todd Jones is on for the first of two times.  Note that this time Caroline plays the wife of one of Paul's characters.

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.2

Paul Merton, The Series: Episode 1.2
Channel Four
2 October 1991
Sketch Comedy
DVD
C+

This just isn't as funny as the initial episode, with the best line, about Paul "disturbing" a burglar by saying there's no God, early on.  Paul's then wife, Caroline Quentin, plays Dr. Gillespie.  Tim de Jongh would return for the fourth episode.

Josie: Episode 1.3

The Masterson Inheritance

Josie: Episode 1.3
Channel Four
15 May 1991
Variety
DVD
C+

Besides Lawrence and Vranch, this episode is notable for featuring two other Whose Line Is It Anyway? performers: Neil Mullarkey and Caroline Quentin.  The latter was then married to Paul Merton and would later work with Merton, Lawrence, and others on the sometimes hilarious radio programme The Masterson Inheritance.  (Her WLIIA appearances would be after Paul left.)  Mullarkey and Quentin appear in easily the best sequence on this episode: a '60s parody of Georgy Girl and that ilk, called Fab.