The First/Last TV Advert in the World (Jim Howick)

This is a short clip from Rob Newman's A History of The World Backwards. Rob always said this was a hard sketch to act. On his website it said this, "Here is Jim Howick in The World's Last Ever TV Advert. I thought this was the impossible sketch to act. (As soon as I wrote it I added to the stage directions in block caps THIS WILL NOT BE PLAYED BY ME) but Jim found a charismatic, nifty way to do it. If this sketch wasn't funny it would be video art and the British entry in the Venice Biennale. He steals a lot of scenes with his understated performances, leaving me flailing and raving on the edge of screen like a neglected vaudevillian baboon. But insodoing he had his revenge on me... Jim was on honeymoon in the Seychelles when the rest of us were rehearsing and he learnt lines for loads of sketches which I had cut or given to myself by the time he got back."