The BEST episodes directed by John Birkin

#1 - Brass

The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer - Season 1 - Episode 3

#2 - Cool, Cool Air

The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer - Season 1 - Episode 4

#3 - Water

The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer - Season 1 - Episode 2

#4 - Baywatch

French & Saunders - Season 5 - Episode 1

Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders return with a spoof of Baywatch and Helen Mirren desperately trying to reinvent herself.

#5 - Pulp Fiction

French & Saunders - Season 5 - Episode 5

More skits and sketches from Dawn and Jennifer, including a spoof of Pulp Fiction.

#6 - England Expects

Chef! - Season 2 - Episode 7

Gareth is invited to a cooking contest in France. He's forced to use English ingredients and needs English wine.

#7 - Muesli

The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer - Season 1 - Episode 5

#8 - Batman

French & Saunders - Season 5 - Episode 4

More comedy sketches from Dawn and Jennifer, with special guests the Krankies, Patsy Kensit, Patrick Barlow and Kate Moss.

#9 - Hang-Dry Clothes

The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer - Season 2 - Episode 4

Holiday antics with 1970s pop group Slade on a camping trip, and a special edition of MasterChef. Plus, the Bra Men take a walk around an art gallery and Bob gets stuck in a glass jar

#10 - Cheese

The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer - Season 2 - Episode 1

Comic duo Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer return with witty observations and wacky features, including an exploration of the link between voodoo and cottage cheese, and a unique edition of Stars in Their Eyes

#11 - Toddlers

The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer - Season 2 - Episode 3

Vic and Bob host another half-hour of the silly, outrageous and downright stupid, with the bald-headed Stott brothers appearing on This is Your Life, and dodgy councillors Cox and Evans brightening up the seafront at Aldington-on-Sea with celebrity litter bins.

#12 - Flight 709

The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer - Season 2 - Episode 6

Surreal shenanigans with Vic and Bob. Here, they survive an aircraft accident. Plus a special edition of CountryFile, and Slade have trouble with bees on their campsite.

#13 - Haircuts

The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer - Season 2 - Episode 2

Vic and Bob take a ride on a magic carpet, 1970s rockers Slade go camping, and easy-listening duo Mulligan and O'Hare feature on a special edition of The South Bank Show.

#14 - Private Lives

Chef! - Season 2 - Episode 6

Gareth has to spend the entire day sorting out the private lives of his staff.

#15 - Fog

The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer - Season 1 - Episode 6

#16 - Braveheart

French & Saunders - Season 5 - Episode 2

Skits and sketches from Dawn and Jennifer including a parody of Bjork and their unique version of Braveheart.

#17 - Muscles

The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer - Season 2 - Episode 5

Vic and Bob present more offbeat humour in their various guises. Councillors Cox and Evans put forward another of their outlandish proposals, the Bra Men get up to a bit of jiggery-pokery and Sting is invited to chat with Donald and Davey Stott

#18 - The Quick and the Dead

French & Saunders - Season 5 - Episode 6

Skits and sketches from Dawn and Jennifer, featuring a spoof of Western The Quick and the Dead, guest starring Lenny Henry.

#19 - Food and Drink

The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer - Season 1 - Episode 1

Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer bring us their hilarious spoof of the 1980s television cookery programme Food and Drink starring a very wide-eyed Oz Clarke!

#20 - Episode 5

Harry Enfield's Television Programme - Season 1 - Episode 5

What do you want to put this show out at this time of night for? You want a nice bit of golf or a bit of light operetta, that's what you want.

#21 - Episode 6

Harry Enfield's Television Programme - Season 1 - Episode 6

In the final show of the series everyone celebrates an early Christmas with all the trimmings and just a little sex and violence.

#22 - Yuletide Spirit

The Thin Blue Line - Season 1 - Episode 7

Goody buys Fowler a puncture repair kit and Habib some lingerie, but accidentally gives them the wrong presents, and matters are made more complicated when Dawkins believes the lingerie is a gift for her from Fowler.

#23 - The Green Eyed Monster

The Thin Blue Line - Season 2 - Episode 7

Inspector Fowler proposes to Sergeant Dawkins so as to help his chances for promotion, but his lack of sensitivity during the proposal prompts her to leave him instead. Fowler tries to find a new woman, but loses his interest when he hears that Dawkins is now with someone called "Toby."

#24 - Alternative Culture

The Thin Blue Line - Season 2 - Episode 4

Constable Habib finds her younger sister holding drugs during a drug raid in a rave club, and hides the drugs to protect her, but she is discovered and charged for withholding evidence. Fowler, unhappy with the injustice, does his best to protect Habib.

#25 - Time Flies

Chef! - Season 2 - Episode 2

Janice is late and tells Gareth she may be pregnant. The revelation sets off inquiries into the cost of private school and other child-related expenses. Janice and Gareth discuss bringing in outside investors for Le Chateau to ease their own burdens. Meanwhile, Gareth is working on perfecting a signature dish, Ouef le Chateau Anglais.

#26 - Come on You Blues

The Thin Blue Line - Season 2 - Episode 5

Gasforth Football Club is about to play Premiership team Chelsea, and Mayoress Wickham orders Fowler and his officers to personally see to it that nothing goes wrong in exchange for her recommending him for an MBE. However, things get complicated when the football players get up to no good.

#27 - Franco e Sandro

French & Saunders - Season 5 - Episode 3

Dawn and Jennifer present a parody of Federico Fellini's movies.

#28 - Personnel

Chef! - Season 1 - Episode 1

The premiere episode serves primarily to set up the series and introduce the main character, Gareth Blackstock, a master chef with an obsessive drive for culinary perfection, no friends or outside interests other than his wife Janice, and remarkable verbal talents used primarily to creatively abuse his unfortunate staff of assistant cooks, although he is perfectly prepared to give the same treatment to waiters, management, suppliers, bankers, and, occasionally, customers. As the show opens, Gareth is shown verbally lacerating his kitchen staff as ""easily the most bone-idle bunch of useless toe-rags I have ever encountered in any kitchen anywhere. You are sloppy, lazy, half asleep, late, and, at the moment, only giving about 12 1/2 per cent."" Gareth is then shown with the restaurant manager who insists that he must reduce his staff to save money. He replies that the staff is dedicated, superbly efficient, and already impossibly overworked and underpaid. Gareth announces he is quittin

#29 - Ism Ism Ism

The Thin Blue Line - Season 2 - Episode 2

Dawkins discovers circumstantial evidence of a domestically abused wife, Grim applies to join the Todgers, and Mayoress Christabel Wickham informs Fowler of the presence of an illegal immigrant in Gasforth. Fowler apparently solves the crimes, but soon realises that they seemed a little too easy.

#30 - Court in the Act

The Thin Blue Line - Season 2 - Episode 1

Grim and Boyle enlist the help of Fowler and his officers to search the home of a suspected drug-dealer, and Goody finds the drugs in the kitchen. But the too-obvious location, Boyle's discretion and Grim's uncomfortableness lead Fowler to believe something is going on behind the arrest.

#31 - Rice and Peas

Chef! - Season 1 - Episode 6

Gareth's father, who left the family when Gareth was a child and has never been close to him, stops by the restaurant. He makes fun of the French high cuisine style of Le Chateau and taunts Gareth into declaring a special 'Jamaican Cuisine' day. That's trouble because Gareth, although raised in Jamaica, is trained in European and particularly Franch gourmet cooking and doesn't actually know how to do Jamaican dishes. He is forced against his better judgment to turn to Everton, who has cooked in a family Jamaican takeout restaurant and knows the food. Everton helps Gareth prepare the Jamaican menu, but refuses to tell him the secret ingredient for his Uncle's famous dumplings, the mainstay of the family restaurant. Gareth's father stops by for the Jamaica Night at Le Chateau only to announce that he won't be eating there, but is going to a local curry house instead.

#32 - Do the Right Thing

Chef! - Season 2 - Episode 3

After an argument with a health inspector, Gareth goes with Everton and Janice to buy game birds from a poacher. After buying the birds, Gareth is stopped by a policeman. He is certain they are about to be arrested, but instead the policeman tells Gareth he can provide birds and other game animals at a lower price. A salmon Gareth buys from the policeman is tagged and traced to Le Chateau by a warden from the National Rivers Authority.

#33 - A River Runs Thru It

Chef! - Season 2 - Episode 1

Le Chateau is in desperate need of new personnel and Gareth stumbles upon the name of a chef he once ate at. He decides to visit him.

#34 - Honey Trap

The Thin Blue Line - Season 1 - Episode 3

After Fowler drunkenly admits to having kissed Habib during a pub quiz match, Dawkins begins to suspect the two of having an affair behind her back when Grim enlists Fowler and Habib's help in catching a criminal via entrapment.

#35 - Rag Week

The Thin Blue Line - Season 1 - Episode 4

It's Rag Week in Gasforth, and Fowler and his men are frequently disturbed by teenagers in scary masks – that is until a bank robbery by three men in rag masks occurs while Dawkins is there, leaving it uncertain whether or not the robbery is genuine.

#36 - The Queen's Birthday Present

The Thin Blue Line - Season 1 - Episode 1

It is the tenth anniversary of Fowler and Dawkins' relationship, but Fowler manages to forget, being instead more concerned with the Queen's Official Birthday.

#37 - Night Shift

The Thin Blue Line - Season 1 - Episode 5

Pestered by his ex-wife, Fowler reluctantly agrees to let his son Bill stay with him and Dawkins for a fortnight. When Dawkins overhears Bill making love to his girlfriend in the bedroom, she becomes envious and attempts to talk Fowler into going to see a sex therapist. Guest appearance by Sheila Gish.

#38 - Kids Today

The Thin Blue Line - Season 1 - Episode 6

Fowler and Grim clash over their views of handling juvenile troublemakers so they decide to take them on a retreat. Further tension arises when Goody punches a teenage skinhead for racially abusing Habib and is subsequently charged for assault.

#39 - Fly on the Wall

The Thin Blue Line - Season 2 - Episode 3

Fowler receives a letter from the BBC, who then come and make a fly on the wall documentary about Gasforth Police Station. Unfortunately, Grim convinces the officers, sans Fowler, that they are all going to become international television stars, prompting them all to undergo many changes to look "nice for the telly" and end up making fools of themselves in front of the cameramen until a farmer enters the station with a gun.

#40 - The Big Cheese

Chef! - Season 1 - Episode 4

Gareth is busy perfecting his salmon mousse to prepare for a visit to Le Chateau Anglais by celebrity chef and gourmet Albert Roux. At the same time, he is trying to find a source for unpasteurized stilton cheese. His search leads him to an encounter with the local police, when he learns that the farm where he found the cheese is also growing marijuana, and selling it to an employee at Le Chateau. Gareth assumes that Everton is the culprit, but discovers that his assumption was incorrect.

#41 - Subject to Contract

Chef! - Season 1 - Episode 3

Chef's plan to buy Le Chateau is stalled by inability to sell the house. A sentimental conversation about living in the house turns into an argument between Gareth and Janice when Janice finds out that Gareth remembers exactly what she ordered the night they first met in a restaurant but can't remember what she wore. The kitchen is in disarray when Everton loses a band-aid and thinks it might be somewhere in the food he's prepared. The purchase of the restaurant moves forward again after an article about the house in a local publication brings in new buyers.

#42 - Fire and Terror

The Thin Blue Line - Season 1 - Episode 2

Habib falls for a fireman named Gary, much to Goody's jealousy, while Fowler finds himself pestered frequently by a man who claims to have committed impossible, solved or extremely historical crimes, much to DI Grim's amusement, until a terrorist begins making threats that cause Special Branch to become involved.

#43 - Fame Is the Spur

Chef! - Season 1 - Episode 5

Gareth does interviews with journalists and agrees to have a documentary filmed in the kitchen to publicize the restaurant. When Everton accidentally releases some live crawfish, Gareth's vigorous and obscene rant is caught on film, drawing further media attention.

#44 - A Diploma of Miseries

Chef! - Season 2 - Episode 4

Janice arranges for Gareth to appear on a popular television chat show (talk show in American), whose host is a fan of Gareth's cooking. Gareth's remarks about her on the show leave Janice furious, and Gareth is forced to stay temporarily at Everton's apartment. Gareth makes up by having an apology to Janice broadcast on the show.

#45 - Episode 4

Harry Enfield's Television Programme - Season 1 - Episode 4

Another chance to meet a bunch of characters that you really wouldn't want to meet.

#46 - Episode 2

Harry Enfield's Television Programme - Season 1 - Episode 2

A comedy series with Harry Enfield and his new collection of characters.

#47 - Episode 3

Harry Enfield's Television Programme - Season 1 - Episode 3

Comedian Harry Enfield creates a collection of new characters viewers will grow to know, love and often wish to strangle.

#48 - Road Rage

The Thin Blue Line - Season 2 - Episode 6

Sergeant Dawkins leaves for a break with some nature-loving activists, but during this time, they get into a feud with the police for their extreme methods, forcing Dawkins to choose between their arrogant leader, Stallion, or Fowler.

#49 - Episode 1

Harry Enfield's Television Programme - Season 1 - Episode 1

A comedy series in which Harry Enfield creates a collection of new characters you will grow to know and love and may wish to strangle over the coming weeks.

#50 - Masterchef

Chef! - Season 2 - Episode 5

Everton makes a partridge terrine that is so good, Gareth has to put it on the menu. The chef of Le Chateau doesn't like it all that Everton's star is rising.