Read Daniel Skora’s review of “Heroes of British Comedy II”
It is, after all, England that we’re talking about, the country across the pond that with all the king’s horses and all the king’s men still couldn’t control that ragtag bunch of colonists who went on to thumb their noses at the men in red, declaring their independence in the process. The British are different from us, indeed, and that difference extends not only to what they think is funny, but how they respond to what they think is. They wheeze, they chortle, they giggle and guffaw. They chuckle, they snicker, they titter and snort. But laugh out loud with a belly shaker like Santa Claus? No Way. Picture Charles Coburn, with his monocle and rumpled suit, who may have been born American but came across in the movies as more British than most of the Brits.