27 August 2017

In Bed with Medinner - Making fun of psychic Les Driver and Cyrus


In Bed with Medinner was a 1990s late-night British TV programme starring Bob Mills. It is a precursor to the contemporary Harry Hill's TV Burp, Russell Brand's Ponderland and Paddy McGuinness's Paddy's TV Guide.

In Bed with Medinner was a London Weekend Television production for ITV. Stand-up comic Bob Mills specialised in a cynical view of life and its everyday objects, and in pastiches of popular culture icons.

The show was set in Mills' home, which was dressed to resemble the home of Number Six from The Prisoner and, in the final series, Steed's flat from The Avengers. The first three series opened with a parody of The Prisoner while the fourth and final series was re-titled Still In Bed With Medinner, and the opening sequence changed to be a parody of the classic Avengers Series Five title sequence.

Mills wanders around his flat (actually a studio set), telling ludicrous fictional anecdotes about his showbusiness friends and reminiscing about his (fictional) time as a television producer. These stories are illustrated by genuine clips from the ITV archives, which, interspersed with Mills' own heavily-contrived commentaries and bizarre non-sequiturs, come together to reveal surreal fictional backstories.

Featuring psychic Les Driver and "Cyrus!"