One series, 2011. Sitcom-cum-variety show, set backstage at a theatre; Dick & Dom play Dick and Dom, who run a comedy gig called Dick and Dom's Funny Business; all the scenes are set either in the green room, the theatre office, or on the stage (the Studio Audience play the theatre audience.) Other recurring characters are Kelly-Anne, the theatre owner's daughter, who has a crush on Dom; the usherettes; and two terrible would-be wrestlers who carry out a long-distance feud with Dick & Dom via video messages.
The acts who appear in the show-within-the-show are actual up-and-coming sketch troupes like Pappy's and the Penny Dreadfuls.
Every episode features a foolish scheme on the part of either Dick or Dom, and a special guest who must absolutely not hear of the shenanigans... Hilarity Ensues. Many, many homages and ShoutOuts to famous comedy routines and tropes- some of them contained in a “History of funny business” segment, which follows the Monty Python stage show “lecture on the history of custard pies” format, with “Subject A” (Dick) and “Subject B” (Dom) demonstrating slapstick routines while a voiceover explains the gag.
Tropes used in the show:
- Amusing Injuries: Mostly but not all in the History of Funny Business segment, caused by a Plank Gag, Banana Peel, Rake Take or The Pratfall. Kelly-Anne delivers the odd slap, too.
- Attractive Bent-Gender: Dick dresses as his twin sister, Dixie, in one episode; the special guest promptly falls in love with her. (Dick rather misses his sister at the end of the episode, so Dom dresses up as another sister to console him.)
- Candid Camera Prank (Phone Scam version): One of their guests is an impressionist, and phones them up in character as Davina Mc Call to catch them out in one of their schemes.
- Chekhov's Gun: It's fairly obvious when a bunch of mousetraps are introduced that someone will end up snapped...
- Clip Show: The last three episiodes of thirteen. There's a reasonable amount of original material in them, what with the frame stories (and some of the clips shown weren't included in the original episodes).
- Easy Amnesia: Dom loses his memory of how to put on a show and has to be reminded, in clip-show format.
- Merit Badges for Everything: The Cubs sketches- there is a “Building A Starship” badge and a “Cleaning My House” badge, among others.
- Mistaken for Gay: Kelly-Anne, passing garbled messages between the boys when they're not speaking, manages to conclude that they are in love.
- Running Gag: Each episode has
- Saving the Orphanage: Raising money to save Funny Business from being closed down by the theatre owner.
- Take That!: The first episode features Madonna's arm, as a gnarled, clawed thing grabbing for a baby.
