ACMI would like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waterways of greater Melbourne, the people of the Kulin Nation, and recognise that ACMI is located on the lands of the Wurundjeri people.

First Nations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) people should be aware that this website may contain images, voices, or names of deceased persons in photographs, film, audio recordings or text.

Annual Appeal 2025

Keep ACMI the home of great cinema – donate by June 30.

Find out more

Funny business

United Kingdom, 1992

TV show
Please note

Sorry, we don't have images or video for this item.

Rowan Atkinson knows his rubber face and gangly limbs are his tools of trade. The exaggerated gestures, tortured twitch of an eyebrow or deadpan expression guaranteed the phenomenal success of “Not the Nine O’Clock News”, “Black Adder” and “Mr. Bean”. There is however an art to being funny, and as mime artist Kevin Bartholomew (dressed in a lime green skin-tight body suit) the amazing rubber-faced one shows us, along with fellow comedy masters including John Cleese and Peter Sellers, that there is comedy potential in every part of the human anatomy.

Content notification

Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.

Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.

How to watch

This work has not been digitised and is currently unavailable to view online. It may be possible for approved reseachers to view onsite at ACMI.

Learn more about accessing our collection

Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

director

David Hinton

producer

Sarah Williams

production company

Tiger Television

Duration

00:50:00:00

Production places
United Kingdom
Production dates
1992

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

305174

Language

English

Audience classification

PG

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Colour

Holdings

VHS; Access Print (Section 1)

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/83899--funny-business/ |title=Funny business |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=13 June 2025 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}