Rowley Birkin, QC (1918 – 2000) was a delightful fictional character played by Paul Whitehouse on the BBC’s The Fast Show from 1994 to 1997. A retired barrister, Birkin tells mostly unintelligible stories by the fireside. Occasionally his speech becomes coherent for a short while, when he utters strange phrases such as “The whole thing was made completely out of matchsticks.”, “Snake! Snake!”, or “Took it off below the knee.”, and he almost always ends his stories with a sly “I’m afraid I was very, very drunk!”. I have, for your delectation, added the ten of his stories that I’ve been able to find on the Internet to my new Rowley Birkin, QC page at The Sagacious Iconoclast. They’re about a minute and a half each. |
