While working on early 70s single-parent comedy And Mother Makes Three, Lane met Bafta-winning actor Wendy Craig, who went on to star in Butterflies from 1978 to 1983.
Last summer, when Universal Pictures first previewed "Meet the Parents," a comedy about a father who opposes his daughter's choice of a boyfriend, audiences gave it high scores.
This is the set of "Meet the Parents," a comedy being filmed for release this fall by Universal Pictures (domestically) and DreamWorks (internationally).
This may all true to Davies' life, but it's insufficiently different from dozens of other comedy parenting routines.
He said: "They would like to see a married couple that acts like they love each other, warts and all, children who respect the parenting, and the comedy of people who make mistakes".
And in the sequel to the parents-versus-students comedy, they still generate plenty of laughs.
"Meet the Parents," the Robert De Niro comedy that helped spark the year-end rally, finished fifth.
Prenuptial jitters and the paranormal, two staples of pop culture narratives, are coupled uneasily in "Sex Lives of Our Parents," a new comedy by Michael Mitnick at the McGinn Cazale Theater as part of the Second Stage Theater's uptown series.
The arrangement passes for entertainment, from the Fox sitcom "Free Ride," about a college graduate who moves back in with his parents, to the comedy "Failure to Launch," starring Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker, about a 35-year-old man who never left home.
So all hail the Roundabout Theater Company for bringing Mr. Izzard and his priceless helpmate, Victoria Hamilton, to New York in their roles as lovingly mismatched parents who use comedy to cope with tragedy.
