Alfresco is a British television series starring Robbie Coltrane, Ben Elton, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Siobhan Redmond and Emma Thompson, produced by Granada Television and broadcast by ITV from May 1983 to June 1984. Running for two series, it totalled 13 episodes and was named Alfresco (from the Italian al fresco, meaning "in the fresh air") because, unusually for a comedy sketch show of the time, it was shot on location rather than in a studio.

The programme is a sketch show which was scheduled as an answer to the BBC's highly successful Not the Nine O'Clock News. The main writer was Ben Elton, with Fry and Laurie receiving writing credits by the second series. Of the original team, Tony Slattery was supposed to join the cast for the three-part pilot There's Nothing To Worry About! in 1982, but accepted an offer from Chris Tarrant to join Saturday Stayback, his follow-up to O.T.T.

After There's Nothing To Worry About!, which featured Elton, Fry, Laurie, Redmond, Thompson and Paul Shearer and was shown in the Granada region only, a first series of Alfresco was commissioned, broadcast nationally and replacing Shearer with Robbie Coltrane. The third of the seven transmitted episodes in 1983 was in fact a compilation show of the pilot series, featuring some additional material.

Alfresco in English usually refers to eating outside (al fresco dining), but also may refer to:

A television program (usually television programme outside North America), also called television show, is a segment of content intended for broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series. A single program in a series is called an episode.

A television series that is intended to comprise a limited number of episodes is usually called a miniseries or serial. Series without a fixed length are usually divided into seasons or series, yearly or biannual installments of new episodes. While there is no defined length, US industry practice tends to favor longer seasons than those of some other countries.

A one-time broadcast may be called a "special", or particularly in the UK a "special episode". A television movie ("made-for-TV movie" or television film), is a film that is initially broadcast on television rather than released in cinemas or direct-to-video, although many successful TV movies are later released on DVD.

A program can be either recorded—as on video tape or other various electronic media forms—or considered live television.

series (singular/plural) may refer to anything of a serial form:

See also: sequence

James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE (born 11 June 1959), known as Hugh Laurie (/ˈhjuː ˈlɒri/), is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director. He first became known as one half of the Fry and Laurie double act, along with his friend and comedy partner Stephen Fry, whom he joined in the cast of Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster from 1987 to 1999.

From 2004 to 2012, he played Dr Gregory House, the protagonist of House, for which he received two Golden Globe awards, two Screen Actors Guild awards, and six Emmy nominations. As of August 2010, Laurie is the highest paid actor in a drama series on US television. He has been listed in the 2011 Guinness Book of World Records as the highest paid actor ever in a TV Drama—earning US$ 700,000 per episode in House—and for being the most watched leading man on television.

Laurie was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. The youngest of four children, Laurie has an older brother named Charles and two older sisters named Susan and Janet. He had a somewhat strained relationship with his mother, Patricia (née Laidlaw). His father, Ran Laurie, was a medical doctor who also won an Olympic gold medal in the coxless pairs (rowing) at the 1948 London Games.