It’s now a quarter of a century since the twin kings of US late night television, Carson and Letterman, had their best efforts swiped and synthesised into a programme of such dazzling innovation and bankable excitement the like of which British viewers would not have seen before.
Then the offcuts from this programme, which British viewers have still not seen, were tarted up and turned into The Last Resort.
But even though 25 summers have since passed, that show is still the best thing Jonathan Ross has done on television.
It also takes no great presence of mind to state it is the best thing he will EVER do on television.
Let’s revisit it now, in an entirely non-arbitrary fashion, dictated solely by which clips are available online.
To kick off, here’s a visibly nervous Jonathan getting good “guest” (a phrase we don’t think exists, and if it does it shouldn’t) courtesy of an on-form Terry Gilliam, who dominates the set. Which isn’t hard, given said set is approximately the size of one of the Channel 4 Daily’s world news bureaux.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ibnksGjAOk
Next, some great stuff with an admirably up-for-it Rick Astley, plus someone wearing a Spycatcher T-shirt. Warning: contains RIVRON.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oPwTBr-l_o
This clip of Macca, wearing a bin man’s jacket while rocking his way through Lawdy Miss Clawdy, boasts the full end credits of an episode, wherein we see that Jonathan’s guests that night were Robbie Coltrane, Harry Enfield, The Great Kovari (was there anything they didn’t rob off Letterman?), The Norwich Majorettes (presumably for an uproarious “edgy” skit) and Meg Ryan. And is that the future Mrs Deayton we spy on script duties?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OQTO67dfY8
Here’s one of the show’s most talked-about moments (in retrospect, that is; very little was talked about The Last Resort when it was actually on the air). An added treat* comes in the shape of a homemade Dr Who-themed ident from whoever uploaded the clip. *It isn’t.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVh_HaA6RhU
Another set-piece “gag” next. We think the background to this was Jonathan purporting to “miss” interviewing George Harrison while some technical fault contrived to keep viewers watching something else, hence this on-air race to a nearby pub to quiz The Quiet One over a dry sherry while John Peel for some reason looks on. “So what went wrong with Shanghai Surprise?” “We just got the wrong director, the wrong producer, and the wrong actors.”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyNYghQJUI8
Here’s a short trailer for the series that began in February 1988, where in Jonathan also tries to “sell” us the excitement that is the Seoul Olympics on Channel 4. Note the dusty schedule-filler C4 is flinging out in the name of “alternative” afternoon entertainment. Warning: contains more RIVRON.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GPLAkOZF0w
Finally, a clip from the very last Last Resort in December 1988, with an atypically compliant Peter Cook. The secret of Pete’s success? “Independent wealth and blackmail.”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di36Hq9HNcw
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NED SHERRIN-led roundtable arts discussion pot-pourri which initially threw together unlikely combinations of semi-regulars including Stephen Fry (as ‘Dr Donald Trefusis’), John Walters, Richard Jobson, Emma Freud, Craig Charles, Samantha Fox, Jonathan Ross, Pip Dann, Robert Elms, Carol Thatcher, Alan Bennett, and anyone else who could throw together three or four words on the popularity of EastEnders or the latest Mike Leigh film, while over in the corner Victor Lewis-Smith fired off breakneck speed tape-wind-festooned listener-scaring reports on whatever took his fancy. Caused several unexpected outrages, not least over Fry’s celebrated rant about ‘parent power’, Elms shouting at someone who sniffed at graphic novels, and Lewis-Smith’s accidental invention of the ‘Master Bates, Seaman Staines and Roger The Cabin Boy’ myth. Still going under the watchful eye of Clive Anderson but, with most of its oddball regulars long since gone, largely degenerated into PR puff-piece parking lot for anyone with a book to plug.
UTTERLY INSANE technologically regressive courting of the ‘moaner’ listenership launched amidst much ‘back to basics’ Classic Rock hoo-hah on 30th April 1993, promising some kind of revolutionary exploding of the way we listen to radio, which turned out to involve little more than ‘quallidy music’ by the likes of Eric Clapton and Simply Red, toted by the sort of presenters who’d recently been thrown out on their ear by Radio 1, and all of it in glorious Medium Wave Muffle-O-Sound. Drew spectacular fire from the likes of Danny Baker, Chris Morris and Terry Christian, and became something of a laughing stock until a BBC-fleeing Chris Evans bought out a hefty wedge of the company and installed himself on Breakfast, with loads of voluble ‘rising media star’ chums (Jonathan Ross, Gail Porter etc) in tow, when its stock rose a little. Now renamed Absolute Radio and seemingly solely concerned with capturing Razorlight in ever more advanced states of ‘live’.
SHORT-LIVED gap in the market-spotting from one Richard Branson, offering an overnight ‘sustain service’ for those impoverished local commercial stations that had to shut down at bedtime, with the exciting and new likes of Ruby Wax, Jonathan Ross and, erm, Steve ‘Interesting’ Davis entertaining late-night listeners (usually with one Chris Evans in the producer’s chair). Ground to a halt when purchasers realised they could save money and fill the gap by paying some eager-to-please newcomer next-to-nothing to present a ‘Love Zone’ made up of that Dan Fogleberg record and requests for ‘Jenny listening in Stockport there’.
THEN little more than ‘That Bloke Off The Last Resort’ roped in to do holiday cover on the more irreverent shows (normally Janice Long’s), eventually promoted to his own big-budget effort broadcast live from Ronnie Scott’s with a studio audience and Victor Lewis-Smith and Danny Baker in tow. Odd tendency towards featuring live bands with a distinctly visual flavour, including on one occasion pyrotechnic-crazy rhino-headed bafflements GWAR.
Blue Peter
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