Also:
- It's Saturday Night
- 2. An autograph before you go
- 3. A new kind of game show
- 4. A rising exasperation with the quantity of dirt
- 5. The whole thing suddenly fell apart
- 6. Synthetic propensity
- 7. It was destined to be an anti-climax
- 8. This is your show now
- 9. The awesome scale of our wastefulness
- 10. Hands up those who couldn't care less
- 11. Together We’ll Be Ok
- 12. Decide the shape of ITV in the 1980s
- 13. Alan is too commercial
- 14. It worked like a dream
- 15. Older men, doing school boy tricks
- 16. Killing the Golden Goose
- 17. People love us to be sexy
- 18. The manure is worth more than the cattle
- 19. They were big in the States and we noted that
- 20. I’m still aggressive and I’m still handing out the insults
- 21. A new style of lunatic humour
- 22. The Habitat-bean-bag-hessian-wallpaper brigade
- 23. Thoroughly sinful
- 24. All carrots should be scraped, sliced and cooked
- 25. Back then it was radical stuff
- 26. Whatever they do, we can do it better
- 27. You'll have to take us as you find us
- 28. Entertainment that keeps on the move
- 29. It's the public that has to pay
- 30. The last we saw of either of them was their sad faces
- 31. Just shoot the bastard
- 32. Britain could clearly be facing its darkest hour
- 33. Any enthusiasm we may have had for continuing discussions is waning
- 34. It was considered by LWT and then put in a bottom drawer
- 35. Watch the redoubtable Terry take off
- 36. I thought it might be terrible and I wouldn’t enjoy it at all
- 37. Kamikaze Mastermind
- 38. We haven’t moved into luxury
- 39. We are investing in people
- 40. Delivered impeccably
- 41. He has to allow you to do your bit
- 42. All the anticipation of the great emotive point
- 43. If you want Russ Abbot to do it, then you have to accept me and my ideas
- 44. Let’s get straight into this
- 45. Unedifying Greed
- 46. We’ve got the fucking lot!
- 47. Scope for humour and danger
- 48. Pure Megablast
- 49. There’s lots of killing, but not much else
- 50. I wanted to make sure it was going to be disastrous
- 51. Oh dear – Auntie’s playing bingo!
- 52. A Shrivelled Little Thing
- 53. I shouldn’t have accepted it
- 54. We would be the spoilsports
- 55. The Most Sexless Person In Television
- 56. They’d have strung me up if I hadn’t chosen him
- 57. Is there some way to play with the internal constituent parts?
- 58. The most important entertainment programme of my time
- 59. The plumply pretty female duo
- 60. The audience just sort of started to freeze on him
- 61. More pilots than British Airways
- 62. There's going to come a time when you'll have to go to the BBC
- 63. A slightly pretentious manifesto
- 64. Things Look Very Precarious
- 65. It’s no good doing all the same old people all the time
- 66. That’s just not funny Bobby, it's corny - just don’t do that
- 67. Well bottom’s not funny
- 68. We Are The Funnymen
- 69. The powers that be listened to Denis
- 70. Stretchers never go up stairs
- 71. I was in obscurity until this series
- 72. I don’t care if he doesn’t like me
- 73. There’s such a passion for nostalgia right now
- 74. I Heard A Seat In The Stalls Go ‘Gerdonk!'
- 75. This is your show, folks, and I do mean you
- 76. There’s good news for perplexed fans of 3-2-1!
- 77. Taking on Blind Date would be a real challenge
- 78. You wanna bet on it?
- 79. The yarns worked their tried and tested magic
- 80. The Charge-And-Shout Brigade
- 81. I sat for a moment in silence, then turned in my chair and left the stage
- 82. We just weren't allowed into UK terrestrial television
- 83. Beadle’s A Prick
- 84. The interviewer always has to know when it's best to keep his or her mouth shut
- 85. Can you come up with a good solution for the Murder Weekend mystery?
- 86. He's not a goody- goody hero
- 87. The Sexism, The Dolly Birds, The Catchphrases
- 88. The feel of Saturday night
- 89. 1990 Who would employ an ex-alky with lowered self-esteem
- 90. It were a right smack in the face
- 91. Look Straight Into My Eyes And Everything Will Be Alright, That's A Promise
- 92. That's the last thing I was expecting, Jim
- 93. The characters and situations are real
- 94. Oh Man, There Go All My Women Fans
- 95. A Double Order of Talent
- 96. If there is an air of spontaneity about it, it’ll be genuine
- 97. NTV brings you ... empty rooms!
- 98. You’re BBC, you shouldn’t be here
- 99. If this doesn’t work out, we’re both snookered!
- 100. The humour of Beadle comes through humiliating people!
- 101. To allow such bilge on TV is an insult to the audience
- 102. Like a cup of cold sick
- 103. A litre of gin, ecstasy and crack cocaine
- 104. A reliable tent pole for Saturday evenings
- 105. It is in the cutlery drawer
- 106. Welcome to the new Saturday night
- 107. Congratulations, you have got the fucking Gen Game
- 108. The programme has done extremely badly and will be dropped after this series
- 109. Building the excitement and tension to a crescendo
- 110. He gives us our spirit of unity; we’d all like to strangle him
- 111. The worst programme currently on terrestrial television
- 112. I award the city state of Milton Keynes 100 credits!
- 113. There’s nothing that makes people scream, ‘Did you see that?’
- 114. It was of a standard frankly well below what the public would want
- 115. Waxing An Ape Is My Ambition
- 116. Don’t Get Mad, Get Even
- 117. The penalty shoot-out is the greatest ever endgame
- 118. 200 black boxes are strapped to the back of a cross-section of the nation
- 119. Better For You, Better For All Of Us
- 120. I mean who on earth thought that was a good idea?
- 121. I’m sure the tune was in there somewhere
- 122. This Time, You Decide
- 123. King of trash, that’s me
- 124. It’s about rejection now
- 125. They lost what Popstars was all about
- 126. Win the ads
- 127. A name in search of a series
- 128. Getting grief from the papers
- 129. I’m so pleased to be back on television
- 130. Saturday nights haven't been this interesting for 10 years
- 131. It’s the Usual Nonsense
- 132. The trip of a lifetime
- Epilogue: Why Haven't You Written a Series of Articles on Tuesday Night Telly?
|
1991 remains a pivotal year in the history of Saturday night television. It was the last time various genres of television would find themselves a regular Saturday night slot, and many veteran entertainers made their final bows. It would also see the first flowering of a number of successful series that would go on to dominate the weekend schedules over the decade.
Comedy was one genre that seemed to disappear from the Saturday schedules in 1991. ‘Allo ‘Allo began its seventh series – and fourth on Saturday nights – in January, but this was to be the last in this slot. It could be argued that the show was probably past its peak – not least thanks to an ill-advised attempt to sell the programme to America in 1988 that saw one series expanded to a mind-boggling 26 episodes and so remain on air for six months. David Croft, the programme’s original producer and co-writer with Jeremy Lloyd, had also left, with Paul Adam now collaborating on the scripts with Lloyd. Two more series did follow in 1992, but on Sunday and Monday nights, respectively.
Sketch comedy was also in serious decline. Little and Large were clinging on to a BBC slot by the skin of their teeth, after the corporation publicly announced it was axing the series in 1990 – only to change its mind. Despite this rather undignified pondering over Syd and Eddie’s future, the new series was still broadcast in their familiar Saturday evening slot come March 1991. There was, however, a rather obvious budget cut and the programme was cut from 35 to 30 minutes. It was not a success and when the run finished in April, the BBC decided to pull the show for good. Oddly, after this was announced, the BBC still ran repeats of their 1990 series on Friday evenings during the summer months – and given each episode featured a musical act performing their current single, it made the whole thing look incongruous. Come the end of August, though, the duo had made their final appearance in their own show on the BBC after an incredible 13 years on peak time Saturday nights.
The comedy sketch show had been a staple of BBC1’s Saturday night schedules for some two decades and there was still considered to be some mileage in the format. In 1991 a brand new series was commissioned. Well, almost. Though You Gotta Be Jokin’ was announced as a new show, it was virtually a continuation of Something For The Weekend, launched in June 1989, with sketches from a team including Susie Blake, Mike Hayley, future C4 Head of Comedy Caroline Leddy and Opportunity Knocks winner Mike Doyle. The show failed to catch on, but was brought back in 1990 as Up To Something– now on a Monday night and with a changed cast, with only Mike Hayley surviving and joined this time by Shane Richie, Frances Dodge and, most notably, future Day Today participant David Schneider. Further eye-opening names in the credits, included Richard Herring and Armando Iannucci, who both contributed scripts a year before On The Hour.
You Gotta Be Jokin’ was yet another attempt to find a permanent sketch team, this time with the show back on Saturday nights. Again, there were wholesale cast changes, with only Shane Richie surviving from the previous incarnation, alongside George Marshall, Billy Pearce, Maddi Cryer (no stranger to this slot, having appeared regularly on Little and Large’s final series) and Annette Law. The BBC rather overdid the hype in their publicity for the show, announcing it starred “five young performers, appearing on television for the first time” – not quite true. It also said the show would feature “fast standup comedy, with a generous helping of characters, a large portion of impressions and a double order of talent”. Each programme began with the team sliding down a fireman’s pole and delivering a one-liner or impression – a sequence forever imprinted in the minds of those who saw it. There were also solo spots, with Richie essaying characters such as the Westcountry metal fan Snakebite, and Marshall showing off his skills as an impressionist, notably in recurring sketches detailing the latest releases from Beeb Records.
However You Gotta Be Jokin’ couldn’t help but look out of place at a time when alternative comedy was fast becoming the mainstream, and after one series under this name the entire venture was scrapped, and the cast went their separate ways. Of the quintet only Shane Richie went on to future success, although Billy Pearce continued to find work on stage and in the clubs. Seven days after the series ended came the start of another run of The Les Dennis Laughter Show. Les had tried hard to move his act forward, including impressions of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Phillip Schofield and – a brave choice for Saturday night – Terry Christian in his portfolio. The following month, Dennis’ sidekick Lisa Maxwell also landed her own, very similar sketch show, this time on Thursday nights. Yet neither programme made it to another series and, come the autumn, Les’ mentor Russ Abbott also found his career hitting the rocks. Times had changed since the BBC lured him from LWT in 1986, and in September 1991 his final series was broadcast not on Saturday, but Friday evenings. The BBC failed to renew his contract, claiming his style of humour was no longer relevant for a modern audience. Come 1992, there was no comedy sketch show in the Beeb’s Saturday schedules for the first time in well over a decade.
Next Monday: If there is an air of spontaneity about it, it’ll be genuine
'Allo 'Allo, Annette Law, Billy Pearce, Caroline Leddy, David Croft, David Schneider, Frances Dodge, Frontpage!, George Marshall, It's Saturday Night, Jeremy Lloyd, Little and Large, Maddi Cryer, Mike Doyle, Mike Hayley, Shane Richie, Something for the Weekend, Susie Blake, You Gotta Be Jokin'
Glenn Aylett
July 20, 2019 at 2:25 pm
I always felt sorry for Russ Abbott, his show was still quite amusing, but the BBC did what it always did to a show they considered past its sell by date( see Doctor Who and Tomorrows World), show it opposite Coronation St. Back in 1991, when the soap had 18 million viewers, poor old Russ would be lucky to get 3 million viewers and this gave the BBC an excuse to sack him.
Little and Large I had less sympathy for when they were axed. Their routine had barely changed since the seventies, most people found them completely unfunny and their humour was predictable and obvious. ( One sketch I remember is when Syd buys an A reg car, supposedly from 1983, and turns up in a 1963 A plate car, even more obvious than a Tim Vine two liner). I’m surprised BBC1 in the Michael Grade era, when the station seemed to improve massively from the Alan Hart era, didn’t take an axe to them in 1986.
richardpd
July 20, 2019 at 10:51 pm
I also was a bit put out when Russ Abbott was dropped by the BBC, & his follow up show on ITV & acting parts didn’t really recapture the same vibe.
I did wonder if Little and Large had a reprieve after the premature death of Dustin Gee left the BBC with a void for a comedy duo.
I know the Laughter continued with just Les Dennis, but it always felt a little wanting, while talented Les seemed to need a comic foil like Dustin or Russ Abbott to get the best out of him.
Glenn Aylett
July 21, 2019 at 11:55 am
Little and Large probably kept going as The Two Ronnies announced their retirement in 1986 and the BBC didn’t have another mainstream comedy duo( French and Saunders were still too leftfield for Saturdays). However, it’s amazing 11 million people watched their shows as almost everyone I knew considered Little and Large to be juvenile and unfunny.
Also another duo that I don’t think have been mentioned on this feature, who succeeded Morecambe and Wise on the BBC and had three series in the late seventies were Lennie Bennett and Jerry Stevens. Barely remembered now, they were promoted as the new Morecambe and Wise and given a prime slot on Saturday nights. Problem was the duo didn’t really jell and their double act was flat, and Lennie Bennett decided to jump ship to host game shows on ITV, where he became a major success. Last I heard, Jerry Stevens was organising charity golf events.
richardpd
July 21, 2019 at 12:40 pm
I get the impression that Little & Large were almost conscious of playing up the “so bad it’s good” aspect of some of their sketches.
Especially when Eddie would dress up as a pop star & try to fool Syd.
Glenn Aylett
July 21, 2019 at 3:04 pm
I think they aimed their comedy at children and family audiences who wanted clean, unsophisticated comedy. Obviously it worked for Little and Large, as they had a peak time show on BBC One, which was often repeated in the summer, and in the early eighties could attract 14 million viewers. Yet changing tastes later on in the decade and an act that was becoming dated, not to mention being derided by television critics, saw Syd and Eddie fall out of favour and audience figures tailed off.
Lenny Bennett and Jerry Stevens seem to be the forgotten double act who emerged around the same time as Little and Large. When they were given their big break in 1978, the BBC lavished money on them, with the show featuring an orchestra, resident dancers and big name guests. Yet since the two didn’t seem to work together very well and their jokes were obvious and a bit weak, viewers lost interest and their two subsequent series suffered from budget cuts and shorter running times and Lennie Bennett called time on the partnership in 1980 and left the BBC.
THX 1139
July 22, 2019 at 12:50 am
Man, you really have it in for Little and Large, Glenn! Did they nick your car back in the 80s or something?! Probably did an impersonation of it, too.