Much of the information in the this guide is taken from the 'The Radio Times Guide to Television Comedy' by Mark Lewisohn. Also thanks to the I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again website, the books of Kim "Howard" Johnson and Robert Ross, SOTCAA's Mike and Joe, Sir Kobble, the BBC website, all the other websites, and everyone who's sent in tapes.
All the Pythons wrote for David Frost's The Frost Report, but it was John Cleese who experienced the most success from it, first gaining notice as a performer appearing in sketches for the show. He was recognized on the street after this show, leading to starring roles on At Last the 1948 Show and of course Monty Python. This special 10-minute compilation features sketches from the show featuring John Cleese. With Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett.
All this material is available as part of the BBC Records 2-cassette set "John Cleese at the Beeb," part of "The Golden Skits of Muriel Volestrangler."
I'M SORRY I'LL READ THAT AGAIN
BBC Radio Series, 1964-1973. 25th Anniversary Special recorded 1989.
Starring and mainly written by: Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graeme Garden, David Hatch, Jo Kendall, Bill Oddie
Endlessly long-running old BBC radio comedy standby, starring John Cleese along with Tim Brooke-Taylor (who also appears in At Last the 1948 Show and How to Irritate People), Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie, the team who would later create the popular TV series The Goodies.
The first shows developed from material written for Cambridge Circus, a university stage revue starring the same cast that had gone to America in 1963. The title I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again was taken from the standard newsreaders' apology at the time. The first of these three shows was aired on 3rd April 1964. ISIRTA ran to eight series, lasting even after John Cleese had left Monty Python's Flying Circus - the show came back in 1973 after a three year gap for a final (eighth) series. In all some 103 shows were transmitted over a period spanning 10 years. In 1989 the cast reunited for a 25th anniversary special.
A running gag in the show and in real life was that John Cleese looked down on the series, feeling that Brooke-Taylor, Garden and Hatch were writing childish, self-indulgent material. The show relied on recurring characters and running gags - part of the humor was that the audience saw the jokes coming before they came! Eventually, Cleese's mild disdain for the show was written into the shows themselves. He wrote for the series less and less as it went on, but continued to appear on it even nine years after the series had began ... appearing in far more ISITRA shows than he did Monty Python shows! Let's not forget that Cleese quit Monty Python after the third series of the TV show.
Favorite Cleese segments included the "John and Mary" sketches about a dysfunctional couple, played by Cleese and Jo Kendall, and the Ferret and Rhubarb Tart songs sung by Cleese, which he also performed on At Last the 1948 Show.
BBC-1 Series, 1966-67.
Starring: David Frost, John Cleese, Ronnie Barker
See also THE FROST PROGRAMME on Rediffusion (with Cleese and Tim Brooke-Taylor).
A relatively short-lived but highly influential sketch show, The Frost Report was presented by David Frost.
Among regular performers were John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett.
Among the writers were many who later became the leading authors of British comedy television programmes. John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle, headwriter Marty Feldman, David Nobbs and Peter Tinniswood (among others) all contributed sketches for the programme.
Each programme had a distinct satirical, political or social "theme", with sketches and monologues written accordingly.
A mixture of monologue, sketch and music, The Frost Report was one of the last such comedy shows to be broadcast live as a matter of course. Each edition of the show took on a different topic - authority, holidays, sin, elections, class, the news, education, love, law, leisure, medicine, food and drink, trends, money, women, the forces, Parliament, the countryside, industry, culture, crime, and others - and sketches were woven accordingly around those subjects. Frost would appear at his desk, saying links that would cut to short and longer sketches. (This writing process began with Antony Jay writing David Frost's linking script, prompting others to provide skits to be performed by the regular cast.) Music was provided by the acerbic comic Tom Lehrer and the folk singer Julie Felix.
The front man, David Frost, who had first crashed into the public consciousness with That Was The Week That Was experienced great fortunes at this time, enjoying transatlantic success as a TV presenter/host, success that crystallised with his UK and US chat-shows later in the 1960s and succeeding decades. The Frost Report proved to be an important step too in the development of British TV comedy, bringing together for the first time the writing team (Palin, Jones, Cleese, Chapman and Idle) who would go on to create Monty Python's Flying Circus
The very young Pythons often felt that their contributions as writers were undervalued - David Frost was an endless self-promoter, and his name would flash on the screen in huge letters in the credits, with the writers' names zipping by in tiny letters below. The Pythons later made fun of Frost on their own shows ... most notably by Eric Idle in Monty Python sketches like "The Timmy Williams Show" and "It's a Tree." On Eric Idle's own show, Rutland Weekend Television, David Battley played Frost on "It's the David Frost Show Again," with the host asking the audience "How many of you are still awake?"
The show was able to boast some of the countries top comedy writers and performers (Anthony Jay, Keith Waterhouse, Willis Hall, Denis Nordern, Frank Muir and many others) but where it became seminal in the history of TV comedy was is in the fact that both in front and behind the camera it gave rise to some of the entertainment worlds ascending talents. Writers like John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle would soon move in front of the camera (Cleese was the first to do so), to develop and star in series' such as At Last The 1948 Show, Do Not Adjust Your Set and Monty Python's Flying Circus (each of which would discover even more stars), Marty Feldman would very soon become a star in his own right and two of the shows leading performers, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett formed the foundation of a long standing partnership that what would eventually be known as The Two Ronnies.
Of all the send-up's that appeared on The Frost Report, the best remembered, and often held as representative of the shows style was the Marty Feldman/John Law penned sketch about class. This involved 6ft 5inch Cleese standing next to 5ft 8inch Barker who in turn stood next to 5ft 1inch Corbett, and using each man's height to illustrate their standing in society. Middle-Class Barker explains: 'I look up to him (Cleese) because he is upper class but I look down on him (Corbett) because he is lower class.' Corbett: 'I know my place.' The sketch lasted no more than a few minutes but remained in the memory for so long that some thirty or more years later Ronnie Barker came out of retirement to make an updated version for a TV special with Ronnie Corbett (John Cleese was unavailable so Stephen Fry stood in for him).
There was 2 series comprising 26 shows and two specials between 1966 and 1967 and the first of these specials, Frost Over England, was a compilation of highlights from the first 13 with some newly scripted material, which won the prestigious Golden Rose at the Montreux Festival in 1967. (The second special was called Frost Over Christmas). The format returned in 1969 as Frost On Sunday (although now switching channels to ITV).
A special edition of the series, Frost Over England, which compiled highlights from the first 13 programmes with newly scripted material, won the Golden Rose at the Montreux Festival in 1967.
Cast
David Frost
John Cleese
Ronnie Barker
Ronnie Corbett
Sheila Steafel
Nicky Henson
Crew
Marty Feldman - Writer
John Law - Writer
Antony Jay - Writer
John Cleese - Writer
Graham Chapman - Writer
Michael Palin - Writer
Terry Jones - Writer
Keith Waterhouse - Writer
Willis Hall - Writer
David Nobbs - Writer
Peter Tinniswood - Writer
Frank Muir - Writer
Denis Norden - Writer
Eric Idle - Writer and others
James Gilbert - Producer
Transmission Details
Number of episodes: 28 Length: 26 x 25 mins 1 x 35 mins 1 x 40 mins
Series One (13 x 25 mins) 10 Mar-9 June 1966 BBC1 Thu mostly 9pm
Special (35 mins) Frost Over England 26 Mar 1967 BBC1 Sun 7.25pm
Series Two (13 x 25 mins) 6 Apr-29 June 1967 BBC1 Thu mostly 9.05pm
Special (40 mins) Frost Over Christmas 26 Dec 1967 BBC1 Tue 7.30pm
RECORD ALBUMS:
The Frost Report on Britain (1966)
Parlophone PMC 7005
Features John Cleese and Jean Hart. Produced by James Gilbert; writing credits: David Frost and John Cleese, with Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman, Barry Cryer, Tony Hendra, Terry Jones, Herbert Kretzner, Peter Lewis and Peter Dobereiner, David Nobbs, Bill Oddie and Ludwig Van Beethoven.
SIDE ONE :
Matter of Taste (Cleese); Schoolmaster (Cleese); Just Four Just Men (Cleese); Internal Combustion; Deck of Cards; Top of the Form (Cleese); Unknown Soldier (Cleese)
SIDE TWO :
Scrapbook (Cleese); Adventure (Cleese); Numbers; Bulletin; Hilton; Zookeeper (Cleese)
The Frost Report on Everything (1967)
Janus JLS-3005
Features David Frost, Ronnie Barker, John Cleese, Ronnie Corbett and Sheila Steafel. Writing credits include Frost, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Graham Chapman and John Cleese (misspelled "Clease").
SIDE ONE :
The State of England; Theatre Critic (Cleese); Frost, What People Really Mean; Three Classes of People (Cleese); Narcissus Complex (Cleese)
SIDE TWO
Frost on Agriculture, Speech; The Secretary (Cleese); Frost on Commercials; Selling String; Executive and the Teaman; Three Classes (Cleese)
THE COMPLETE AND UTTER HISTORY OF BRITAIN
LWT series (ITV), 1969.
6 episodes written by and starring Michael Palin and Terry Jones, with Wallace Eaton, Colin Gordon, Roddy Maude-Roxby, Melinda Maye and Diana Quick.
*Note. Seven programmes were written and made but LWT amalgamated the highlights of the first two episodes into one, resulting in a six-part series.
At one point, this series was thought lost. Then, only the filmed segments of the series were thought to survive. More recently, several complete episodes have turned up, including the two-part first episode. Many comedy programs from the era were destroyed, but these survived since they were filed under "history" rather than "comedy!"
Between the two series of Do Not Adjust Your Set, and while also writing sketches for Marty Feldman and Frost On Saturday and other work, Terry Jones and Michael Palin were called upon to write and perform a comedy history program. The Complete and Utter History of Britain allowed the two history graduates to examine history through the eyes of modern broadcasting.
Their idea (greatly expanded from a sketch in Twice A Fortnight) was to replay history as if television had been around at the time: interviewing the vital characters in the dressing-room after the Battle of Hastings; having Samuel Pepys present a TV chat-show; showing an estate agent trying to sell Stonehenge to a young couple looking for their first home ('It's got character, charm and a slab in the middle'); and replaying Caesar's home-movie footage of his British invasion. It contained many Pythonesque ideas - "much more so than Do Not Adjust Your Set," remembers Jones.
The show lasted six episodes and ran from 12 January - 16 February 1969, broadcast on London Weekend Television. Episode one is "From the Dawn of History to the Normal Conquest," and number six is "James the McFirst to Oliver Cromwell." Each episode took the form of short (three- to four-minute) sketches within the given historical theme, combining film inserts shot on location with video-tape shot in the LWT studio. The series was not networked.
The series was rather a disappointment for both audiences, and for Jones and Palin. The sketches were fairly well written but the series suffered slightly from the fact that, in this pre-Monty Python period, Jones and Palin were not yet able to dictate that they take on all the lead roles. As a consequence, a number of other actors joined them to form a historical repertory company - each person had several parts per show - and, while they were all capable, these outsiders perhaps did not fully sympathise with the material in the same way as the writers. Sadly, the shows were wiped after transmission and no longer exist. However, Terry Jones saved the film inserts from the show (he tries to archive all his own material), and recently a few copies of several episodes have turned up.
Jones and Palin have always been history buffs, and continued to create history-inspired material all through their careers, including, most obviously, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian, Ripping Yarns, The Missionary, American Friends, etc. Jones has presented several educational miniseries recently, including The Crusades and Ancient Inventions, and has written a book reexamining the knight from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
Cast
Michael Palin
Terry Jones
Wallas Eaton
Colin Gordon
Roddy Maude-Roxby
Melinda May
Ted Carson
Colin Cunningham
John Hughman
Johnny Vyvyan
Crew
Michael Palin - Writer
Terry Jones - Writer
Maurice Murphy - Director
Humphrey Barclay - Producer
Transmission Details
Number of episodes: 6 Length: 30 mins
12 Jan-16 Feb 1969 · Sun mostly 10.45pm
NOW
TWW Series, 1966.
A young Michael Palin's very first TV job was as the host of this teenage pop music program.
THE LATE SHOW
BBC-1 Series, 1966-67.
Palin and Jones wrote and appeared in film segments for this late-night series, such as the silent-film spoof pictured above. (Jones' villain stealing the girlfriend of Palin's weakling hero.)
TWICE A FORTNIGHT
BBC-1 Series, 1967.
Introduced by Ronald Fletcher, with Bill Oddie, Jonathan Lynn, Graeme Garden and Dilys Watling, plus Michael Palin and Terry Jones.
MARTY
BBC-2 Series, 1968-69.
A BBC-2 sketch comedy series starring the multitalented Marty Feldman [Young Frankenstein]. Pythons Cleese, Chapman, Jones and Palin contributed to the writing. A 1-hour compilation video has been released by BBC-video, and is entitled "It's Marty!" You can see Michael Palin and Terry Jones in one filmed segment on this video. This series was videotaped in color around the time of the first Python shows, but looks like it had a higher budget than early Python! The series was a direct spinoff of At Last the 1948 Show, where Feldman had starred with Cleese, Chapman and Tim Brooke-Taylor. After seeing their work on 1948 Show, Feldman and Cleese were both offered their own shows. Feldman created Marty, and Cleese went on to do Monty Python.
One problem with Marty was that every sketch required Marty to be the wacky character surrounded by straight men ... each sketch was designed as a vehicle for Feldman. Therefore, a lot of the sketches the Pythons wrote for the series were rejected for not fitting into the format. These were then used in Python instead. One rejected sketch used in Python was "The Mouse Problem" by Cleese and Chapman, already rejected from the film "The Magic Christian" (starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, in which Cleese and Chapman both appear and have writing credits - "The Magic Christian" is available on video).
Marty's later UK/US TV series, "The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine", featured a title sequence by Terry Gilliam. This sequence has been much imitated (such as in the titles of the Canadian children's show "You Can't Do That On Television").
"Monty Python's Flying Circus" wasn't the only series Terry Gilliam did animation for in the early '70s. Python friend Marty Feldman had a show in the UK and the US called "The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine," which featured animations by Gilliam, including this cool title sequence. You can find lots of pictures from this sequence in the book "Animations of Mortality."
Marty also did several TV specials which featured written contributions by the Pythons. One of these, "Marty Amok" (BBC1, March 1970), featured a version of the "Bookshop" sketch (from At Last the 1948 Show, later used on Python's Contractual Obligation Album), in which Feldman and John Junkin starred (replacing John Cleese). Also appearing on the special was a wonderful performance by Vivian Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Band, who had appeared on the pre-Python series Do Not Adjust Your Set. Vivian's band "Big Grunt" performed a new take on a Bonzo song, "11 Moustachioed Daughters." The special was partially written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones ... presumably old Marty material?
A 1970 solo project by the Bonzo Dog Band's Vivian Stanshall, with Roger Ruskin-Spear and Dennis Cowan. A nice Bonzo clip, showing off Vivian's flair for poetry, and Roger's flair for artistic, talking, exploding robots. The song is a reworking of the Bonzo song "11 Moustachioed Daughters." This clip features Bubs White on guitar, Ian Wallace on drums and Rema Kabaka on Toms. It's from the March 1970 BBC1 Marty Feldman special "Marty Amok," which was co-written (with Marty and Barry Took) by Python's Michael Palin and Terry Jones! Tim Brooke-Taylor also appeared in the special.
WE HAVE WAYS OF MAKING YOU LAUGH
LWT Series, 1968-69.
Presented by Frank Muir, with material from Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam
Terry Gilliam did his first animations for this panel show, inbetween the two series of Do Not Adjust Your Set. Eric Idle also featured (pictured at right). The show is remembered by Idle and Gilliam as not being particularly interesting ... Due to a strike at the BBC, one live program was never even broadcast! Quite literally no one saw it.
BROADEN YOUR MIND
BBC-2 Series, 1968.
Starring Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden, additional material from Cleese, Chapman, Idle, Jones and Palin, guest appearances by Chapman, Palin and Jones.
DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, DOCTOR AT LARGE, DOCTOR IN CHARGE, etc.
LWT Series, beginning 1969
A very popular (and long-running) staple of late 60s/early 70s British comedy, the various "Doctor .." series (loosely inspired by the novels of Richard Gordon, and the 1954 film) followed a group of medical students and their bawdy shenanigans. Chapman and Cleese brought knowledge of medicine and sex to a few of these, first in 1969, just before Python, and on a semi-regular basis in 1972 and 73, inbetween Python episodes. Chapman, who wrote quite a few episodes of the series, noted that it was always an easy source of income, writing a new episode whenever he needed some spare cash!
Chapman also has a small (slightly embarrassing) role as a gay photographer in the 1970 film "Doctor in Trouble."
Chapman usually had a cowriter, first working with Bernard McKenna (who himself wrote more episodes than Graham). Later, Chapman wrote with his longtime companion. One 1973 episode by Cleese, entitled"No Ill Feeling," is very important for British comedy fans as it inspired Cleese's classic sitcom "Fawlty Towers." Timothy Bateson starred as a short-tempered hotel manager - an embryonic Basil Fawlty.
The "Doctor" series is spoofed in several "Flying Circus" episodes - mainly how the BBC seemed to be able to spin it off endlessly, rather than coming up with new ideas. In the fourth series Python episode "Anything Goes," Graham Chapman's doddering, brainless BBC programme planner keeps spouting off new "Doctor" series titles ... all rhyming with "Doctor At Sea."
Mark Lewisohn writes:
Doctor In The House
UK, ITV (LWT), Sitcom, Colour, 1969
Starring: Barry Evans, Robin Nedwell, Geoffrey Davies
The TV Doctor In The House updated the cast of characters and the storylines of the original novel to reflect the 'swinging sixties' - in truth, these episodes, and all those that followed in the succeeding series, were based only loosely upon Gordon's original work, being authored for the small-screen by an array of young writing talent, with a decided Monty Python and Goodies bent. (Graham Chapman and Graeme Garden, who contributed to five and 22 of the scripts respectively, were both qualified medical doctors and so were especially appropriate writers.) As with the original Richard Gordon stories, all the action took place at a (fictional) teaching hospital, St Swithin's, with a fair amount of nurse-chasing, nudge-nudge innuendo and bedpan humour thrown in, Carry On style. The cast was strong, though, and lesser-known parts were played by, among others, David Jason, James Beck and Susan George. The recurring theme of this series (and indeed most of the succeeding series) was the clash between the keen interns and their intimidating superior Professor Loftus, a fearsome variation on the formidable Sir Lancelot Spratt of the original books. Michael Upton was the lead character, an earnest type but easily led astray by his colleagues, the laddish Waring and Collier and the smooth wastrel Stuart-Clark.
The main force behind the TV show was Frank Muir who, as head of comedy at the new London ITV franchise LWT, was determined to get Richard Gordon's Doctor saga on to the small-screen for the first time. He was boosted in his efforts by a BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Doctor In The House, aired from 25 June 1968, with scripts written by Richard Waring. Richard Briers starred as Simon Sparrow, with Geoffrey Sumner (Major Upshot-Bagley in The Army Game cast as Sir Lancelot Spratt.
*Notes. Although screened in b/w, the first series was made in colour, so when eight of the episodes were repeated early in 1970 they were seen in colour for the first time.
The original Doctor In The House movie was made in 1954 and six sequels followed: Doctor At Sea, Doctor At Large, Doctor In Love, Doctor In Distress, Doctor In Clover and Doctor In Trouble. TV series writer Graham Chapman appeared in the last of these, released in 1970.
Cast
Barry Evans - Michael A Upton
Robin Nedwell - Duncan Waring
Geoffrey Davies - Dick Stuart-Clark
George Layton - Paul Collier
Ernest Clark - Professor Geoffrey Loftus
Simon Cuff - Dave Briddock
Ralph Michael - The Dean
Martin Shaw - Huw Evans (series 1)
Jonathan Lynn - Danny Hooley (series 2)
Crew
Richard Gordon - Creator
Graeme Garden - Writer (22 & special 1)
Bill Oddie - Writer (22 & special 1)
Graham Chapman - Writer (3)
Barry Cryer - Writer (3)
John Cleese - Writer (1)
Graham Chapman - Writer (1)
Graham Chapman - Writer (special 2)
Bernard McKenna - Writer (special 2)
David Askey - Director (16)
Maurice Murphy - Director (8 & special 2)
Bill Turner - Director (2)
Mark Stuart - Director (special 1)
Humphrey Barclay - Producer
Transmission Details
Number of episodes: 28 Length: 26 x 30 mins · 2 x short specials
*Series One 13 12 July-3 Oct 1969 · mostly Sat 7.35pm
Short special part of All-Star Comedy Carnival 25 Dec 1969 · Thu 6pm
Series Two 13 10 Apr-3 July 1970 · Fri 8.30pm
Short special part of All-Star Comedy Carnival 25 Dec 1970 Fri 6pm
The first shows developed from material written for Cambridge Circus, a university stage revue starring the same cast that had gone to America in 1963. The title I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again was taken from the standard newsreaders' apology at the time. The first of these three shows was aired on 3rd April 1964. ISIRTA ran to eight series, lasting even after John Cleese had left Monty Python's Flying Circus - the show came back in 1973 after a three year gap for a final (eighth) series. In all some 103 shows were transmitted over a period spanning 10 years. In 1989 the cast reunited for a 25th anniversary special.
