Return to the sketches indexAs featured in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 24
Not only did the sketch appear in the Flying Circus TV Show - Episode 24, it also featured in the Movie - 'And Now For Something Completely Different'
(Caption on screen: 'HM GOVERNMENT, PUBLIC SERVICE FILM NO. 42 PARA 6. "HOW NOT TO BE SEEN"')
Voice Over: In this film we hope to show how not to be seen. This is Mr. E.R. Bradshaw of Napier Court, Black Lion Road London SE5. He can not be seen. Now I am going to ask him to stand up. Mr. Bradshaw will you stand up please
In the distance Mr Bradshaw stands up. There is a loud gunshot as Mr Bradshaw is shot in the stomach. He crumples to the ground
Voice Over: This demonstrates the value of not being seen.
Cut to another location - an empty area of scrubland
Voice Over: In this picture we cannot see Mrs. B.J. Smegma of 13, The Cresent, Belmont. Mrs Smegma will you stand up please.
To the right of the area Mrs Smegma stands up. A gunshot rings out, and Mrs. Smegma leaps into the air, and falls to the ground dead. Cut to another area, however this time there is a bush in the middle
Voice Over: This is Mr Nesbitt of Harlow New Town. Mr Nesbit would you stand up please. (after a pause - nothing happens)Mr Nesbitt has learnt the value of not being seen. However he has chosen a very obvious piece of cover.
The bush explodes and you hear a muffled scream. Cut to another scene with three bushes
Voice Over: Mr. E.V. Lambert of Homeleigh, The Burrows, Oswestly, has presented us with a poser. We do not know which bush he is behind, but we can soon find out. (the left-hand bush explodes, then the right-hand bush explodes, and then the middle bush explodes. There is a muffled scream as Mr. Lambert is blown up) Yes it was the middle one.
Cut to a shot of a farmland area with a water butt, a wall, a pile of leaves, a bushy tree, a parked car, and lots of bushes in the distance
Voice Over: Mr Ken Andrews, of Leighton Road, Slough has concealed himself extremely well. He could be almost anywhere. He could be behind the wall, inside the water barrel, beneath a pile of leaves, up in the tree, squatting down behind the car, concealed in a hollow, or crouched behind any one of a hundred bushes. However we happen to know he's in the water barrel.
The water barrel just blows up in a huge explosion. Cut to a panning shot from the beach huts to beach across the sea
Voice Over: Mr. and Mrs. Watson of Ivy Cottage, Worplesdon Road, Hull, chose a very cunning way of not being seen. When we called at their house, we found that they had gone away on two weeks holiday. They had not left any forwarding address, and they had bolted and barred the house to prevent us from getting in. However a neighbour told us where there were.
The camera pans around and stops on a obvious looking hut, which blows up. Cut to a house with a gumby standing out front
Voice Over: And here is the neighbour (he blows up, leaving just his boots. Cut to a shack in the desert) Here is where he lived (shack blows up - cut to a building) And this is where Lord Langdin lived who refused to speak to us (it blows up). so did the gentleman who lived here....(shot of a house - it blows up) and here.....(another building blows up) and of course here.....(a series of various atom and hydrogen bombs at the moment of impact)
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