[NOTE The other specially-compiled Comic Strip cassettes also feature longer edits of some material - Rik Mayall’s ‘Poem (First Attempt)’, for example, runs at 6’12 instead of 3’44, and indicates several more hecklers disrupting the performance. The cassettes were compiled by Martin Lewis, who also had a hand in the original Secret Policeman's Ball LP, and worked for a time as Alexei Sayle's manager, which may go some way to explaining Ben Elton's absence from the releases. Lewis has a fantastic memory, a huge tape archive and a genuine interest in making the material available…but unfortunately he lives in Los Angeles, the idiot.]

The script of An Evening With Eddie Monsoon is printed in the Comic Strip scriptbook (Methuen, 1983) under the title Back To Normal With Eddie Monsoon. It is presented in a rough-and-ready style, as if crudely photocopied from a type-written manuscript. A cast list is given (Edmondson, Richardson, Planer, French, Saunders), but - with the exception of the guest appearance by Allan Pellay as himself - it is not completely obvious who took each part. The writing is credited to the five main performers plus Pete Richens.

The programme is a parody of a TV chat-show, presented by the violent, foul-mouthed, dipsomaniac, depressed and depressing Monsoon. He is assisted by four equally unpleasant presenters: Doug and Lionel (clearly Planer and Richardson), and Vag and Clitty (clearly French and Saunders). The show, which presumably required a tiny budget, all takes place in a garish lounge set, with Monsoon strapped to his wheelchair guzzling whisky; Doug and Lionel attempt to get off with Vag and Clitty, but they have little success (largely due to Clitty’s violent ways of dealing with sexual advances). Eddie interviews Allan Pellay, and asks him ‘What was the worst moment of your life - being born a wog or a poof?’. He then concludes with a song and the cast shout ‘Party time!’ as the credits roll.

Channel 4’s reluctance to transmit the programme may have been due to the general nastiness (the show does appear to be an exercise in calculated profanity, Derek & Clive style, most of which was genuinely outrageous for the time), or they may have had more specific worries. A clue may be found in the film Eddie Monsoon - A Life?, which appeared, during the team’s second series, on 4/2/84. This was a quite different venture: it was a documentary, presented by Tony Bilbow, looking back on Monsoon’s troubled career. There were many fake clips and montages showing evidence of this (including, in a spirit of post modernism, footage of Edmondson performing for real at a comedy club, and newspaper headlines concerning the original banned film - the latter too faint to be read, unfortunately), and one of them was a clip from a ‘failed pilot’ called Back To Normal With Eddie Monsoon. The clip which illustrates this could conceivably be a genuine segment of An Evening With, or it could have been filmed specially: in any case, it gives a clear idea of how the film would have looked, with Edmondson in front of bright yellow wallpaper with a whisky bottle close at hand. Although he delivers the opening introduction from the Back To Normal script, it is noticeably different on certain lines; it also bastardises two separate monologues together which - in the script - were originally bridged by Doug and Lionel. This suggests that the sequence was filmed for A Life?, although the relatively poor quality of the film may tempt some viewers to postulate otherwise.

After this clip, we then see a spoof discussion between newsreader Peter Woods and Michael White, both of which are drowned out by Monsoon’s drunken protests. Monsoon asks White to name ‘just one thing’ that was offensive about his programme; White obliges by producing a substantial list of offences. What is interesting is that all of White’s objections were things that occurred in the original Evening With script, and it is therefore likely that they were taken directly from Channel 4’s ‘worry list’:

‘The item about how to get big things in your mouth’
Vag had inserted a telephone receiver into her mouth during such a sequence.

‘The things you said about Burt Reynolds’
Monsoon tries to elicit some gossip from Pellay concerning Mr Reynolds’ homosexuality; in so doing, he also alludes to Roger Moore and James Caan in the same way. Libel fears?

‘The bit about stiffies’
Lionel tells Clitty that he usually gets a ‘stiffy’ at ten o’clock.

‘The cruelty to animals sequence’
Monsoon had suggested that performing oral sex with a dog may be a good way to deal with bereavement.

Needless to say, An Evening With Eddie Monsoon is relatively tame stuff by 1999 standards. If the film exists, and the Comic Strip team wanted it transmitted, it is unlikely that they would encounter much opposition from Channel 4. If, however, the show was never filmed, then we see no reason why the team shouldn’t get together and perform it as a reunion piece. On the condition perhaps that they retain the minuscule budget and refrain from tampering with the script. A bit of Vag and Clitty would certainly piss off the Absolutely Fabulous/Vicar Of Dibley plebs, anyway. And since Dawn French needs cheering up these days, perhaps Lenny Henry could take on the Pellay role?