What a shame..... Posted Fri Jun 16 20:23:07 BST 2000 by Rodney Bennett

What a shame that TV comedy and variety shows no longer end with things like '...and Eric Sykes is appearing in 'Run For Your Wife' at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford.' Who decided that you can't mention what people are up to now? Episodes of Red Dwarf could have been followed by 'And Craig Charles is currently on remand'.

Subject: Re: What a shame..... [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Simon Harries on Wed Jun 21 17:17:26 BST 2000:

I've just had a chance to watch all seven episodes of "Rutland Weekend Television" (1975), arguably the only funny (actually I thought it was brilliantly surreal) solo project Eric Idle did after "Python".

The big joke at the end of each show was a voice-over from Henry Woolf saying that a certain member of the cast "is a National Theatre Player" - so it was obviously happening widely in the 70's for it to be satirised...

The best RWT sketch - apart from Henry Woolf as the in vision continuity announcer gradually becoming more "dragged up" as one of the shows progressed, ending up with Dusty eyelashes, floral blouse, big breasts and high heels - was the sketch where every problem in the world was the fault of the little man down at the off licence.

Anyway, I agree with Rodney, and wish that announcers still made comments like that. Or, "you may like to know that the music from this series is currently available on LP or cassette from all good record shops" (itself satirised on RWT)

Subject: Re: What a shame..... [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Peter Ohanraohanrahan on Wed Jun 21 20:23:46 BST 2000:

The excellent trivia fact thing about RWT is that it invented privatised prisons.

Subject: Re: What a shame..... [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Justin on Wed Jun 21 20:28:03 BST 2000:

>The excellent trivia fact thing about RWT is that it invented privatised prisons.

Didn't know that. Arnold Brown always got a mention for being years ahead of his time for writing a joke on that very subject for Not The Nine in 1979. So RTW got there first....

Have all the RTWs been wiped? I've never seen it, apart from that special on Reeves & Mortimer's Theme Night in 1993.

Subject: Re: What a shame..... [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Peter Ohanraohanrahan on Wed Jun 21 20:52:44 BST 2000:

It basically featured some old ladies who were taking in dangerous criminals in return for cash from the government, and it opened with Idle mentioning the phrase "privatised prison" and he got a big laugh from the studio audience.

Keith Joseph was probably watching... "Hey, Thatch, I've just had a brilliant thought!"

Subject: Re: What a shame..... [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Simon Harries on Thu Jun 22 15:33:41 BST 2000:

>Have all the RTWs been wiped? I've never seen it, apart from that special on Reeves & Mortimer's Theme Night in 1993.
>
Four of the episodes I watched, including the 1975 Xmas special, had very new-looking (ie. transferred to D3) burnt-in timecodes, so they can't all have been wiped... Wish I'd had a chance to make copies of 'em

Subject: Re: What a shame..... [ Previous Message ]
Posted By Mark on Sat Jun 24 23:22:12 BST 2000:

RWT does still exist. It was shown (very irregularly) on the late lamented UK Arena.

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