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Post by Robert Manners on Jan 17, 2007 17:46:32 GMT
Comedy Playhouse was the generic title for a series of unrelated one-off comedies shown on the BBC in the early 1960’s until the early 1970’s that were used to showcase the talents of both writers old and new to television -as well as established and up-and-coming sitcom stars, many of whom would go on to become well known big stars of British comedy for years to come. The series was inaugurated in 1961 by then Head of BBC Light Entertainment, Tom Sloan. It also went on to become the catapult for some of the best-loved sitcoms of all time. Many of these are in people’s memories today like ‘Steptoe and Son’, ‘Till Death Us Do Part’, ‘Not In Front of the Children’ & ‘The Liver Birds to name just a few. However many of these one-off comedies stayed just that and so are not as strong in people’s memories as the few I mentioned above. Since series 1 was shown between 15 Dec 1961 - 16 Feb 1962, series 2 between 1 Mar 1963 - 12 Apr 1963 & series 3 between 28 Sep 1963 - 31 Jan 1964 most of these early episodes must be almost forgotten by today’s television audiences as well as most likely falling under heading of ‘Missing Presumed Wiped!’ like so many BBC Television programs do from this period. Does anyone remember this first time round, know what exists and what is lost from the archives as well as what is available to see today on VHS or DVD formats?
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Post by emitron on Jan 21, 2007 6:46:27 GMT
You can look them up yourself on the BBC's programme catalogue - 60s ones below, more detail on the site. The Till Death Us Do Part recording is only a clip, though. Programmes 1 programmes in 1962 1962 (hide) THE OFFER 7 programmes in 1963 1963 (hide) OUR MAN IN MOSCOW AND HERE,ALL THE WAY FROM - IMPASSE A CLERICAL ERROR THE HANDYMAN FOOLS RUSH IN THE BED 2 programmes in 1965 1965 (hide) TILL DEATH US DO PART THE TIME AND MOTION MAN 1 programmes in 1966 1966 (hide) THE BISHOP RIDES AGAIN 1 programmes in 1967 1967 (hide) THE OLD CAMPAIGNER 1 programmes in 1968 1968 (hide) B AND B 1 programmes in 1969 1969 (hide) UP POMPEII!
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Post by Robert Manners on Jan 22, 2007 1:32:02 GMT
I have used this site before, however for example if you check on what episodes from the 'Out of the Unknown' series have survived it tells you that episodes like
IMMORTALITY INC LIAR! THE LAST LONELY MAN BEACH HEAD RANDOM QUEST THE NAKED SUN THE LITTLE BLACK BAG THE YELLOW PILL
exist when only THE LAST LONELY MAN survives complete and 28.5 minutes of ' THE LITTLE BLACK BAG' for example. This means I am some what untrusting checking on programs that I am less knowledgeable on! This is made worse when you know its a BBC site not a fan one on programs in the BBC archive!
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Post by johnstewart on Jul 28, 2007 19:11:04 GMT
Looking at Andys list though I can confirm it looks correct.
COMEDY PLAYHOUSE was a favourite of mine too. I recall watching the BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR pilot - (1966 ?) and NOT IN FRONT OF THE CHILDREN which are of course not held.
Theres a segment of a Bernard Cribbins entry from 1968 which is incomplete (no titles); I had heard of. Does anyone know to what I refer?
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Post by Stephen Doran on Jul 29, 2007 9:22:09 GMT
BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR would like to see that again.
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Post by Robert Manners on Jul 29, 2007 20:57:35 GMT
Looking at Andys list though I can confirm it looks correct. COMEDY PLAYHOUSE was a favourite of mine too. I recall watching the BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR pilot - (1966 ?) and NOT IN FRONT OF THE CHILDREN which are of course not held. Theres a segment of a Bernard Cribbins entry from 1968 which is incomplete (no titles); I had heard of. Does anyone know to what I refer? I thought some episodes of 'Not in Front of the Children' from 1970 existed in the BBC archive!
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Post by Andrew Martin on Jul 30, 2007 12:18:53 GMT
I have used this site before, however for example if you check on what episodes from the 'Out of the Unknown' series have survived it tells you that episodes like IMMORTALITY INC LIAR! THE LAST LONELY MAN BEACH HEAD RANDOM QUEST THE NAKED SUN THE LITTLE BLACK BAG THE YELLOW PILL exist when only THE LAST LONELY MAN survives complete and 28.5 minutes of ' THE LITTLE BLACK BAG' for example. This means I am some what untrusting checking on programs that I am less knowledgeable on! This is made worse when you know its a BBC site not a fan one on programs in the BBC archive! Being included on Infax does not mean a programme exists, even before the July 1976 cut off date for complete network listings. Entries may be included because the programmes have been junked since the system was set up, or because there was a record of a programme existing which turned out not to be true, or for other reasons (which may not be clear to anyone!). The public access version of Infax unfortunately doesn't make this clear, it's true, because neither the time nor the money is available to go through the whole of the vast system to fine tune it for the benefit of users. It's possible this sort of thing may be cleared up as time goes on.
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Post by Andrew Martin on Jul 30, 2007 12:22:42 GMT
Looking at Andys list though I can confirm it looks correct. COMEDY PLAYHOUSE was a favourite of mine too. I recall watching the BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR pilot - (1966 ?) and NOT IN FRONT OF THE CHILDREN which are of course not held. Theres a segment of a Bernard Cribbins entry from 1968 which is incomplete (no titles); I had heard of. Does anyone know to what I refer? I thought some episodes of 'Not in Front of the Children' from 1970 existed in the BBC archive! Only the last two episodes of NIFOTC were shown originally in 1970, and neither of those exist. The whole 4th series was repeated in 1970, of which only two exist, one as a film recording and the other as colour VT.
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Post by Robert Manners on Aug 1, 2007 0:00:17 GMT
I thought some episodes of 'Not in Front of the Children' from 1970 existed in the BBC archive! Only the last two episodes of NIFOTC were shown originally in 1970, and neither of those exist. The whole 4th series was repeated in 1970, of which only two exist, one as a film recording and the other as colour VT. Would you mind listing them please Andrew!
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Post by Andrew Martin on Aug 1, 2007 10:40:19 GMT
Existing episodes are:
The Word 8/9/67 (There are also clips ex Australia (used for trails) of the whole first series, these are not yet logged on Infax) Religious Revival 1/3/68 The Iron Hand 22/3/68 The George Washington Complex 29/3/68 Home Chat 5/4/68 Change of Policy 12/4/68 A Babe About the House 3/10/69 Pastures New 5/12/69
All are 16mm telerecordings except the last which is D3 ex 2".
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Post by Robert Manners on Aug 1, 2007 23:21:44 GMT
Existing episodes are: The Word 8/9/67 (There are also clips ex Australia (used for trails) of the whole first series, these are not yet logged on Infax) Religious Revival 1/3/68 The Iron Hand 22/3/68 The George Washington Complex 29/3/68 Home Chat 5/4/68 Change of Policy 12/4/68 A Babe About the House 3/10/69 Pastures New 5/12/69 All are 16mm telerecordings except the last which is D3 ex 2". Yes Pastures New had to be ex 2" Quad as its T/RN is VTC/6HT/54405 Project Number 11/4/9/1346 an early BBC 1 colour program thats avoided been wiped. lucky quad tape ehhh !!!!!!
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Post by johnstewart on Aug 9, 2007 14:04:38 GMT
I thought some episodes of 'Not in Front of the Children' from 1970 existed in the BBC archive! Only the last two episodes of NIFOTC were shown originally in 1970, and neither of those exist. The whole 4th series was repeated in 1970, of which only two exist, one as a film recording and the other as colour VT. Thanks Andrew. It was mainly the first and 1968 series we used to watch. When I say 'of course they don't exist' re: the two pilots of BEGGAR and NIFOTC; the intention isn't to be judgemental. Just to point out its been widely known over the years that the COMEDY PLAYHOUSE pilots of certain series do not exist.
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Post by johnstewart on Aug 9, 2007 14:07:00 GMT
Looking at Andys list though I can confirm it looks correct. COMEDY PLAYHOUSE was a favourite of mine too. I recall watching the BEGGAR MY NEIGHBOUR pilot - (1966 ?) and NOT IN FRONT OF THE CHILDREN which are of course not held. Theres a segment of a Bernard Cribbins entry from 1968 which is incomplete (no titles); I had heard of. Does anyone know to what I refer? No; I'm wrong here. What I meant to say was theres a segment of a BERNARD BRADEN play from 1968. The Bernard Cribbins entry I think is IMPASSE (1967); which was the teleplay version of a story I think later adapted fro the film THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN DEADLY SINS (1972).
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