Jump to content

The Complete and Utter History of Britain

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by BDD (talk | contribs) at 13:09, 6 October 2016 (→Notes: better section heading). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Complete and Utter History of Britain
Created byTerry Jones
Michael Palin
StarringWallas Eaton
Colin Gordon
Terry Jones
Roddy Maude-Roxby
Melinda May
Michael Palin
Diana Quick
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of episodes6
Production
Executive producerHumphrey Barclay
Running time30 minutes
Original release
NetworkLondon Weekend Television
Release12 January –
16 February 1969

The Complete And Utter History of Britain was a 1969 television comedy sketch show. It was created and written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones between the two series of Do Not Adjust Your Set. It was produced for and broadcast by London Weekend Television but was not shown in other ITV regions.

The idea (inspired by a sketch in an earlier show, Twice a Fortnight) was to replay history as if television had been around at the time. Sketches included interviews with the vital characters in the dressing-room after the Battle of Hastings, Samuel Pepys presenting a TV chat-show and 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").

Seven programmes were written and produced, but LWT amalgamated the first two episodes into a single "stronger" (in their opinion) episode, resulting in a six-part series.

For many years the entire series was believed to have been wiped. However, copies of the first two episodes (as broadcast) have now been found, as have the complete first two episodes as produced.

Terry Jones has expressed dissatisfaction with the show, complaining after a showing of surviving episodes that the pacing was off and the soundtrack all wrong.

It was doing The Complete and Utter History of Britain that got me really convinced that you have to control everything. You not only act in the things - you've got to actually start directing the things as well.[1]

Episodes

Home media

On 7 April 2014, Network Distributing released all extant material on a Blu-ray/DVD set in the UK. This release includes the first two episodes as broadcast, the first two episodes as recorded, and all available film inserts. New linking material for film inserts was recorded by Jones and Palin especially for this release, and included as a 50-minute programme entitled "The New Incomplete Complete and Utter History of Britain".[2]

References

  1. ^ Dave Eggers (2006-09-13). "Interview with Eric Idle in The Guardian, with quotes from Terry Jones and Michael Palin". Film.guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2014-05-11.
  2. ^ Spiny Norman (2014-04-07). "> Features > Palin and Jones Return!". Networkonair. Retrieved 2014-05-11.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Complete_and_Utter_History_of_Britain&oldid=742891703"