Not the Nine O'Clock News
Not the Nine O'Clock News is a British television sketch comedy show that was broadcast on BBC2 from 16 October 1979 to 8 March 1982. Originally shown as a comedy alternative to the Nine O'Clock News on BBC1, the show features satirical sketches on news stories and popular culture of the early 1980s, as well as parody songs, comedy sketches, re-edited videos, and spoof television formats. The programme features Rowan Atkinson, Pamela Stephenson, Mel Smith, and Griff Rhys Jones, as well as Chris Langham in the first series.
Format
The format was a deliberate departure from the stream-of-consciousness comedy pioneered by Monty Python's Flying Circus, returning to a more conventional sketch format. Sketches were mostly self-contained, lasting from a few seconds to a few minutes, and often had a degree of naturalism in performance. The series launched the careers of several high-profile actors and writers, and also led to other comedic series including Blackadder and Alas Smith and Jones.The series benefited from video editing and recording techniques. The pace was enhanced by jump-cutting between library clips, usually of politicians, royalty, or celebrities. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher complained when, by adroit image editing, the programme implied she had crashed a car. Effects used in pop videos, provided by the Quantel Paintbox, were often a highlight of the musical numbers.
History
Background
Not the Nine O'Clock News was produced by John Lloyd. Lloyd pitched the idea to the heads of BBC Comedy and Light Entertainment and was given a six-episode series on condition that he collaborate with Sean Hardie, who had worked in current affairs at the BBC.Initially, Lloyd and Hardie were considering doing a lampoon of current affairs programmes à la ''The Frost Report, with Rowan Atkinson portraying an old-fashioned host attacking liberal and/or modern trends. The programme was to be called Sacred Cows, but the news programme was chosen because of its larger number of sources. The name of the series derived from its scheduling, as it originally aired on BBC2 at the same time as the Nine O'Clock News'' on BBC1.
Aborted pilot episode
Aside from Atkinson, the original cast comprised Christopher Godwin, John Gorman, Chris Langham, Willoughby Goddard, and Jonathan Hyde, and the first episode of a planned series was scheduled for 2 April 1979; this also featured Chris Emmett, and Robert Llewelyn.As the programme was originally scheduled to air in the time slot occupied by Fawlty Towers, John Cleese was to have introduced the first episode in a sketch referring to a technicians' strike in progress at the time that hindered the production of the series, explaining that there was no programme that week, so a "tatty revue" would be broadcast instead. However, the 1979 general election intervened, and the programme was pulled as being too political, being replaced with a repeat of the American sitcom Rhoda.
The sketch with Cleese was broadcast later that year when the final episode of Fawlty Towers went out during the broadcast run of the first series of Not The Nine O'Clock News, though the significance of the sketch was lost to some degree. This link is included on the Region 2 DVD boxset of Fawlty Towers. Basil's waiter Manuel, played by Andrew Sachs, also appeared at the end of the unaired episode, trying to get a joke about the Ayatollah's contact lenses.
Other sketches of the unaired pilot episode were also lifted or remade on episodes throughout the first series. Healey's and Hope's impressions were achieved by the use of "talking head" puppets, which in the mid-1980s would become a characteristic staple of Spitting Image, produced by Lloyd in its early series.
In production
Lloyd and Hardie decided to re-cast the series, retaining Langham and Atkinson. They wanted to bring in a woman, but Victoria Wood turned the programme down. Lloyd met Pamela Stephenson at a party, and she agreed to join. Atkinson, Langham, and Stephenson were joined by Mel Smith, who was scheduled to work on the pilot, but declined after reading the script. The first series was criticised for being "a poor mix of stand up, and a mild portion of sketches" and newspaper reviews referred to it as "extremely offensive" and that it "should not be allowed on TV". Ratings were dismal as well: the first episode had fewer than a million viewers.However, the network controller reportedly liked the programme so much that a second series of seven episodes was commissioned, also helped by budgetary cuts at BBC, which were repeatedly lampooned in the second series' premiere episode, entitled "The Outrageously Expensive Not the Nine O'Clock News". Such cuts also forced the show to drastically reduce the use of outside scenes as well as minor players. The shock value prominent during the first season was also toned down in favour of a more "offbeat" tone.
In February 1980, in between series 1 and series 2 of Not the Nine O'Clock News, Mel Smith appeared as a news reader named "Reginald Bowes and Cat" in the Goodies episode "Animals". His segment of the show was preceded by the caption "Not the News at Ten".
For the second series, Langham was replaced by Griff Rhys-Jones, who had already been a regular player during the first series, aside from having directed the radio programme The Atkinson People. The second series of Not the Nine O’Clock News won the Silver Rose at the Montreux Festival and a BAFTA Award for Best Light Entertainment Programme in 1982. The show's later series achieved improved ratings and became critically acclaimed.
Not the Nine O'Clock News became a stage production in Oxford and London in 1982, but the main performers decided to end the project while it was a success: Stephenson began a Hollywood film career, Atkinson recorded the first series of Blackadder in 1983, and Smith and Jones became a double act in Alas Smith and Jones. An American adaptation, Not Necessarily the News ran for seven years, from 1983 to 1990 on the Home Box Office cable television channel.
Content
Satire was a key theme in the series' comedy. For example, one spoof news element might include a routine announcement that NASA had once again announced a delay in the launch of its Space Shuttle owing to technical difficulties, as the screen showed the shuttle on its launch pad with oxygen streaming off the tanks, overlaid with the sound of a car engine turning over but not starting. An opening graphic featured the same blue screen and white analogue clock ticking down to 9:00 p.m. as preceded the Nine O'Clock News, followed by an announcement of the time in a similar voice and, in parody, the announcement that this was "definitely not the Nine O'Clock News". Skits could include scenes such as a group of rural Americans at a barbecue singing several minutes of comically implausible songs like "I'm prepared to believe that Nixon wasn't a crook; I'm prepared to believe Love Story's a readable book..." and finally concluding, "I believe that the devil is ready to repent; – but I can't believe Ronald Reagan is president."A well-known sketch from the second season features Mel Smith as Professor Timothy Fielding, who brought a gorilla named Gerald to a TV studio for an interview. Fielding claims that he trained the ape to learn to speak. As the sketch progresses, it turns out that Gerald is amazingly articulate and obviously smarter than Fielding. This leads to a classic exchange, where Fielding claims: "When I caught Gerald in '68 he was completely wild.", whereupon Gerald interrupts: "Wild? I was absolutely livid!".
Legacy
The programme is credited with bringing alternative comedy to British television: Lloyd once commented he wanted to do a "modern, working-class" comedy in contrast to other series of the time, such as The Two Ronnies, as well as attempting to replicate the satire boom of the early 1960s that launched the careers of John Cleese, Dudley Moore, Eric Idle, Tim Brooke-Taylor and others. This also happened at a time that the magazine National Lampoon, The Second City troupes and Saturday Night Live became showcases of alternative comedy in North America.In 2005, Atkinson, Smith, Stephenson, Langham, and producer Lloyd reunited to talk to Sue MacGregor about the series. Langham's departure was touched upon, with Lloyd seeming to take the blame, though Atkinson had campaigned for Langham to be kept in the cast. The Reunion was broadcast on Radio 4 on 31 July 2005.
A documentary featuring the cast reminiscing about the making of the programme was shown on BBC Two on 28 December 2009, before one of the 1995 compilation shows was aired. The documentary was repeated on 3 August 2013, just over two weeks after the death of Mel Smith.
Crew
The main writers included Colin Bostock-Smith, Andy Hamilton, Peter Brewis, Richard Curtis, and Clive Anderson. However, the producers accepted scripts for sketches from a wide range of writers, and ensured the programme remained topical by recording sketches only days before broadcast. Howard Goodall was musical director.Episodes
A total of 27 episodes of 25–30-minute duration were broadcast over four series.Series 1 had been due to start on 2 April 1979, but was postponed due to a general election being called for 3 May, with the programme being deemed "too political".
Series 1 (1979)
Series 2 (1980)
Series 3 (1980)
Series 4 (1982)
Specials
- Not the Least of Not the Nine O'Clock News
- The Best Of Not the Nine O'Clock News
- 25 Years Of Not the Nine O'Clock News
- Not The Lot of Not the Nine O'Clock News
- Not The Nine O'Clock Christmas: Write Your Own
- Not Another Not the Nine O'Clock News
- An Eighth Chance to See Not the Nine O'Clock News
- The Last of the Summer Repeats
- Not the World Cup
- Not the Nine O'Clock News
- Not the Nine O'Clock News