At Last The 1948 Show - History

History

Frost approached Cleese, Chapman and Brooke-Taylor to star in a sketch series. They suggested Marty Feldman, until then a comedy writer. The series bridged the radio series I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again and television's Monty Python's Flying Circus and The Goodies. It also led to Feldman's television series Marty (which included Tim Brooke-Taylor). The convention of comedy scenes interspersed by songs was abandoned. It still used punchlines, which would be abandoned in Monty Python's Flying Circus.

The shows had no relationship to the year 1948; the title referred to the BBC's habit of letting shows sit for months before broadcasting them. The cast also recorded an LP of sketches from the show's first season, as well as releasing a book of some of the sketches. The series was filmed at what is now Fountain Studios, Wembley.

The show was made shortly before colour on ITV. There were two short series totalling 13 25-minute episodes (six in the first series, seven in the second). Thames Television wiped the material once they had acquired the Rediffusion London archive, and all but two episodes were destroyed. John Cleese rescued two episodes when he became aware of what was happening. Five compilation episodes for Swedish television also survived. Much missing material has been recovered in video, and surviving video has been restored by the British Film Institute.

Out of an original total of 13 episodes, only one episode is almost completely missing (1.1), seven exist complete, and five are incomplete. Those that are incomplete consist of footage recovered from five compilation tapes returned from Sweden. The audio of all 13 episodes exist, recorded off air by several fans. Only for the last episode no complete audio recording is known. The majority of a previously missing episode (season 2, episode 6 tx 31.10.67) was returned to the BFI in May 2010, so that today 73% of the original material survives.

Only the five Swedish compilation episodes have been released on DVD. This includes the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, written and performed by Cleese, Chapman, Brooke-Taylor and Feldman. The DVDs were issued by Pinnacle Vision in the UK (Region 2) and by Tango Entertainment in the US (Region 1). The DVD incorrectly states these as "recently recovered episodes", titles them as "episodes ", and also presents them in the wrong series order. There is no mention on the DVD that the content is a compilation. All editions of the DVD are NTSC based, with soft, grainy, and generally low picture quality even considering the material's age. The surviving original episodes have never been released, but copies of episodes 1.4, 1.6, 2.2, 2.3, and 2.6 have in the past (and possibly illegally) been uploaded on YouTube and other websites; these look much sharper than the compilation material.

Several sketches came from the Cambridge Circus. Sketches were again reused in How to irritate people and by Monty Python for two German TV specials (Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus) and for stage shows, including the "Four Yorkshiremen sketch", which was performed on Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl. A number of sketches was also performed on several editions of the Secret Policeman's Ball: Top of the Form, Beekeeper. Another, "Bookshop Sketch," was recorded in modified form for Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album. Some sketches were also performed again by The Two Ronnies: Psychiatrist, Tea Boy on a mission, Grubnlian holidays.