"Rutland Weekend Television" (1975) TV series 1975-1976

User Rating:

8.3/10   

Seasons:

1 | 2

Release Date:

12 May 1975 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy | Music

Plot:

Low budget comedy sketch series purporting to show the programming of a low key regional television service...

Plot Keywords:

Sketch Comedy

Cast

Eric Idle	...	Various / ... (14 episodes, 1975-1976)
Neil Innes	...	Various / ... (14 episodes, 1975-1976)
David Battley	...	Stig - Rutles Bassist (14 episodes, 1975-1976)
Henry Woolf		(11 episodes, 1975-1976)

Runtime:

UK:30 min (14 episodes)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Quotes:

Johnny Cash: [Singing to the tune of 'Folsom Prison Blues'] I hear the teacups rattle, hear the mighty hoover roar, I'm always washing dishes, or polishing the floor, I'm stuck in Mrs Fletcher's...

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Saturday Night Live: Eric Idle/Joe Cocker/Stuff (#2.3)" (1976)

The smallest, cheapest independent television station in England

Rutland Weekend Television (a title ad-libbed by John Cleese, for which Eric Idle cannily 'bought the rights' for less than a pittance!) is a parody on the then-thriving British local independent commercial stations which (under the ITV umbrella) featured a mixture of syndicated and regional interest programmes. Among them were Anglia, Border, Grampian, Tyne Tees, Thames and London Weekend Television, all of which provided ample grist to the satire and parody mill for this series. The running joke throughout is that RWT is the smallest and cheapest of the independent stations (founded in Rutland, a rural Midlands county which was phased out of existence for over twenty years in the early seventies, as a 'tax dodge' by the less-than-trustworthy Sir Nat Kosher) and all its programmes are made on a shoestring budget - usually with somebody else holding the shoe. The joke is bolstered by the fact that RWT aired on the non-commercial BBC2, and the series itself was produced on a decidedly skimpy budget - in fact many of the shows were recorded in a studio designed for in-vision continuity announcers and weather reports as opposed to sketch comedy. Needless to say, there wasn't room for an audience either, so there's no laugh track! But out of this eccentric basis and the necessity of the less-than-generous capital outlay comes a lot of memorable comedy. If you're familiar with Eric Idle's 'word freak' sketches in Monty Python (such as the man who speaks in anagrams), you'll know what to expect here. Most of the time it's just Eric, a skeletal crew of supporting actors (including the marvellous David Battley and Henry Woolf) sitting around talking absolute nonsense, making dreadful puns, worming their way in and out of numerous surreal conceits and getting away with some of the most breathtakingly bare-faced cheek (and, if I'm honest, good healthy smut) ever seen on British screens. Neil Innes turns up, sometimes twice an episode, to sing an amusing rock-themed number in a variety of bizarre guises. There's little of the visual flair of Python (though some of the on-screen captions and graphics are distinctly Gilliam-influenced) but the shows are never short of ideas - sure, some sketches run too long and others misfire, but watching these shows, with their ramshackle atmosphere, refusal to insult the viewer's intelligence and air of lightly-stoned mischief is like belonging to a fantastic and intriguing private member's club - a mood enhanced by the lack (at time of writing) of a proper DVD release or a decent repeat run on terrestrial television. If you can track down the shows, do it as soon as you can - you'll never regret it.