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LWT COMEDY |
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London
Weekend's first ever programme, We Have Ways of Making You Laugh,
hosted by Frank Muir, was blacked out by an industrial dispute 15 seconds
after the station went on air for the first time. On The Buses
was the station's first really popular comedy series, earning high viewing
figures across the network and a subsequent long run.
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A rare ITV outing for Ronnie Barker in London Weekend's 1968 comedy Hark
at Barker. Curry
and Chips - written by Alf Garnett creator Johnny Speight and starring
Spike Milligan, Kenny Lynch and Eric Sykes - was LWT's first colour production
in 1969. Set in a factory canteen, the intention was to highlight racial
discrimination, but the Independent Television Authority felt the show to
be racist and forced LWT to take it off the air. |
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| Doctor
in Charge was a ratings-banker for London Weekend in the early 1970s and it was followed up with Doctor at Large. Both starred Robin Nedwell. Click the image for the video. |
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| John Alderton was the long-suffering hip young teacher
in the highly popular Please Sir! which ran from 1969 until 1975. Click the image for the video. |
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| Barry Evans played the beleagured English teacher in this cheesy comedy, set in an adult education centre. Mind Your Language, screened from 1977 to 1981, and written by Vince Powell, was set in
a language class. The light-hearted series was accused of promoting racial
stereotypes and was cancelled by Michael Grade when he became programme
controller at LWT. An independent production company revived it for a brief
run on ITV in 1986. Click the image for the video. |
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The Fosters, 1974-1978, featured a young Lenny Henry, fresh
from talent show success, in its cast.
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Whoops Apocalypse
was a highly entertaining cold war satire charting the events leading
up to a notional Third World War. It should be repeated!
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| LWT
bought the rights to The Goodies which had enjoyed a long run on
the BBC in the 70s, but the move backfired when the true implications
of the very high production expenses became apparent and the antics of Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor, ran for two seasons only on ITV. Click the image for the video. |
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| Maureen Lipman was the star of Agony from 1979 to 1981, where she starred as a magazine and local radio agony aunt
who had to cope with a highly complex family life herself. The show also featured Simon Williams. Click the image for the video. |
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Fine Romance, with Judi Dench, Michael Williams and Susan Penhaligon, was an award-winning
comedy for LWT, which ran between 1981 and 1984. Only 26 episodes were made but the show was hugely popular. Click the image for the video. |
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Two
LWT outings for Nicholas Lyndhurst, first in The Piglet Files,
by Colin Bostock-Smith, and secondly in the popular mid-1980s yuppie drama,
The Two Of Us, which dealt with an upwardly mobile young city couple
and the trials and tribulations of setting up home together. Cannon
and Ball got big audiences with their comedy double act in the early
to mid 80s.
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Richard
O' Sullivan starred in the early and mid-1980s situation comedy Me
and My Girl which enjoyed a long run into the 90s. Emma Ridley played
the daughter and Joan Sanderson, of Please Sir fame, played the marvellous
battleaxe of a mother-in-law. Faith in the Future starred Lynda
Bellingham and Julia Sawahla as mother and daughter.
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Hale
and Pace kept many of us chuckling during Sunday nights from the late
80s to the mid 90s and James Bolam and Lynda Bellingham got together in
Second Thoughts, a traditional sitcom format from LWT.
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