Rutland Weekend Television
Rutland Weekend Television was a television sketch show on BBC2, written by Eric Idle with music by Neil Innes. Two series, the first consisting of six episodes, the second of seven, were broadcast, in 1975 and 1976. A Christmas special also aired on Boxing Day 1975.
It was Idle's first television project after Monty Python's Flying Circus ended the previous year. The show is perhaps best known as the catalyst for The Rutles. Despite many calls, none of the episodes have been released on DVD - the show has complicated rights issues, belonging in principle both to the BBC and Idle, but with issues concerning appearances by former-Beatle George Harrison and the songs of Neil Innes. Innes has claimed that Idle has no interest in seeing the series released as it reminds him of an unhappy time in his life, but recent litigation and bitterness concerning The Rutles spin-off may also be a consideration.
Rutland Weekend Television or RWT centred on "Britain's smallest television network", situated in England's smallest (and mainly rural) county, Rutland.
The show's title alludes to the real television broadcaster London Weekend Television (London at the time being covered by two ITV franchises, Thames Television broadcasting Monday to Friday, and LWT at weekends). A Rutland TV station would be pretty small, so a Rutland Weekend Television would have to be ridiculously tiny. The joke was doubly meaningful, as instead of a light entertainment budget, Idle had accidentally been granted a presentation budget 1 — not sketch comedy — so the weekly patter about their inability to buy props and sets was quite real. Indeed the last show of the first series featured Idle and Innes, stripped and shivering in blankets under a bare bulb, singing about how the power's about to be shut off. Idle speaks bitterly about these conditions now but his attempts to overcome them formed the basis of a lot of the show's best jokes.
Idle, in a 1975 Radio Times interview, remarked, 'It was made on a shoestring budget, and someone else was wearing the shoe. The studio is the same size as the weather forecast studio and nearly as good. We had to bring the sets up four floors for each scene, then take them down again. While the next set was coming up, we'd change our make-up. Every minute mattered. It's not always funny to be funny from ten in the morning until ten at night. As for ad-libbing, what ad-libbing? You don't ad-lib when you're working with three cameras and anyway the material goes out months after you've made it.'" 2
A typical episode
The episode begins with the announcer, usually with something going wrong or with something out of the ordinary. From announcements catching fire to open auditions for the announcer itself. Occasionally the announcement would be sung, or performed by more than one person. In one episode, the announcements are performed by 'The Ricochet Brothers' (spelled Ricochet, but pronounced Rick-ot-chet) who begin the episode as a pair, and expand to a full cast, each speaking the announcement in harmony.
The role of the announcer would to announce the 'programmes' (typically sketches) - many programmes would lead into, or announce one of many songs and accompanying strange vignettes by Neil Innes.
Cast and Guest Stars
As the star of the show, Idle comprises many of the 'leader' roles in the series. He's also the first person to appear in the show, and the interviewer in the first sketch, 'Gibberish' in which Idle and Woolf talk in complete nonsensical sentences.
Ham sandwich, bucket and water plastic Duralex rubber McFisheries underwear. Plugged rabbit emulsion, zinc custard without sustenance in kippling-duff geriatric scenery, maximizes press insulating government grunting sapphire-clubs incidentally. But tonight, sam pan Bombay Bermuda in diphtheria rustic McAlpine splendor, rabbit and foot-foot-phooey jugs rapidly big biro ruveliners musk-green gauges micturate with nipples and tiptoe rusting machinery, rustically inclined. Good evening and welcome.
A former member of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, longtime songwriter for and performer with Monty Python, and later to be part of musical acts The Grimms, The World, and The Rutles, Innes wrote and performed most of the songs in the show, often in the guise of another character, such as Stoop Solo. A few non-Innes songs (mostly penned by Idle) were also performed by him and members of his band, Fatso, during the tenure of the show.
Aside from the musical items, Innes was also a regular cast member, performing in many of the sketches.
Battley, a RWT regular, is best remembered for his performance as the schoolteacher in Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory (1971) and the hapless Ergo in Krull (1983)
In the show, he was often the straight man, and second only to Idle in the number of his performances throughout the series. Most notably, he was the George Harrison character in the RWT version of The Rutles.
Woolf plays often as a co-conspirator to Battley, appearing at his side in many sketches, though occasionally complains about being cast as 'the short one', or 'The Jewish One'. He would later star as the mystic, Arthur Sultan, in 'All You Need Is Cash'
As the main female character, Gwen would appear in a lot of sketches, but is still much more noticeably absent than Idle or Battley. Credibly, she frequently plays genuine female characters, instead of the more 'decorative' roles from the other female contributors. She too would go on to star in 'All You Need Is Cash', as the mother of Leggy Mountbatten and Ron Nasty's wife, Chastity.
Appearing in from the last episode of series one onward, Baylor played a variety of characters, including a shy and apparently forgetful announcer. He would later appear as the manager of 'The Rutles' in, 'All You Need Is Cash'
Guest Stars
Bunny May, Lyn Ashley, Carinthia West
Three performers who were given the more 'token' roles, often playing attractive, silent characters, in sharp contrast to the well rounded performances of Gwen Taylor.
Bunny May [1] was not in fact an actress but an actor who occasionally appeared in drag. Lyn Ashley was Eric's girlfriend at the time of filming. Carinthia West, romantically associated with Mick Jagger & Bryan Ferry at various points in her life, increasingly provided the glamour over the two series.
Fatso
In addition to this, the band Fatso featured regularly, both as a group and as individuals.
Members included:-
- John Halsey
- Billy Bremner
- Brian Hodgson
- Roger Rettig
As well as Innes himself.
Roger Rettig now resides in Florida, USA, and is regarded as one of the finest pedal steel players in the business.
Brian Hodgson, regularly tours with legendary guitarist Albert Lee in a band called Hogan's Heroes.
Billy Bremner is one of the UK's top session guitarists who now resides in Sweden. He was also a member of Rockpile fronted by Dave Edmunds. Also in the band was Nick Lowe. Billy released a solo single on Stiff Records in 1981 called "Loud Music In Cars."
George Harrison
The Christmas special features George Harrison as "Pirate Bob", dressed in appropriate attire and frequently interrupting the action throughout the show, before being given the chance to sing at the end in normal clothing (singing a lively song about pirates). Neil Innes was friendly with Harrison and the Beatles from his days in the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (the Bonzos were featured in the "Magical Mystery Tour" film, and Paul McCartney produced the Bonzo single "Urban Spaceman"). Incidentally, Innes acted in Terry Gilliam's first non-Python film, Jabberwocky, and Harrison's company Handmade Films financed Gilliam's second non-Python film Time Bandits as well as performing Put On Your Ta Ta Little Girly in the Handmade film "The Missionary".
Idle said of his RWT colleagues (in the same Radio Times interview) "'Neil Innes is superb. I must be his biggest fan. Henry Woolf played Toulouse-Lautrec in the West End. He's the best small philosopher in London at the moment. And David Battley – what can I say? Straight, pale, dead-pan brilliant. Our cameraman, Peter Bartlett, filmed the Queen but says I'm easier to work with.' 2
The Rutles
One show introduced The Rutles, a four-piece band fronted by Innes as a man 'suffering from love songs' spoofing The Beatles, singing "I Must Be In Love", a masterly pastiche of some of the early Lennon-McCartney tunes. This was followed by the beginnings of a documentary feature about the band, cut short when the camera, mounted on a car, speeds off. This scene was later remade in the spinoff film, All You Need Is Cash, featuring Idle, Innes, Rikki Fataar and John Halsey (who also appeared in many of the musical items in the series) as the "Pre-Fab Four". Innes wrote the music for the film, most of which was parody of well-known Beatles songs. On RWT (including the clip featured later on Saturday Night Live, which vaulted the Pre-Fab Four to stardom) the Rikki Fataar part was played by cast regular David Battley.
Python Influence
Aside from the legendary first appearance of the Rutles, the show features some brilliantly surreal humor in the Python tradition. One sketch features the Lone Ranger (Idle) transformed into the Lone Accountant, with Innes as Tonto accidentally murdering holdup victims while trying to rescue them ("too many gin-and-tonic at lunch... You think it easy to be Indian and accountant?"). Another scene features Gwen Taylor (who played Mrs. Mountbatten and Chastity in "All You Need Is Cash") visiting the doctor to complain of her constantly changing costume and surroundings and being diagnosed with "bad continuity." The prescribed treatment is editing out two weeks of her life, after which she says she feels well, and a bit hungry... though her soundtrack is still off. She then becomes a victim of recurring film flashbacks, eventually disappearing back into her childhood.
The show's commercial unavailability on video, a disappointment to many Monty Python fans, is said by Neil Innes to be a result of Idle's "bad memories" of that period in his life. Recently, good quality bootlegs have appeared on Ebay. The video copies come from the BBC Archive with color bars and slate included.
Innes next went on to create and star in The Innes Book of Records, a pre-MTV show that wove together strange guests and music videos in a bewildering array of musical styles and visual styles.
Other media
As well as providing the basis for The Rutles, Rutland Weekend Television also spawned its own LP and book.
Album
Rutland Weekend Songbook, BBC Records (1976) (BBC REB233). (CD issue MSI MSI 10079 Japan only)
Track listing
Side one
- L'Amour Perdu
- Gibberish (a sketch)
- Front Loader
- Say Sorry Again
- I Must Be in Love[2]
- Twenty-Four Hours in Tunbridge Wells
- The Fabulous Bingo Brothers
- Concrete Jungle Boy
- The Children of Rock and Roll[3]
- Stoop Solo
- Song o' the Insurance Men
Side two
- Testing
- I Give Myself to You
- Communist Cooking
- Johnny Cash
- Protest Song
- Accountancy Shanty
- Football
- Boring
- L'Amour Perdu Cha Cha Cha (a sketch)
- The Hard to Get
- The Song o' the Continuity Announcers
^ Early version of The Rutles' "I Must Be In Love" ^ Early version of The Rutles' "Good Times Roll"
Book
The Rutland Dirty Weekend Book by Eric Idle, 1976
A dense and lavishly illustrated parody of the Television, films and print media of the mid-1970s.
The book is notable for the issue of "Rutland Stone" bound inside. The back page of this issue carries a full-page advertisement for The Rutles' latest album ("Finchley Road"), a single ("Ticket To Rut"), and an assortment of Rutles merchandise. The book also contains the "Vatican Sex Manual" featuring pictures of Eric Idle in various positions in which it is impossible to have sex.