Rutland Weekend Television
Rutland Weekend Television was a television sketch show on BBC2, written by Eric Idle with music by Neil Innes. Two series were broadcast, the first consisting of six episodes in 1975, the second of seven in 1976. A Christmas special also aired on Boxing Day 1975. It was Idle's first television project after Monty Python's Flying Circus, which ended the previous year. The show was the catalyst for The Rutles. Rutland Weekend Television or RWT centred on "Britain's smallest television network", situated in England's smallest county, Rutland. The show's title alludes to London Weekend Television. 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 Idle had accidentally been granted a presentation budget instead of the more lavish budgets associated with light entertainment - so the weekly patter about their inability to buy props and sets was in fact 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 jokes.
Songs: Topless-a-Go-Go, God Free Daniel.
I Must Be in Love, (He's Wrong)
Songs: I've Given Myself to Me, Crystal Balls.
Songs: The Hard to Get, Sprimpo, 24 Hours in Tunbridge Wells.
Accountancy Shanty, Another Lonely Man.
Songs: Drama on a Saturday Night, (wife swapping)
Songs: (Eric's punk song), Janitor's Kids, (Australian love song), Slaves of Freedom, It's Hard to Make It When You're Straight.
Star of the Dirty Movies, Stoop Solo.
Songs: Say Sorry Again, Communist Cooking, Lie Down and Be Counted
Songs: The Children of Rock and Roll, Football, Boring.
Songs: (Elton John parody), Once We Had a Donkey, Protest Song.
Songs: I'm the Urban Spaceman, Front Loader.
Songs: Singing This Song is Easy, L'amour perdu, Mrs Fletchers, The Song o' the Continuity Announcers.
Songs: Testing, I Don't Believe in Santa Anymore, Concrete Jungle Boy, The Pirate Song.
Location | |
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Language | English |
Release | 1975-05-12 |
Producer | BBC |