TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

From Radio Times "BBC2 opts out for half-an-hour and RWT opts in. Open a bottle and join in the celebrations as Britain's smallest television network goes nationwide."

In 1974 after the final series of Monty Python, and it was just called Monty Python by this time, the remaining cast were deciding what to do next. But it has to be understood that Python was just one project that they all worked on. They were all successfully working outside of the show from day one, appearing in other comedy shows, writing sketches for other shows, writing sit-coms, comedy pilots, books, film scripts etc. Leaving Python was probably like leaving university all over again and it was obvious this time that they were now looking for solo projects, not merely appearing in someone else's.

While he was deciding where to go next Idle made his face known in a series of Breakaway chocolate bar adverts, using his "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" character. Since Python was broadcast past nine o'clock in the evening many young children probably didn't know who he was.

But while Idle was flogging us chocolate, and while no-one was looking, the tiny English county of Rutland was split in two and absorbed into Lincolnshire and Leicestershire. Idle saw this as a chance to launch a mock micro-station, albeit via BBC2, mimicking the programming and challenges that some of the smaller ITV stations like Channel and Border were facing on a daily basis. The lack of staff, the lack of professional equipment, the lack of advertisers, the lack of space, the lack of good set design and, ultimately, the lack of an audience. Looking at photos of some of the ITV stations in the sixties their car parks looked bigger than their studio space.

So Rutland Weekend Television was created, proposed to the BBC who then said yes. It had to look cheap, which was useful as the BBC had no intention of spending any money on it. As proof, the show was all shot without an audience in a studio smaller than Patrick Moore's airing cupboard. A end-of-series summing up song gave the budget per show as £6000.

Eric Idle played several characters in the show, in-vision continuity announcer, show host, documentary voice-over man etc, while Idle's musical colleague from Do Not Adjust Your Set, Neil Innes was brought in to provide weekly songs and double up to perform in some sketches. His back-up band Fatso featured Andy Roberts from Innes' previous band GRIMMS, John Halsey and Billy Bremner. Idle himself was no slouch at song writing and also contributed songs throughout the series as he had done for Python.

Despite resolutely defining itself as a weekend channel, the show debuted on Monday evenings on BBC2, with the station logo paying a tribute to the slightly larger London Weekend Television. Neil Innes' theme tune, L'amour Perdue would appear at both ends of each show.

In the third show Neil Innes played a John Lennon spoof The Children Of Rock 'n' Roll which would re-appear on The Rutles LP as Good Times Roll, a small sign of what was to become RWT's legacy.

The final show of first series was broadcast on the 16th June 1975 and according to Idle someone on the production staff congratulated him for producing a whole series that cost the BBC less than a single edition of the Lulu show.

For the Religion Today sketch in the final show Idle looked remarkably like a punk from a year or so later.

Idle must have been on the BBC's Christmas card list as he was rewarded with a special, Christmas With Rutland Weekend Television, broadcast on 26th December with guest George Harrison. Idle would direct promo clips for Harrison's This Song and True Love the following year. Innes and Fatso backed George on a song about a pirate, despite the intro suggesting My Sweet Lord.

After a series of repeats at the beginning of 1976 the series was back for its second and final set of shows, beginning 12th November. In order to make it even cheaper the show's production is moved to Bristol, so much so that they managed to squeeze out seven shows this time. The first episode of the second series included the now famous Rutles' A Hard Day's Rut clip, which Idle had given to NBC's Saturday Night Live to play a few weeks' before.

Unlike series one, the second series could actually count as being a Weekend show as it was broadcast on Friday nights. The station ID this time around was a tribute to BBC1's famous globe ident, seemingly via Atom Heart Mother. A few features like Expose return from the first series, as did guest, film critic Tony Bilbow, who was given his own episode, Tony Bilbow Theatre.

The final show on 24th December 1976 got a celebratory final credit from the Radio Times "Highlights of 40 years of television from Britain's tiniest network include drama, documentary, comedy and song."

Python fans shouldn't have been disappointed, as this seemed to be the most Pythonesque of any of the Pythons' solo shows, with Fawlty Towers and Ripping Yarns both being story/situation led shows.

Although the show has never appeared on tape or disc, or repeated complete since the seventies a soundtrack album was released by BBC Records in the UK and Passport Records in the USA in 1976.

The Rutles clip was later expanded into an hour-long TV special by producer Lorne Michaels and broadcast in March 1978 by NBC in the USA and BBC2 in the UK. All You Need Is Cash featured many of the RWT cast, as well as past guest George Harrison and stars from Saturday Night Live.

"...as you can imagine."

RUTLAND WEEKEND TELEVISION

BBC2

12th May 1975 - 24th December 1976