Complete and Utter History of Britain

On October 2 2023, a team of archivists at ITV discovered that this series - previously thought mostly lost - was not lost at all. It had merely been miscatalogued. A viewing of the 16mm kinescope prints held by ITV revealed the astonishing reality that all six episodes did indeed exist. They had been hidden from public view for over 50 years due to a simple clerical error. ITV wasted no time, and did a digital restoration and clean up of the prints for a Britbox release later that same month. For Python zealots this truly is a holy grail, as the show was produced in late 1968 and early 1969, between At Last The 1948 Show/Do Not Adjust Your Set and the commencement of Monty Python's Flying Circus on October 5 1969. It's very rare for a Python-related discovery of this magnitude to occur.

Just watched the full 6 episodes of this, lost for 54yrs, classic "mockumentary" and can say...its brilliant. Written by Michael Palin and aaTerry Jones, it is full of historical skits and "interviews" with various british figures in history. The humour is very "python-esq" (think "holy grail" but in different decades of British history). Its believable to think think this helped laid the groundwork for the greatness to come ("Flying Circus" debuted later the same year in 1969) and Palin and Jones show their, cross-dressing/ absurdist chops here). A must for all python fans...this thoroughly made me smile from ear to ear.