Rutland Weekend Television

Fans of Monty Python will have a sense of deja vu watching "Rutland Weekend," since Python Eric Idle carted over the same mindset and writing style to the tiny studio in BBC2 where all 14 episodes of Rutland Weekend were recorded. This is probably Eric's best work. Even though many of the sketches fail, the easy wit of Eric's writing sees the audience through. You kind of have to retrain your ear to deal without the laugh track, more like watching a feature than a sitcom. It's not a show that insults the intelligence. It insults, certainly, and gets away with murder -- much of what's done in series 2 would have to be cut for American TV -- but it still works. Basically the show consists of Eric talking a whole lot, as a sketch comedy budget doesn't allow for much else. But that's what he did on Python too. The supporting cast, especially David Battley, Henry Woolf, Neil Innes, Gwen Taylor and Terence Bayler, are great, and Python fans will regard this as a rare treat. However, they're not likely to ever see it. As of this writing, these shows are almost impossible to find ...

Having watched both series of RWT in 1975/6, I felt that while Eric Idle had gone back to the sketch format - albeit with a framework based on a fictitious TV station - his approach was closer to Spike Milligan than Monty Python. All the sketches wove in and out of the shows, there were rather surreal moments, and there were Neil Innes' songs - many of them in fact - that made RWT rather like a revue than a sketch show. David Battley, Terence Bayler, Henry Woolf and Gwen Taylor provided a firm cast from which many characters were drawn (notably, in Battley's case, David Frost, which he had also played in Mrs. Wilson's Diary in 1968). Of course, The Rutles provided the most memorable musical moment as well as the template for the future TV special. The only pity is that none of "Rutland Weekend Television" is available on DVD/video for re-evaluation, for whatever reason, and yet despite its budgetary limitations, it has indefinable qualities. Certainly it would stand up well to a repeat viewing.

I have been a fan of Monty Python for years and am also a fan of (most of), the resulting spin offs. Fawlty Towers and Ripping Yarns in particular. However, after all these years I've come to the following conclusion about Eric Idle's series Rutland Weekend Television. - I don't really like it.

Whilst there is a nostalgic feeling I still get when watching it, most of it just isn't very funny. About 85% of it fails to even raise a smile and of the 15% that does, most of that is courtesy of Neil Innes' songs a nice throwback to the musical interludes he used to do with the Bonzo Dog Band on Do Not Adjust Your Set almost a decade before.

Surely there's some pearlers in there such as cooking Time with Lenin, Marx and Stalin, the first appearance of The Rutles, the prisoner who's waiting to be hanged, only to have his execution 'candled' at the last minute and the parody of The Old Grey Whistle Test with Eric Idle's wonderful take on 'Whispering' Bob Harris.

However, you soon come to realise that Idle's humour tends to be a bit 'samey' and repetitive and his best work was already behind him having been done with the Pythons. Here we see Idle just trying to replicate what he had already done. The faux TV talk show, the non-sensical narrations at the start of sketches, the shop keeper with silly customers. We'd seen it all before only better.

The only thing any viewer can take away from this is to realise that the Monty Python troupe were clearly greater than the sum of its parts and the fact they were ALL writers on that show gave the humour some form of variety. With Eric Idle writing the material for RWT alone, that lack of variety is obvious and it suffers all the more for it.

However, Idle did surround himself with some consummate professionals to help him perform his skits, such as David Battley and Henry Woolf. The greatest thing that LWT gave to it's audience was that it bought the wonderful Gwen Taylor to national attention, who lit up the screen whenever she was on it and is one of the main reasons to watch.

By far the weakest of all the post Python projects and the one that has also aged the worst. Sorry Eric, but this was a bit of a swing and miss.

30 years after it was first broadcast, I was fortunate to pick up 2 quality copy DVD's from eB*y (before they stopped their listings and sale!), that are taken from original BBC source tapes of both series' of this classic cult comedy. After all this time, many of the classic lines come flooding back with Idle at his best. Punctuated by the wonderful Neil Innes and his witty musical ditties, this is a real treasure.

Many of the sketches really hark back to classic Python format, and a lot of the 'tag lines' and memorable quotes that it throws out had me realising that it was Rutland Weekend Television and NOT Monty Python that was responsible for them. A lot of it works very well, some not so. The milestone appearance of the Rutles, the classic episode of THE OLD GAY WHISTLE TEST, with Whispering Bob Harris, all great stuff. Additionally, there are some very laboured sketches and episodes. Particularly in Series 2, it seems that some of the initial idea and spark that was evident in Series 1, is somewhat missing. Whether this led to its demise after the 14 episodes, who knows? But a wonderful nostalgic trip none the less, and as to why the BBC have never officially released it on the back of the Monty Python success, again who knows?

This show is fantastic. Loaded with humor and alot of it is spoofing pop culture of the time. Something Monty Python did not do. Hardly at all anyway.

Rutland Weekend Television manages to mock, Linda Lovelace, Ken Russell, the movie Tommy,Ann Margaret and The Who (via a great spoof by Neil Innes) all in a single skit. Another mocks 70s rock shows and bands. Hawaii five-O, Elton John, Johnny Cash, George Harrison even shows up to lampoon himself singing a pirates shanty in place of My Sweet Lord. The first episode of the 2nd season is also the first we see of the Rutles

There's also plenty of Monty Python's Flying Circus type skits such as the Ill Health Food Store, the poor continuity sketch, prisoners escaping under priest robes, military personnel disguised as carrots, shrimpo (oh-la-la) and if you've seen Python you basically get the idea.

A cut above even Monty Pythons Flying Circus is the inclusion of Neil Innes singing a song or two per episode. The cast is great including Idle with David Battley, Henry Woolf, Gwen Taylor. Terence Bayler and Innes who also appears in the skits. Granted you need to know alot of British TV at the time to recognize the cast. Aside from Idle and Innes, David Battley and Henry Woolf are perhaps the easiest to spot elsewhere. Woolf had a memorable role in Doctor Who's The Sun Makers. He was also in Marat/Sade as one of the inmates and did an early version of the one man show Hancock's Last Half Hour. Woolf plays Hancock in Australia leading up to an including the moment he decides to take his life. Gwen Taylor appears in The Rutles film and has a very active career on British TV and even returns to sketch comedy on the newer Tracy Ullman show.

Highly recommended. The show is described as being low budget but its no less low budget than other British tv shows of the time. They do manage decent production values considering the budget. This has the same format as the original SCTV in that a single half hour episode is meant to represent a single broadcast day. In fact they might've got the idea from watching this show since RWT debuted a year and a half before SCTV.