Kenny Everett BBC

Hi,
This is my first post.
Just to pre-empt I apologise for my lack of knowledge of this site.

I recently found Kenny Everett ITV series on Amazon DVD and loved it.

Since have tried to find the BBC series when he left ITV.
It does not appear to exist.

Any know better.
B

Not certain on the BBC release, but i know that in the Unforgettable Kenny Everett, it was hinted he got tired of TV sketches and went back to his first love Radio with Capital Gold and his various syndicated shows.

His last big show for the BBC was the quiz Brainstorm around 1988 which a 14 year old me loved at the time but probably hasn't lasted well in the mists of time. There's some on YouTube so ill watch today.

Still think the best BBC characters were Reg Prescott the hapless DIY guy and Verity Treacle (cough Thora Hird). But again that's looking through a youngsters eyes.

He was a unique special talent taken far far too soon and like all geniuses privately pretty shy and nervous.

Kenny's best TV work in my opinion was his Thames programmes, late 70s/early 80s, I found the BBC stuff a bit too 'over produced'. Same really for the radio, he always seemed more relaxed and funnier on Capital, than the Radio 2 period in the early to mid 80s.

I can just remember him on Radio 1 early 70s, and didn't he have an LWT show during that period too?

Considering the BBC's recent stance on older comedy shows if they are considered offensive (which Mr Everetts style certainly set out to be, for better or worse). I'ld say the odds of any official release of the BBC series in the near future is slim to none.

The Internet Archive does have what I assume is the whole BBC series from when it aired on Paramount Comedy 2 - unsure if it's uncut or not.

https://archive.org/details/TKETS

But it was all in the best possible taste!

I'd agree that The Kenny Everett Video Show that Thames made was brilliant - having just the crew laughing at the sketches and jokes made it feel as if you were in on a private joke.
His Radio 2 show was where I first heard his radio work (I'd missed him on Radio 1, and Capital was a station just for London if you can imagine such a thing, and I loved it.

And yes, it was all done in the best possible taste.
Even if the character couldn't be called Mary Hinge, as that was too rude, and she had to be Cupid Stunt instead.

I always loved Kenny's take on TV presentation. There were of course his spoof Thames idents, and he clearly had an eye for the specific techniques that programmes used. I remember particularly his spoof Australian soap, Cobbers, where at the end, the picture would fade to sepia, just like on Sons And Daughters, usually with the cast complaining, "we're all going brown!".

He was clearly something of an enthusiast of the kind of stuff we're all into here. The set of his final BBC sketch show had a monitor with the COW on in the background...



I was also obsessed as child with the episode of QED he presented called The Magic Picture Show in which he looks into the world of TV visual effects...

Yes, indeed he did.

The story goes that he was hoisted in the air with Cleo Rocos while he was dressed as Quasimodo in heavy makeup. He was left dangling while a camera fault was rectified, and as he made eye contact with Cleo while they both slowly span around, he said "that's it" or something along those lines.

It makes sense that he eventually went back to radio as his career as a TV comedian was completely accidental. His Thames show only came about because he was supposed to be hosting a straight music show and his links happened to get longer and funnier.

Don't quote me on this but I think the Thames series had more visual experimentation than the BBC show. Considering Kenny was someone who liked tinkering with his machines, I'd imagine he had a lot more fun doing that than performing "live" to a studio audience.

All in all, he was a very special talent and the industry is a much duller place without him.

Yes, in fact he had three series on LWT in 1970, running back to back over six months - it was actually just after he'd had to, cough, go away from Radio 1. I know Kenny said he didn't much care for those shows, he always used to say that they just assumed he could be as funny and spontaneous on the telly as he was on the radio, so he spent much of it just messing around trying to think of stuff. At one point they just brought a monkey on the set, hoping they could do something amusing, but it didn't, and after that he decided telly wasn't for him and didn't do it again until the Thames shows at the end of the decade.

It's worth pointing out that the Thames shows were an absolute clearance nightmare to release on DVD, as they're stuffed full of commercial music - hence why various bits have had to be edited out, especially in series one which is more a music show with comedy than the other way round. I fear the same would be the case for the Beeb shows, especially in the early years.

There was a compilation of the Beeb shows released on video about twenty years ago, but it wasn't especially good. It was produced by Kevin Bishop who unsurprisingly picked most of the clips from the episodes he produced, but they were from towards the end of the run, after Ray Cameron had left the writing team, where they were a much straighter sketch show that could have featured any comedian, and Ken was getting a bit bored of it, rather than the chaotic and brilliant shows from early in the BBC years and at Thames.

Agreed, it is. Weren't the Thames shows produced and/or directed by David Mallet, who was more music performance /video than LE/comedy, so what you say kind of squares with that?

There's the one that's on TV Ark which begins with Philip Elsmore giving a spoof continuity announcement, and Kenny and a couple of other people parachute in dressed like bank robbers and they assault him, tip up his chair etc. and Philip keeps on talking like nothing's happening.