That Was the Week That Was
That Was the Week That Was | |
---|---|
Also known as | TW3 |
Genre | Satire |
Created by |
|
Presented by | David Frost |
Theme music composer | Ron Grainer |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of series | 2 |
No. of episodes | 37 |
Production | |
Producer | Ned Sherrin |
Running time | 50 minutes |
Production company | BBC |
Original release | |
Network | BBC TV |
Release | 24 November 1962 28 December 1963 | –
Related | |
Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life (1964–1965) |
That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme that aired on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced, and directed by Ned Sherrin and Jack (aka John) Duncan, and presented by David Frost.
The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the UK in the early 1960s, as it broke ground in comedy by lampooning political figures. TW3 was broadcast from Saturday, 24 November 1962 to late December 1963. An American version under the same title aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring Frost.
Cast and writers
Cast members included cartoonist
Script-writers included John Albery, John Antrobus, John Betjeman, John Bird, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Peter Cook, Roald Dahl, Robin Grove-White, Richard Ingrams, Lyndon Irving, Gerald Kaufman, Frank Muir, David Nobbs, Denis Norden, Bill Oddie, Dennis Potter, Eric Sykes, Kenneth Tynan, and Keith Waterhouse.[1]
Programme
The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ...") sung by
The programme was not party political but did not treat all issues with what the producers considered to be a false level of impartiality and balance; one example of this is the issue of racism and "the evils of
On Saturday, 20 October 1962 the award of Nobel prizes to John Kendrew and Max Perutz, and to Francis Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins was satirised in a short sketch with the prizes referred to as the Alfred Nobel Peace Pools; in this sketch Watson was called "Little J. D. Watson" and "Who'd have thought he'd ever get the Nobel Prize? Makes you think, doesn't it". The germ of the joke was that Watson was only 25 when he helped discover the structure of DNA; much younger than the others.
TW3 was broadcast on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through material as they saw fit. At the beginning of the second season in the autumn of 1963, in an attempt to assert control over the programme, the BBC scheduled repeats of The Third Man television series after the end of TW3. Frost suggested a means of sabotaging this tactic to Sherrin, and he agreed. For three weeks, at the end of each episode Frost read out a brief summary of the plot of the episode of The Third Man that was due to follow the show, spoiling its twists, until the repeats were abandoned following the direct intervention of Greene.[6]
Frost often ended a satirical attack with the remark "But seriously, he's doing a grand job".[7] At the end of each episode, Frost usually signed off with: "That was the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That was ‘That Was The Week That Was’ …that was."
Kennedy tribute
TW3 produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire for the edition on Saturday, 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It featured a contribution from Dame Sybil Thorndike and Millicent Martin performing the tribute song "In the Summer of His Years" by Herbert Kretzmer. This was screened on NBC the following day, and the soundtrack was released by Decca Records. A clip featuring Roy Kinnear was shown in the David L. Wolper documentary film Four Days in November and on the History Channel 2009 documentary JFK: 3 Shots that Changed America. BBC presenter Richard Dimbleby broadcast the president's funeral from Washington, and he said that the programme was a good expression of the sorrow felt in Britain.[8]
Reception
Prime Minister
Historians have identified TW3 as breaking ground in comedy and broadcasting. Graham McCann said that it challenged the "convention that television should not acknowledge that it is television; the show made no attempt to hide its cameras, allowed the microphone boom to intrude, and often revealed other nuts and bolts of studio technology."[11] This was unusual in the 1960s and gave the programme a modern feel.[12] TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time", and "it seemed to last just as long as it wanted".[11]
The programme was taken off the air at short notice in December 1963 with the explanation that '1964 is a General Election year'.
Legacy
TW3 was broadcast live, but it was normally recorded for legal reasons; only the pilot episode was not recorded.
Alternative versions
US versions
An American version was on NBC from 10 November 1963 to May 1965.
Of 50 episodes, only a few survive in video form, yet audio episodes survive on
ABC aired a That Was The Week That Was special on 21 April 1985, hosted by David Frost and Anne Bancroft and featuring future Saturday Night Live cast members Jan Hooks and A. Whitney Brown and puppetry from Spitting Image.[18]
Other international versions
This section needs additional citations for verification. (November 2018) |
A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two seasons amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related.
An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue—most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s—but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also.
The New Zealand show
A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer (It Just So Happens Once Again), aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award—though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged.[19]
An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha.
In 2004, ABC News revived the iconic TW3 theme song as a closing segment on its weekly magazine program,
Parodies
Cleveland, Ohio, local personality Ghoulardi (played by Ernie Anderson), host of WJW-TV's Shock Theater in the 1960s, ran clips of local celebrities and politicians and satirised them in a Shock Theater segment entitled That Was Weak Wasn't It?[20]
Beginning in 2006, 1812 Productions, an all comedy theatre company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has annually performed a stage show called This Is the Week That Is. The variety show style play is written by its small cast with a script that changes nightly over several weeks of performances, and includes improvised comedy, musical parodies, and a versatile cast of performers. The show focuses on politics and news from the preceding year, often taking on local Philadelphia stories as well. In 2019, a documentary, In the Field; Conceiving Satire: The Making of This Is The Week That Is, about the creation of the long-running show was commissioned by the American Theatre Wing and nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Arts Program/Special.[21]
References
- ^ McCann 2006, p. 156.
- ^ a b Hegarty 2016, p. 55.
- ISBN 978-0-19-215964-9.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-134-92368-7.
- ^ Hegarty 2016, p. 65.
- ^ Humphrey Carpenter That Was Satire That Was, London: Victor Gollancz, 2000, pp. 270–71
- ^ Stuart Jeffries, "This'll kill you", The Guardian, 16 January 1999, p. B5.
- ^ "A British Program Honoring Kennedy Shown Over NBC". The New York Times. 25 November 1963. p. 10.
- ^ "BBC marks TW3 anniversary". BBC News. 26 November 2002.
- ^ Hastings, Chris (17 June 2007). "Tories helped take TW3 off the air". The Daily Telegraph.
- ^ a b McCann 2006, pp. 313–314.
- ^ "TV Trends: Conspicuous Cameras". Image Dissectors. 8 June 2010. Retrieved 1 September 2013.
- ^ "That Was the Week that Was". lostshows. Retrieved 13 January 2020.
- ^ Gardner, Paul (3 January 1964). "Originator Here to Assist 'T.W. 3' / David Frost Will Appear on New Satirical Revue". The New York Times. p. 49. Retrieved 19 November 2018.
- ^ a b c d
- NBC. "That Was The Week That Was - June 12, 1964". youtube. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
- NBC. "That Was The Week That Was - June 19, 1964". youtube. Retrieved 12 June 2023.
- ^ "Morse for 'T.W. 3'". The New York Times, January 20, 1964, p. 87. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
- ^ "Lost and Found Sound: The Stories". NPR. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
- ^ "That Was The Week That Was (TV)". Retrieved 5 November 2015.
- ^ Nijland, Yfke. "'Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer'" (in Dutch). Geschiedenis 24. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
- ISBN 978-0786409402. Archived from the originalon 28 September 2007. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
- ^ "American Theatre Wing & This Is The Week That Is". 1812 Productions. Retrieved 13 December 2019.
- McCann, Graham (2006). Spike & Co. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-89809-7.
- Hegarty, Neil Hegarty (2016). Frost – That Was the Life That Was: The Authorised Biography. Ebury Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7535-5672-6.
External links
- That Was The Week That Was at BBC Online
- That Was the Week That Was at the British Film Institute
- That Was the Week That Was at the BFI's Screenonline
- That Was the Week That Was at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
- That Was the Week That Was at IMDb(UK version)
- That Was the Week That Was at IMDb(US version)