The Saturday Night Armistice
The Saturday Night Armistice | |
---|---|
Sarah Smith | |
Running time | 30 min per normal episode |
Original release | |
Network | BBC2 |
Release | 24 June 1995 1 January 1999 | –
The Saturday Night Armistice (later The Friday Night Armistice, plus the one-off The Election Night Armistice) is a British
The programme took an irreverent and often surreal look back at topical events, and featured studio discussions, sketches and setups. Like many 1990s British comedy series it included appearances and writing contributions by a large number of UK comedians including amongst others Arthur Mathews, Graham Linehan, Simon Pegg, Andy Riley, Kevin Cecil, Kevin Eldon, Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith, Danny Erskine, Omid Djalili, Al Murray, Ben Moor, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins.
Format
The show took an irreverent look back at the events in the previous week, although as with Iannucci's previous news
Along with sketches, there were also a number of humorous set-ups, such as Armando tricking
The programme also had a number of weekly recurring items, for example "Hunt the Old Woman", where the viewers were challenged to find the old lady of the title making an unexpected cameo appearance on national television during the previous week. Her most famous appearance was at
In 1996, scheduling changes and low Saturday-night ratings meant the programme became The Friday Night Armistice. The team did a live 3 hour-long 1997 Election special (The Election Night Armistice, broadcast on BBC 2 at the same time as BBC 1's main election programme) and a third series in 1998 and several Christmas and New Year specials, the last one airing in January 1999. A fourth series was announced for broadcast in 1999 but was not produced.[4]
None of the episodes has ever been made available commercially and owing to their topical nature are unlikely to gain a release on DVD. However, episodes have been distributed on the internet via various BitTorrent download sites.
Episode guide
- The Saturday Night Armistice
- Episode 1, 24 June 1995
- Episode 2, 1 July 1995
- Episode 3, 8 July 1995
- Episode 4, 22 July 1995
- Episode 5, 29 July 1995
- Episode 6, 5 August 1995
- The Saturday Night Armistice Party Bucket (Christmas special of series highlights), 22 December 1995
- The Friday Night Armistice
- Episode 1, 14 June 1996
- Episode 2, 21 June 1996
- Episode 3, 28 June 1996
- Episode 4, 5 July 1996
- Episode 5, 12 July 1996
- Episode 6, 19 July 1996
- The Election Night Armistice (3 hour special for the 1997 general election), 1 May 1997
- The Christmas Armistice (Christmas special of 1997 highlights and new material), 29 December 1997
- The Armistice Party Bucket (New Year special of more 1997 highlights and new material), 2 January 1998
- The Friday Night Armistice
- Episode 1, 9 January 1998
- Episode 2, 16 January 1998
- Episode 3, 23 January 1998
- Episode 4, 30 January 1998
- Episode 5, 6 February 1998
- Episode 6, 13 February 1998
- The Christmas Armistice (Christmas special of 1998 highlights and new material), 29 December 1998
- The New Year Armistice (New Year special of more 1998 highlights and new material), 1 January 1999
References
- ^ BBC Programmes
- ^ BBC Programmes
- ^ Segment
- ^ BBC Guide to Comedy
External links
- The Saturday Night Armistice at IMDb