Yours faithfully,
S.H.C.
Member Newport No.1 Branch N.U.R. [National Union of Railwaymen]
Prince of Wales Road, Sheffield 2, Yorks.
5 October 1946
Dear Sir,
It is the first time I have ever written to you, but I cannot let last Friday Evening’s broadcast by Nosmo King pass without a very strong protest. This comedian ? [sic] could do nothing but pass adverse comments about M.P.s, chiefly the Labour Government. There has been far too much of this lately and I consider it a gross insult to the many thousands who voted for the present Government. This kind of wit did not appear when the Tories were in power.
I always understood that the B.B.C. were Non political but apparently I must have been mistaken.
Yours Truly,
H. P.
Watford, Herts
27 December 1946
Dear Sir,
I wish to draw your attention to a flagrant violation by the B.B.C. of their supposedly non political bias in their broadcast.
The script of ‘Heres How’ Broadcast [sic] at 10.15p.m. in the Home Service on the 27inst. contained a song purely without entertainment value, and designed to incite the listener against the present government.
While I cannot give you the full words, I have no doubt that the following excerpt will interest you, and I trust that you will be able to take some action in this matter.
‘Isn’t it a pity that Britons can take it
Isn’t it a pity they don’t make a fuss
Take the standing in the queues
The failure to house them
That ought to arouse them
As long as they take it without a shout
There are governments that will dish it out.’
While of course this is not the whole song and one or two of my words may vary from the correct ones, I hope that you will consider whether this matter is worthy of further investigation.
I shall take the earliest opportunity of raising this matter at my T.U. branch meeting and at the next meeting of Watford L.P. [Labour Party] to which I have the honour to be this year’s A.E.U. [Amalgamated Engineering Union] delegate.
Yours faithfully,
(Sgd.)
A.W.H.
Stoke on Trent
20 September 1947
To: The Programme Director, B.B.C., London, W
Dear Sir,
I would be the last to throw ‘brickbats’ at the B.B.C. for I think its programmes second to none, and realize that good humoured jokes of topical interest are perhaps more than ever welcome in times of austerity, but at the same time I should like to register a protest at the constant repetition of ‘jokes’, some of them so stale too, at the expense of particular members of the Government. I refer in particular to Stuart MacPherson and the gentleman introducing ‘Up and Doing’.
Some how they seem to be meant to be taken seriously, whereas one can laugh with some artists at [Minister of Fuel and Power] Mr. Shinwell, but having seen some of the grim realities and ugliness of mining districts such as this, it is not always easy to do that.
Politicians are not sensitive I believe but I am sure many listeners are.
Yours faithfully,
L.J.S.
Preston, Lancs.
9 October 1948
To: The Director-General, British Broadcasting Corporation, London W1
Sir,
It is only on rare occasions that I listen to the radio feature ‘Music-Hall’; and this is the first occasion on which I have written a letter of this kind to the B.B.C. I desire, however to call your attention to a ‘joke’ made by the Western Brothers in their broadcast this evening.
‘Three applicants are up for interview for a big job on the Coal Board. Each, on being admitted, is asked what twelve twelves make. Two give the correct answer, one a not very obvious answer. Then comes the ‘joke’: Who got the job? The witty answer was ‘Mr. Gaitskell’s nephew’.
Now, sir, it seems to me that this sort of thing is in extremely bad taste. Whether it leaves the perpetrators open to action for libel I cannot say. Of course I may have a deficient sense of humour, or there may be some subtlety of humour that I am unable to perceive. I am aware that this government has been especially subject to this kind of oblique attack; though most ministers are not thin-skinned and it is, within reason, salutary that we should make light of the exigencies of the time. I do not think that one’s own particular political views need affect one’s judgement, however, as to what is or is not in good taste. I am quite convinced that the incident calls for a public apology. And I shall be surprised if other fair-minded people do not think the same.
I am, Sir,
Yours faithfully,
L.A.R.
London EC2
24 March 1948
To: Miss K. Haacke, The British Broadcasting Corporation, W1
Dear Madam,
It may well be that when I wrote to you about [comic actor] Jack Hulbert’s broadcast I did so rather too quickly after hearing it, and had I waited it is more than likely that I should not have written it at all.
I entirely understand that a Government or public men who cannot stand the jests of the comedians have no right to be in the position they are. What did annoy me was that so few people seem to realise the gravity of the country’s position and until they do there is no great hope of an improvement in our affairs. The broadcast on the White Paper seemed to me to be the first really firm statement this Government has issued and it seemed a pity to detract from it by laughing at it immediately afterwards.
Do believe that I am all for the B.B.C’s policy of avoiding censorship of the comedians. In these circumstances I do feel that the comedian in question, whom I used to know personally and like immensley [sic], did rather overstep the bounds of good taste. I fully realise, however, that the B.B.C. cannot avoid such things and once more I do appreciate your courteous letter.
Yours faithfully,
W.D.W.
CHAPTER NINE
THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS
The largest numbers of files in the Written Archive holding correspondence relating to a specific programme are devoted to That Was the Week That Was, or TW3 as it became known. The second largest is probably those files collected by its successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life, which is probably on a par with BBC-3, the final programme in producer/director Ned Sherrin’s trilogy of programmes tarred with the brush of satire.
Sherrin was an Oxford graduate who learned the trade of television production during the mid to late 1950s whilst working on live shows for ATV, the franchise holder for the Midlands area on weekdays. He then moved down to London where he joined the staff of the nightly magazine programme Tonight, whose success lay in the way it treated the news entertainingly and slightly irreverently, which was entirely original in the late 1950s. After he had proved his credentials on Tonight, Sherrin was charged with the task of finding a British equivalent of the late-night talk show which American television had developed with great success.
Having assembled the cast who were all to become famous very quickly, Sherrin produced and directed two pilot shows, both of which were deeply disliked by his bosses. In subsequent years, Sherrin told two conflicting stories about how TW3 got the green light to proceed to production. One of them concerned a group of Tory ladies who had been interviewed by Bernard Levin and who were incensed that their appearances had not been seen by the nation. The other, rather more likely version, was that ITV announced it was planning a satire programme of its own.
Sherrin made a virtue of the necessity created by live performance and inadequate rehearsal time and decided to include shots of the studio, the audience, the actors reading their lines off a script and, innovatively, the cameramen going about their work. On Saturday 24 November 1962, Millicent Martin, looked directly into the lens and sang the lyrics of a complicated song she had been given only a few hours before.
That was the week th
at was
It’s over let it go
But what a week it was –
At Brussels, Ted Heath has the world at his feet
He got tariff reductions on kangaroo meat,
Sir Keith Joseph’s lady gave the homeless a break
They called to protest, she said, ‘Let ’em eat cake!’
By the time the show meandered to a finish after midnight, the BBC, rather to its own surprise, found that it had commissioned a social revolution.
The BBC’s written policy as published in the BBC Variety Programmes Policy Guide for Writers and Producers had been to exclude jokes concerned with the following subjects:
Lavatories
Effeminacy in men
Immorality of any kind
Suggestive references to:
Honeymoon couples
Chambermaids
Fig leaves
Prostitution
Ladies’ underwear e.g. winter draws on
Animal habits e.g. rabbits
Commercial travellers
Interestingly, the BBC refused to be cowed by political pressure and continued to approve jokes about politicians except for ‘anything that could be construed as personal abuse of Ministers, Party Leaders or MPs and anything that can reasonably be construed as derogatory to political institutions’. This was the area in which TW3 was to have a permanent influence and as long as Sherrin, Frost and the writers were protected by Hugh Greene’s ‘hands off’ approach, they were safe to have a go at any politician and any political institution.
Peter Cook had already mercilessly lampooned Macmillan in Beyond the Fringe, and Private Eye was on the shelves before TW3 started its remorseless attacks, particularly on the Conservative government of the day, but it was the reach and power of television that made TW3 so influential. The shrieks that greeted what would now be regarded as relatively gentle satire reveals a population that was astonished, outraged and occasionally thrilled to be confronted in their own living rooms by incontrovertible evidence that the age of deference was dead.
The men who had apparently killed it were Ned Sherrin, a 31-year-old supporter of Somerset County Cricket Club and self-confessed Tory voter, and David Frost, the 23-year-old son of a Methodist minister. To most viewers of the younger generation, TW3 was a breath of fresh air and the first time they had seen their views about the society in which they lived expressed openly on television. To the vast majority of the letter writers, these men were the Devil Incarnate. Once again, the generation gap that permeated the decade was only too apparent.
Edinburgh
10 December 1962
To: The Director of Television Broadcasting, London W1
Dear Sir,
Saturday’s performance of ‘That was the Week That was’ included an allusion to an alleged appearance of the Virgin Mary. It was made in a manner, and in association with a quotation from the ‘News of the World’, that left no reasonable doubt the intention was to hold up the question of any such appearance as a matter for derision and ridicule.
An earlier item in the same programme was the song ‘A Rivederci [sic], Roma’ by a group of performers garbed as prelates, against a background of St. Peter’s. The effect was simply, in default of wit or satire, to present the bishops of the Roman Church as intrinsically subjects for mockery.
I need hardly remind you that it has for long been the policy of the Corporation that seriously controversial items should be broadcast only where ‘the material is of high quality’. That condition is hardly satisfied in this programme, featuring a sketch about the half-open (latterly fully open) fly of a man’s trousers, suggestive of the sort of thing that might be performed extempore by the personnel of a fourth-rate night-club whose stripper had failed to turn up.
I do not really have very strong feelings about the representation of cardinals doing the twist but it would be agreeable to be assured that the invocation of the Virgin Mary as a character in low comedy is unlikely to be repeated in your programmes.
Yours faithfully,
(Mrs.) A.M.A. B.
Catholic Parents & Electors Association Croydon
12 December 1962
To: The British Broadcasting Corporation, London
Dear Sirs,
I am directed to write to you with regard to ‘That Was The Week That Was’ [by] my Committee, the elected lay-representatives of parishioners of one of the largest Catholic Parishes in South London.
We have come to the conclusion that the programme’s attempt to belittle Religion with a set at the Catholic Faith or as you prefer to call it, the Church of Rome. The jazzing-up of a hymn in last week’s programme was in very bad taste, so also was the portrayal of a band of Cardinals taking temporary leave of the Ecumenical Council in Rome.
In the last two productions a reference has been made to the Mass which is the Keystone of our Religion and something therefore that is most sacred to all of us. We have also noted with regret the reference in last Saturday’s production to the blessed Virgin Mary: surely She, as the Mother of God, could be spared the ignominy of reference in a satirical revue.
May we please have your assurance that future productions will omit entirely any reference to religious matters. We also hope that songs of such a nature as, ‘Bed before Marriage’ and subjects of such discussions as a man’s fly buttons may no longer have any place in these productions.
Yours faithfully,
D.V.
Lambeth Palace, SE1
18 December 1962
To: Harman Grisewood, Esq., C.B.E., The British Broadcasting Corporation, Broadcasting House, London, W1
Dear Grisewood,
Thank you very much for your letter of 14th December.
Complaints have been made to the Archbishop [of Canterbury] about the following matters in ‘That Was The Week That Was’.
That on 1st December something to the following effect was said and greeted with sardonic laughter – ‘We want to produce a series of three religious epics based on the Creation, Crucifixion and the Resurrection entitled ‘God’, ‘Son of ‘God’ and ‘Return of the Son of God”.
That in the programme on 7th December [probably 8th] there was a parody of ‘O, God Our Help in Ages Past’ and a cheap reference to the Virgin Mary.
That on 15th December there was sardonic laughter when Our Lord’s words were quoted in relation to a recent appeal for religion in the training of the Army.
I do not comment in any way upon these allegations because neither the Archbishop nor I heard the programmes. This is of course why I ventured to bother you. If you have any way of letting me know exactly what was said at the points referred to in the three programmes it might be very helpful. I am sure you will do what you can.
Yours sincerely,
R. B.
Oxford & Cambridge Club, Pall Mall, SW1
10 December 1962
To: Hugh Carleton Greene, Director, B.B.C.
Dear Hugh,
THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS
I felt I must write to you to say that this T.V. programme is absolutely excellent.
I am a lifelong R.C. and no sensible Catholic could object to the Roman song about the Cardinals. People who cannot take being laughed at are using the mistaken idea that British Catholics are offended by this song as an excuse for trying to get the programme off the air.
I am sure that it is extremely good for this country to lampoon our rulers and institutions, and what is so admirable about the programme is that it is really funny and light hearted and superbly good entertainment value.
For the sake of all our generation at Merton [College, Oxford] do try to keep this programme going as long as possible. To me it is one of the best things I have seen on T.V.
With best wishes,
R. L.
Bognor Regis, Sussex
12 January 1963
To: The Programme Director, The B.B.C. LONDON
Dear Sir,
I wish to protest most strongly against th
e blasphemous sketch in the Christian Faith and its Founder, The Lord Jesus Christ, as seen on this Saturday’s programme ‘This was the week that was’.
My whole family, which does not consist entirely of committed Christians, were horrified at the vulgar and foul way in which this particular sketch was played.
It is particularly disgraceful that the people who have the power to influence the minds and lives of thousands of people show such terrible things, not only blaspheming the name of God, but condemning themselves in the process, and also corrupting that which is designed to build men up, bringing them the peace and hope that millions are seeking for today.
I desire an answer to this letter, hoping that I may have an official assurance that such a sketch may NEVER be allowed on the screens of BBC Television again, IN ANY DEGREE.
I am not ashamed of the strong tone of this letter for I believe the matter to be so vitally important that it needs your immediate attention.
Yours faithfully,
P.J.S.C.
The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, 3 Devonshire Street, London W1
15 January 1963
To: Kenneth Adam Esq., Director of Television, TV Centre, Wood Lane, London W12
My dear Kenneth,
I am sure you have had lots of messages about TWTWTW. I only hope that the proportion of complimentary ones is greater than that of the abusive ones.
I thought you would like to know that it is now the habit in teen-age parties held in Blackheath on Saturday night, to suspend all activities during this programme while everyone adjourns to the television set. This, at least, is a unique record – and quite seriously, I think, an important indicator.
Yrs
A.K.R.
The High Commissioner, Republic of Cyprus
5 February 1963
To: Hugh Carleton Greene, Director General, British Broadcasting Corporation, Portland Place, London W1
Sir,
I have been painfully surprised by last Saturday’s B.B.C. programme ‘That Was The Week That Was’ in which reference was made to Archbishop Makarios. This reference to the name of a person with dual capacity as Head of an Independent State and Head of the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus was, to say the least, a most unfortunate one.
I'm Sure I Speak For Many Others... Page 10
