The Complete and Utter History of Britain
| The Complete and Utter History of Britain | |
|---|---|
| Created by |
Terry Jones Michael Palin |
| Starring |
Wallas Eaton Colin Gordon Terry Jones Roddy Maude-Roxby Melinda May Michael Palin Diana Quick |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of episodes | 6 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Humphrey Barclay |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | London Weekend Television |
| Original release | 12 January – 16 February 1969 |
The Complete And Utter History of Britain was a 1969 television comedy sketch show. It was created and written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones between the two series of Do Not Adjust Your Set. It was produced for and broadcast by London Weekend Television but was not shown in other ITV regions.
The idea (inspired by a sketch in an earlier show, Twice a Fortnight) was to replay history as if television had been around at the time. Sketches included interviews with the vital characters in the dressing-room after the Battle of Hastings, Samuel Pepys presenting a TV chat-show and an estate agent trying to sell Stonehenge to a young couple looking for their first home ("It's got character, charm and a slab in the middle").
Seven programmes were written and produced, but LWT amalgamated the first two episodes into a single "stronger" (in their opinion) episode, resulting in a six-part series.
For many years the entire series was believed to have been wiped. However, copies of the first two episodes (as broadcast) have now been found, as have the complete first two episodes as produced.
Terry Jones has expressed dissatisfaction with the show, complaining after a showing of surviving episodes that the pacing was off and the soundtrack all wrong.
On 7 April 2014, Network Distributing released all extant material on a Blu-ray/DVD set in the UK. This release includes the first two episodes as broadcast, the first two episodes as recorded, and all available film inserts. New linking material for film inserts was recorded by Jones and Palin especially for this release, and included as a 50-minute programme entitled "The New Incomplete Complete and Utter History of Britain".
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