The humour was drawn from musical and sporting guests and, in particular, film and news sketches – a formula that Bentine would later hone for his hit BBC TV series, It’s A Square World.
Originally conceived with the working title Eleven-Plus, After Hours also featured comics and actors such as Frankie Howerd, Alfred Marks, Bernard Bresslaw, Dick Emery, Bernard Braden, Tommy Cooper, William Bendix, Shirley Eaton and others, and sportsmen (Henry Cooper, Danny Blanchflower, Stirling Moss and others).
Bentine and Lester wrote the scripts and Bentine hosted and appeared in many of the sketches. The resident singer in the first six editions of the first series was the up-and-coming Shirley Bassey.
