Don’t Ask Us – We’re New Here

1 9 6 9 (UK)
18 x 25 minute episodes

This 25-minute Friday night BBC comedy revue series presented an assortment of sketches, jokes and music featuring Peter Legge, Frank Abbott, Adrienne Posta, Mike Redway and Toni Sinclair.

Compered by the bespectacled Legge – whose face lit up in happy recognition in exactly the same way at any joke, whether good or bad – the short-lived series apparently required no fewer than 23 writers.

Puns and old jokes vied with each other in groanablity. Exhibit 1: A policeman asks if a car is licensed and, receiving an affirmative reply from the driver, orders a gin and tonic.

There were running gags like two girls exchanging confidences at a cocktail party and a dreary couple on a park bench reminiscent of Peter Cook’s Mr Wisty and a girlfriend.

The Guardian described it at the time as “a budget-conscious imitation of Laugh-In without the speed, the ingenuity, the verbal invention or the instinctive comic sense of the Rowan and Martin show.”

Frank Abbott
Peter Legge
Adrienne Posta
Mike Redway
Toni Sinclair
Richard Stilgoe
Maureen Lipman
David Henry
Russell Davies