1 9 6 4 – 1 9 6 5 (UK)
This short-lived topical satire sketch show was developed as a replacement for That Was The Week That Was which was taken off the air in advance of the 1964 general election.
Produced by Ned Sherrin, the show featured David Frost, William Rushton, John Bird, Michael Crawford, Eleanor Bron and Roy Hudd and ran three times a week on BBC1.
Basically a collection of interviews and satirical sketches on topical subjects, the show goes down in television history as being famous for the first use of a four-letter-word on British television.
On 12 November 1965 in a discussion about stage censorship, Kenneth Tynan was asked by Robert Robinson whether he would allow sexual intercourse to be staged at the National Theatre, where he was then literary manager.
Tynan replied: “Certainly. I think there are very few rational people in this world to whom the word ‘fuck’ is particularly diabolical or revolting or totally forbidden. I think that anything that can be printed or said can also be seen”.
Predictably, although it was placed in a reasonable context and not uttered as a common expletive, Tynan’s use of the word offended many and raised a paper hurricane of protest.
Equally aggressive in its sardonic treatment of politics and current affairs, Not So Much A Programme, in turn, gave way to a successor series, BBC3 in 1965.
