After Simon Dee’s defection to London Weekend Television, it was a couple of years before the BBC established another hit chat show. In the interim, various experiments were tried, including one show hosted by the unlikely figure of Derek Nimmo – a major sitcom star at that time with All Gas and Gaiters.
The show, called If It’s Saturday, It Must Be Nimmo, ran in the Dee Time slot from October 1970, and used Richard Drewett as the producer and Roger Ordish as director, both from Dee Time.
Nimmo’s engagement was contractual. The BBC had offered Nimmo 32 shows and he had asked for 48. Compromising on 36 shows, the Beeb had signed him for more shows than they wanted him, and they hadn’t got the scripts to make 36 episodes. So they did a chat show.
