Rutland Weekend Television - Memorable Sketches

Memorable Sketches

• Santa Doesn't Live Here Any More. Supposedly a play by 'Arthur Serious', this sketch parodies a typically miserable family Christmas, with David Battley complaining about everything and suggesting "a nice game of suicide". Eric Idle relates a charming childhood memory that quickly turns nasty, and Neil Innes arrives as a postman, with an unusual present in the shape of a sexy showgirl, prompting Battley's remark "they make lovely presents, women". This segues into Innes's doleful song, I Don't Believe In Santa Any More.
• Being Normal. A spoof documentary about one man's completely uneventful life. Despite having had lunatic parents and a miserable childhood, David Battley remains depressingly ordinary, going to "straight pubs" and feeling at home in the company of "other normals". The documentary's narrator decides that "the little man from the off-licence" is to blame, not just for Battley's misfortune, but for everything, including Leicester City Football Club's failure to win the FA Cup. This segues into Innes's song Lie Down and Be Counted.
• Expose. What begins as an investigation into the notorious 'Massed Flashers of Reigate' is quickly overtaken by the revelation that the police force are moonlighting as shop assistants and builders, and a commune for policemen (and women) is raided by hippies looking for drugs. The documentary also highlights how few people believe in Sir Keith Joseph, before Eric Idle is informed that he's getting a bad review. Idle rants about the uselessness of television critics for a while, but Henry Woolf informs him that his satirical invective has won him a rave review. Idle changes tack and begins praising TV critics, but the cast rebel against him and talk about putting in for their own series as the credits roll.
• The Cretin Club. A man (David Battley) is despondent after he scores zero in an IQ test, but since he managed to get his name right at the top of the paper, the examiner (Eric Idle) gives him two points and membership to the Cretin Club, whose perks include cufflinks, a club tie and an 'I Am A Cretin' t-shirt. (This sketch was expanded upon in The Rutland Dirty Weekend Book.)
• Ill Health Food Store. Eric Idle runs a shop selling both unappetising fare such as tins of acne, the 'diarrhoea delight'- and the chance to take a vegetarian home and force-feed him meat.
• Twenty-four Hours In Tunbridge Wells. An extremely low-budget spoof of the Gene Kelly / Frank Sinatra film On the Town, shown as part of Rutland Weekend Television's season of Classically Bad American Films.
• Ron Badger / Satan's Electrical Shop. The Devil (David Battley) is found in reduced circumstances, running a small electrical shop. He complains that people's souls are no good to him ("they just sit there, soulfully...if people sold me their privates, it'd be more interesting") but reluctantly decides to buy just one more. The customer (Eric Idle) hasn't taken Satan's economic downturn into account though, and the promise to make love to Helen of Troy turns out to be a seedy one-night stand with "a bird from bleeding Edgbaston" in a grubby seaside hotel room.
• Man Alive - Suburban Prisons. A spoof on the BBC current events series has housewives running maximum security prisons from their bungalows. Mrs Harris's prison is the most unpopular, as she has reintroduced hanging. However, Mrs Fletcher's prison is a big hit, because she had Johnny Cash (Neil Innes) perform a concert for the inmates.
• The Old Gay Whistle Test. A parody of The Old Grey Whistle Test, featuring Eric Idle as the host, speaking in a permanent whisper. It featured the world's first dead musician, and a rock star talking about a concert where "we did over seven million dollars' worth of damage, so it was rather good", even though only five people appeared.