That Was The Week That Was
- TV sketch show
- BBC One
- 1962 - 1963
- 37 episodes (2 series)
Groundbreaking and controversial weekly satire series, fronted by David Frost, Millicent Martin, Ken Cope, Lance Percival, Willie Rushton and others. Also features Kenneth Cope, David Kernan, Bernard Levin, William Rushton, Roy Kinnear and more.
Press clippings
100 BBC TV gamechangers
The Sooty Show, Goodness Gracious Me and Hancock's Half Hour have been named amongst 23 comedy titles in a BFI list of the 100 most important television programmes from the BBC, as the broadcaster marks its 100th anniversary.
British Film Institute, 28th April 2022History of the BBC: Comedy and Satire
In 1948, the BBC published its now infamous 'Green Book', a set of guidelines for writers and producers of comedy. According to the preface, 'Programmes must at all cost be kept free of crudities, coarseness and innuendo. Humour must be clean and untainted directly or by association with vulgarity and suggestiveness.' On that basis, and had BBC writers and producers stuck rigidly to these guidelines, some of the great comedy classics would never have seen the light of day.
Dr Jamie Medhurst, BBC, 26th August 2021The best of British satire: 7 vintage shows
Spitting Image is returning. Some are expecting the new series to represent the welcome, and long overdue, rehabilitation of British satire. Others fear a toothless, joyless effort. Either way, it will face some tough comparisons - most notably with itself. The satire boom of the 60s precipitated a long line of insightful, scabrous, satirical shows. So here, in no particular order, are seven of the best.
Tim Dawson, The Spectator, 27th August 2020Obituary: Fenella Fielding
She was a serious actress remembered for a single, stand-out comic performance.
BBC, 12th September 2018Obituary: MP and TW3 writer Gerald Kaufman
It was while visiting his mother in Leeds in November 1962 that he saw the first episode of the BBC's satirical programme That Was The Week That Was. Back in his Daily Mirror office, he phoned the producer, Ned Sherrin, and told him he had an idea for a sketch. "He had no idea who I was," Kaufman later recalled, "but he said, 'Write it and I'll send a taxi in the morning to pick it up." It led to Kaufman becoming a regular contributor to the show, best known for his Silent Men of Westminster, a satire on MPs who never spoke in the House.
BBC News, 27th February 2017From the archive: That Was The Week That Was review
Satire has always been scarce on television; this new programme shows that wit and mockery can be successful.
Mary Crozier, The Guardian, 26th November 2013David Frost's last project will go ahead, BBC annouces
Sir David Frost was to work on a new programme entitled That Was The Year That Was before he died, as Lord Grade steps into his shoes to commemorate the 'momentous year' of 1963.
Hannah Furness, The Telegraph, 18th September 2013David Frost talks about That Was The Week That Was
David Frost shot to fame 50 years ago poking fun at the powerful, but insists he is still an outsider.
Cole Moreton, The Telegraph, 25th November 2012That Was The Week That Was is 50
Satirical comedy That Was The Week That Was celebrates the 50th anniversary of its first broadcast tomorrow.
Ben Bryant, The Telegraph, 23rd November 2012