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After the demise of Monty Python's Flying Circus (BBC, 1969-74), Eric Idle
swiftly returned to the small screen with this witty broadcasting spoof. The
title was suggested by John Cleese, a favour for which Idle paid him £1. In
Idle's conceit, Rutland (Britain's smallest county, which had disappeared in a
1974 local government reorganisation) begins producing its own programmes on a
shoestring budget not dissimilar to Idle's own (£30,000 for the series; the cost
of one Lulu show).
The first series was recorded in a small studio for the BBC's Presentation
Department, with no participating audience. The cast included David Battley and
Henry Woolf; Idle also roped in Neil Innes, formerly of the Bonzo Dog Band and a
collaborator since Do Not Adjust Your Set (ITV, 1967-69), to write the comic
songs. Rutland's programming parodied everything from quiz programmes - 'A Penny
for Your Warts' - to music shows - 'Old Gay Whistle Test'. The latter included
Idle's excellent impression of presenter 'whispering' Bob Harris. Central to
Rutland's output were its documentaries, which comically inverted familiar
subjects; notable examples included a farmer breeding beauty queens and suburban
streets turned into prisons, with the inmates being visited by Johnny Cash
(played by Innes).
The first series bowed out after RWT "overspent its budget"; with the penny
pinching producers removing the set and costumes, the presenters were left
draped in BBC towels. Having found some change down the back of the sofa,
Rutland was back on the air for a Christmas special, with the bonus of special
guest George Harrison singing a composition co-written with Idle, 'The Pirate
Song'. With a new logo - a revolving Friesian cow - and a bigger studio in
Bristol, Rutland returned for a second series, in which the parodies continued
with 'The Lone Accountant' and 'Rutland Five-O'.
A sketch about a pop group, the very Beatles-esque The Rutles, took on a life
of its own. A successful revival of the sketch in the US in 1976, when Idle
hosted an edition of Saturday Night Live, proved quite a hit, and the pastiche
was ultimately developed into the enduringly popular full-length mockumentary
The Rutles: All You Need is Cash (BBC, tx. 27/3/1978).
Rutland Weekend Television was last heard of in 1980, when the broadcaster
unsuccessfully applied, through former cleaner Elsie Harbinger, for one of the
16 available ITV franchises.
Graham Rinaldi
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1. The Old Gay Whistle Test (1:10)
