Coordinates | 38°53′51.61″N77°2′11.58″N |
---|---|
Show name | That Was The Week That Was |
Caption | 1963 Radio Times cover promotes the return of the programme for a second series. |
Show name 2 | TW3 |
Genre | Satire |
Presenter | David Frost |
Theme music composer | Ron Grainer |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Num series | 2 |
Producer | Ned Sherrin |
Runtime | approx 50 minutes |
Company | BBC |
Channel | BBC tv |
Picture format | Black-and-white, 405-line |
Audio format | Monaural |
First aired | |
Last aired | |
Status | Ended |
Followed by | Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life (1964–1965) |
The programme is considered to be a significant element of the "satire boom" in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. It broke new ground in comedy through lampooning the establishment and political figures of the time. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically-charged Profumo affair and John Profumo, the politician at the centre of the affair, became one of the targets for derision. TW3 was first broadcast on Saturday 24 November 1962.
TW3 was broadcast late on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through the material as they saw fit. For the first three editions of the second series in 1963, the BBC attempted to limit the team by scheduling repeats of The Third Man television series after the programme, so that they could not overrun. Frost took to reading synopses of the plots of Third Man at the end of each TW3, meaning there was little point in watching. The BBC dropped the repeats and TW3 was left open-ended.
At the end of each episode, Frost would usually sign off with: "That was the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That was That Was The Week That Was...that was."
Historians have identified TW3 as breaking new ground in comedy and broadcasting. Graham McCann said the programme succeeded as it challenged the "convention that television should not acknowledge that it is television, the show made no attempt to hide its cameras, allowed the microphone boom to intrude and often revealed other nuts and bolts of studio technology." In the 1960s, this was still unusual and gave the programme an exciting, modern feel. TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time: loosely-structured and open-ended, it seemed to last just as long as it wanted and needed to last, even if that meant going beyond the advertised time for the ending [...] the real controversy of course, was caused by the content."
Category:BBC television programmes Category:British television sketch shows Category:Satirical television programmes Category:1960s Category:Television series about television Category:American television series based on British television series Category:Peabody Award winning television programs Category:Grammy Award winners Category:1962 in British television Category:1962 television series debuts Category:1963 television series endings Category:1960s British television series
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