The Saturday Night Armistice

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The Saturday/Friday Night Armistice

Armando Iannucci presenting the Election Night Armistice in 1997
Genre Sketch comedy
Running time 30 min per normal episode
Starring Armando Iannucci,
Peter Baynham,
David Schneider
Country of origin UK
Original channel BBC2
Original run June 24, 1995
–January 1, 1999
No. of episodes 24
IMDb profile

The Saturday Night Armistice (later The Friday Night Armistice) was a 1995 satirical television comedy programme presented by Armando Iannucci with Peter Baynham and David Schneider.

[edit] Format

The show took an irreverent look back at the events in the previous week, although as with Iannucci's previous news satire The Day Today, ideas were often taken in surreal directions by the three protagonists, for example an Orange March demanding passage through a ladies toilet because it used to be a gents 200 years ago. Armando was the main presenter, sat a desk with David and Peter sitting on an adjacent black leather sofa. On Armando's desk was a rotund cuddly toy named "Mister Tony Blair," an extreme characterisation of the then-leader of the opposition. In a manner similar to Sooty, Mr Tony Blair could only be heard by Armando, opening up a wealth of opportunities for humour based on whatever zany comments the real-life Blair may or may not have said that week.

"Mr Tony Blair"
Enlarge
"Mr Tony Blair"

The programme also had a number of weekly recurring items, for example "Hunt the Old Woman", where the viewers were challenged to find the old lady of the title making an unexpected cameo appearance on national television during the previous week. Her most famous appearance was at Royal Ascot where she could be spotted wearing a large hat emblazoned with the legend "I am an Old Woman," a photograph of which actually made the front page of The Times. The prize for spotting her appearances was originally "The Saturday Night Armistice H'orderve Tree." complete with a different selection of h'orderves each week. This reward later changed to the much coveted set of "Friday Night Armistice Dart Flights". Other features included a bus full of Princess Diana lookalikes turning up in bizarre locations, the travels of the "Mr. Tony Blair" puppet and Peter's Miniaturised Area (complete with a miniaturised Mr. Tony Blair, and later called "What Happened Next?"), which showed a supposed CCTV clip that followed an item of news.

Like many 1990s British comedy series it included appearances and writing contributions by a large number of UK comedians including amongst others Arthur Mathews, Graham Linehan, Simon Pegg, Kevin Eldon, Steve Pemberton, Omid Djalili, Al Murray, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins.

In 1996, scheduling changes and low Saturday-night ratings meant the programme became The Friday Night Armistice. This series featured title music sung in the style of Frank Sinatra. The team did a live 1997 Election special (broadcast on BBC 2 at the same time as BBC 1's main election programme) and a third series in 1998 and several Christmas and New Year specials, the last one airing in January 1999. A fourth series was announced for broadcast in 1999 but was not produced.

None of the episodes have ever been made available on DVD and owing to their topical nature are unlikely gain a commercial release. However, episodes have been distributed via various Bit Torrent download sites.

[edit] Episode guide

[edit] External links

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