The Mary Whitehouse Experience
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| The Mary Whitehouse Experience | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Live Action / Stand-up comedy / Sketch comedy |
| Creator(s) | Bill Dare |
| Starring | David Baddiel Rob Newman Steve Punt Hugh Dennis |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of episodes | 13 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | William Sargent Marcus Mortimer (Producer) |
| Running time | 30 mins |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | BBC Two |
| Original run | October 3, 1990 – April 6, 1992 |
| Links | |
| Official website | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
The Mary Whitehouse Experience was a UK topical comedy show, both on radio and TV, in the late '80s/early '90s. Its main stars were David Baddiel, Rob Newman, Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis.
It started in 1989 as a radio show, devised by Bill Dare, on BBC Radio 1. The two pairings of Newman and Baddiel and Punt and Dennis were central to the show - they would later have spin-off television series of their own. Guest performers included Nick Hancock, Jo Brand, Jack Dee, and Mark Thomas.
The show was named after Mary Whitehouse, a prominent campaigner against what she saw as a decline in television standards and public morality. She became famous in the UK for her morality campaigns against shows including Monty Python's Flying Circus and Doctor Who. At one point the BBC feared that Whitehouse would pursue legal action against the show for using her name.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Format
The series was a mix of surreal sketches and monologues, in a format similar to shows such as Mr. Show and The Kids in the Hall. (The Kids in the Hall also had a sketch about a character who suffered from a disease that made him sound sarcastic much like this show's character 'Ray', although this appears to be coincidental)
[edit] Recurring characters/sketches
Ray (played by Rob Newman)
A man afflicted with a disease that gives him a permanently sarcastic tone of voice, so that everything he says comes out sounding sarcastic, no matter how sincerely he means it. This sketch is presented as a medical case history told by Ray's psychiatrist (played by David Baddiel), who gives accounts of various situations in which Ray's affliction has got him into trouble. These are usually sensitive situations such as speaking out at a funeral, apologizing to an old man after running over his wife in his car, and complimenting a suicidal child on his drawings. At other times Ray has experienced near-fatal accidents, such as having an arrow shot through his brain, which are ignored by passers-by given that even his cries of pain sound sarcastic. Ray's disorder also affects his body language, as demonstrated in one sketch in which he converses with his deaf foster mother. Ray's psychiatrist discovers that the only things Ray's voice can say normally are those that he means sarcastically. In one sketch he makes friends with some media types, who appreciate his seemingly endless sarcasm when talking about the film Edward Scissorhands. In the final episode, on being given a Cure album as a present, Ray cannot bring himself to sound sarcastic when thanking his friend and, bizarrely, starts speaking Flemish. Ray has quite a successful run of appearances on Flemish chat-shows, before the inevitable happens, and he begins speaking Flemish in a sarcastic tone. Ray often uses the phrase "Oh no, what a personal disaster" which became one of the show's most popular catchphrases.
Ivan (played by Rob Newman)
Ivan is a daytime television presenter who hosts a show similar to the BBC's Pebble Mill at One. His appearance became increasingly unusual as the sketches progressed (his hair ends up extremely ruffled and he has plasters on his face), however he appears at first glance to be like any normal daytime TV presenter. But Ivan is very over-emotional and will fly into a tormented rage at the slightest mention of anything vaguely bad. One such example is when a professional gardener he is interviewing tells him in passing that someone has trodden on and broken a garden cane he was going to use, and Ivan proceeds to fly into a hysterical rage and smash apart the whole greenhouse. Likewise, when informed that the situation is not so bad after all, Ivan will similarly react in an overly ecstatic manner, much to the annoyance of his guests.
Mr. Strange (played by Hugh Dennis, better known as the 'Milky Milky' sketch)
Mr. Strange is the archetypal 'man your mother warned you about', the weird man who walks around town in a dirty old mac, indulging in disturbingly eccentric behaviour. Mr. Strange's main trait is that he has an absurd addiction to off milk, and is constantly carrying cartons or bottles of milk with him, not only drinking from them but obsessively sniffing them before uttering the words "Lovely- Milky Milky" (which became one of the show's most popular catchphrases). This in turn led to a novelty tie-in single, Milky Milky (Take Me To The Fridge) released as "Mr Strange and the Lactose Brotherhood" in 1992, as well as Punt and Dennis' tour of that year being named "The Milky Milky Tour".
One sketch features Mr. Strange as a contestant on Mastermind whose specialist subject is 'Milk and the way it smells' while another features him presenting a Party political broadcast offering himself as an alternative to the main political leaders because "I don't wash my pants - it's not nature's way".
History Today
Probably the show's most popular and well-known sketch, which made its debut in the second half of the show's second TV series. History Today is a historical discussion programme presented by two elderly, scholarly professors, both well-spoken and well-groomed. The first of these professors, who introduces each 'episode' and its topic of discussion, is played by David Baddiel although the character is never named. The second is Professor F. J. Lewis, Emeritus Professor of History at All Souls College, Oxford, who is played by Rob Newman. Each 'episode' begins as a standard historical debate, but quickly degenerates into a plethora of insults and playground-style name-calling as the two professors fling all manner of typical schoolboy-like insults at one another. The humour lies largely in the manner in which the professors maintain their well-spoken, formal tones despite the childishness of their insults. This sketch spawned perhaps the show's most popular catchphrase "...That's you, that is", spoken after they had described someone/something completely pathetic and/or disgusting. This sketch was later carried over into Newman and Baddiel's own show, Newman and Baddiel in Pieces.
Robert Smith (played by Rob Newman)
A parody of the singer Robert Smith, frontman with the British rock band The Cure. Each sketch features Robert Smith and The Cure performing a particularly happy, cheery song or nursery rhyme in their standard downbeat, 'doom and gloom' Gothic Rock style. These songs have included "Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport" originally by Rolf Harris, "The Laughing Policeman" and Tommy Steele's "What A Picture". Robert Smith himself also made a guest appearance on the final episode of the show, in the last of the 'Ray' sketches, in which he was seen to sing "The Sun Has Got His Hat On".
[edit] Other notable sketches
Other memorable sketches and jokes from the show include:
- The dad with the inability to dance - "What's this?! It's got a good beat!"
- Rob Newman's impression of Jonathan Ross
- A criminal who roamed round town robbing banks and mugging people while wearing a Postman Pat mask
- Hugh Dennis' impersonation of Dr Hannibal Lector of The Silence of the Lambs
- The use of the phrase 'M Khan is bent'- referring to an actual piece of graffiti on a railway bridge in London, which was written in huge letters on the bridge for over a decade. The joke focused around the fact that thousands of cars pass under the bridge each day, and so whoever M Khan is, his 'bentness' must have been made known to at least half the continent. Therefore, references to M Khan and his 'bentness' were inserted into numerous sketches within the show, in passing.
[edit] Versions
The show had four radio series, building up an audience and moving to better time slots. After the fourth series, it was decided to move the show to television. The television run started in 1990 on BBC 2. It lasted two series, a total of 13 episodes including its pilot. A spin-off book of the show was also published.
The television series has never been released nor repeated by the BBC. Episodes of the radio series have been repeated on BBC 7. An online petition has been set up to lobby the BBC to release the television series on DVD.[2]
A book The Mary Whitehouse Experience Encyclopedia, which was a spin-off of the series containing references to some of the sketches on the show and much new material, was released in 1991.
