| End of Part one | |
|---|---|
| Format | Comedy |
| Created by | David Renwick and Andrew Marshall |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of series | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 14 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | LWT |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ITV |
| Picture format | 4:3 |
| Original run | 15 April 1979 – 23 November 1980 |
End of Part One was a British television comedy sketch show written by David Renwick and Andrew Marshall and produced by Simon Brett, it was made by London Weekend Television. It ran for two series on ITV, from 1979 to 1980 and was an attempt at a TV version of The Burkiss Way. The first series concerned the lives of Norman and Vera Straightman, who had their lives interrupted by various television personalities of the day. The second series was mainly a straight succession of parodies of TV shows of the time, including Larry Grayson's Generation Game and Nationwide.
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The cast included Sue Holderness, Denise Coffey, Fred Harris, Dudley Stevens, David Simeon, and Tony Aitken. Coffey had appeared in The Burkiss Way's first 6 episodes, but Harris was the only permanent cast members to appear in End of Part One. One of the directors was future feature film director Geoffrey Sax.
The regular cast also featured Miriam Margolyes and Tony Robinson.
Marshall and Renwick blamed the show's relative lack of success at its being shown on a Sunday afternoon, lamenting in an interview that it was "a show no-one knows about, at a time no-one would watch it anyway". They decided not to write another series because LWT would not move it to a more favourable time slot. The series has not been released on video or DVD, although thirteen out of the fourteen shows still exist in the archives in broadcast format, and the remaining episode (S1E6) exists on a domestic video cassette.
Memorable sketches included: 'The Wigfinder General' - spoof of 18th century witchhunts. Parodied most recently by Saturday morning BBC TV 'I've lost my Head'
Some ITV companies did repeat series one at a more favourable time slot. LWT repeated both series during the summer of 1980 and 1981 on Friday nights.
The writer David Renwick and Andrew Marshall continued to work for LWT,by penning the comedy drama serial Whoops Apocalypse in 1982m and Hot Metal 1986.