Oh, hello there. Now where were we?
Last time we investigated a day in the life of The Young Ones, we took a look at the pre-record studio day for the episode “Nasty”, which took place on the 6th February 1984. (Read that piece first if you haven’t already for the background information; I’m not going to repeat myself.) But that’s only half the story when it comes to the raw studio recordings sitting on YouTube. The other half of that video is the pre-record day for “Cash”. Oddly enough, despite being the second half of the video, this actually took place the week before, on the 30th January 1984.
Unlike “Nasty” which was in TC4, “Cash” was shot in TC3, and is still an extant studio at Television Centre; Good Morning Britain and This Morning now come from there live every weekday morning. Such is the odd life of a TV studio across the decades.
So, what can we glean from the above recording? As before, nothing can match just sitting and watching the video for yourself. But I thought a few notes about things I’ve spotted could be interesting. So join me as we leap back across the decades, and safely ensconce ourselves in a corner of Television Centre to spy upon proceedings.
(14:50) A brief snatch of setting up in the living room set. Note that the set is rotated 90 degrees to how the set normally appears in the show, so we get to see the fireplace which is essential to the plot. I wrote more about this back in 2010, just in case you didn’t know how long I’ve been writing bollocks about The Young Ones.
You can, through the fuzz, see them setting up the split-screen effect for the next shot; for the effect of the ghosts walking through the wall, the right side of the picture with the fireplace needs to be pre-recorded.
(14:59) Mark Arden and Stephen Frost as ghosts, walking through the fireplace after Mike has nailed himself to the table. One false start, and then one complete take. And we’ve already found something slightly peculiar here. Because: the single complete take we see here is not the take used in the final episode. You can tell this from the opening lines – the raw footage has “‘Ere, prithee listen, let’s get this straight”, whereas the final episode has “‘Ere, ‘old it, prithee, prithee…”. This isn’t something we ever came across in the “Nasty” footage – the broadcast material was always buried there somewhere.
This could lead us down all kinds of wonderful and weird theories about material being reshot on a later date, but I suspect something far more prosaic: for whatever reason, the material is just missing from the tape. The supposed recording break on the tape after this scene lasts for 18 minutes, with the timecode leaping from 15:03 to 15:21. It seems highly likely that the broadcast version of the scene was shot during this period.
Sadly, this isn’t the first time we’ll come across this problem with “Cash”. Indeed, it also makes me suspect that the footage for “Nasty” is a lot less complete than I thought when I wrote the previous article about this tape. It also means that what we’re looking at here almost certainly isn’t a direct dub of the main studio tape of the day’s recording, but a lower resolution viewing copy, on U-matic or similar. (There is another reason for this latter deduction, which I’ll go into later on.)
(15:21) The two ghosts walking past the stairs, with the inimitable “Codpiece face” insult. Two complete takes, and one false start. The second take is the one used, but in a slightly peculiar way. The dialogue is entirely retimed against the pictures, using half the dialogue from the previous scene. Most interestingly, in the final broadcast version, one exchange of “What did you say?” / “Codpiece face!” is actually repeated – literally, the same recording of the dialogue looped:
Download “The Young Ones – Codpiece Face”
Ah, those weird bodges you do in the edit that go completely unnoticed… at least, unless someone has far too much time on their hands and access to a raw studio recording.
(15:49) “This is ‘Oh Sod It’ and a nut, that’s all it is”, announces production manager Ed Bye, Paul Jackson’s voice on the floor. One take, used in the episode. Ed is delighted. “Very, very good.” He’s right to be delighted. It is excellent.
Incidentally, if you ever wondered who plays the ghost’s bodies in this episode, then the paperwork reveals all. Two fellows by the names of Chris Andrews, and… Graham Cole. Yes, that Graham Cole.
(15:56) One take of “Come on, let’s go kick his teeth in!”, used in the episode. We then get two attempts of Mark Arden attempting to bite the foot, neither of which are used in the final show. As Ed Bye goes in to demonstrate, there’s then a break in the footage of a full 26 minutes. Presumably, the used take was recorded at this point, and just doesn’t exist on this tape.
(16:25) The ghost’s bodies standing next to the telly, trying to find their heads. Fartywoman – played by Kay Stonham – switches channels. Two takes, the second of which is used – although the line “With Christmas only four months away…” in the broadcast version is actually taken from the close-up of Andy de la Tour shot later on. I find the fart noise being prosaically played in every so often while they’re setting up for this scene extraordinarily funny.
It’s worth considering what a complicated shot we’re actually looking at here. One camera looking at a real set; another shot from a different part of the studio superimposed over it for the ghosts; and then Andy de la Tour sitting in yet another part of the studio, being fed into the telly. Three camera looking at entirely different parts of the studio, all feeding into the one shot. It seems likely that they planned to get all this complex material recorded early on in the day, while they still had plenty of time.
This scene is, of course, responsible for the best thing I have ever written.
(16:30) “So, we’re now coming out of Andy’s bit”, announces Ed Bye. The camera zooms into Andy de la Tour’s face, which creates a bit of a continuity error in the final show – why does the shot on the television suddenly change from a medium shot to a close-up? Answer: to disguise the fact that Andy hasn’t recorded his main part yet. His shot suddenly changing to a close-up is far less of a continuity error than showing that his table isn’t yet covered with pretend human remains.
Three takes. The first is recorded with both ghost’s bodies next to the television rather than just one; maybe to give them more choice in the edit to cut out part of the script if needed? The third take, with just one body next to the television, is the one used in the final show.
And the second take? Unfortunately, somebody clearly walks in front of the camera shooting Andy de la Tour. “Who walked in front of Camera 1?”, screeches Ed Bye. “Don’t EVER do that again.” I wouldn’t dare.
(16:36) One single take of the ghost picking up the goldfish bowl and putting it under his arm, used in the broadcast episode.
There is clearly more missing footage here; we don’t even get the ghost picking up the grapefruit, let alone various shots of Steve Frost lying on the woman’s lap and getting farted on. Here, there is a break of 20 minutes in the tape; it seems highly likely the missing footage was recorded during this break, along with the long 26 minute gap earlier on. Indeed, just before the break here, they’re about to line up for another shot of Mark Arden’s head.
This missing footage is slightly difficult to explain. As I mentioned earlier, it’s extremely likely this footage comes from a low-res offline copy, recorded separately to the main studio tape. (More evidence will be given for this in due course.) Perhaps it kept running out of tape. Maybe someone just forgot to keep hitting record. Whatever the reason, clearly huge chunks of this pre-record day aren’t actually present on this tape, which is mildly annoying.
(16:57) Back to more stable, less complicated ground; we have Vyv coming to borrow his neighbour’s sugar. It slightly surprises me that this was a pre-recorded scene; it would seem an ideal one to do in front of the audience to me. Was it so Kay Stonham would only have to be present for one day of recording? After all, she already had to be in during this pre-record day for all the complicated ghost sequences.
This is the first, mostly unused take. “Right, nobody walking across the back of shot, anyone who does will be killed” announces Ed Bye, which is the single funniest thing anybody has ever said. Only the shot of Vyv knocking at the door makes it into the final edit. Ed is concerned about the lack of snow.
(17:03) A second take of Vyv and the neighbour, all used in the final version. The snow is working a lot better in this second take, and isn’t that an incredibly important thing to know at this point, decades later?
“Back to the ghosts”, announces Ed.
(17:34) The main living room set again, and the ghosts walking through with the ghetto blaster. Three takes, the last of which is used in the final programme. Note the continuity polaroids done at the end of each take, to make sure Mayall’s hands are in exactly the right position for the subsequent “I am not getting aggressive!”, which is due to be shot in front of the audience the next day. In the end, this is a waste of time – the final episode is cut so tightly in order to preserve the pace of the comedy, that Rik never gets a chance to move his hands to the correct position before we cut to the audience material anyway.
At the end of the third take, Ed asks “Dave” – presumably David Barton of visual effects – whether they can get the planned next scene done before 6pm and everyone’s dinner break. “No” comes the swift reply. They decide to fit Andy de la Tour’s final sequence in before the break instead.
(17:57) Andy de la Tour and the public information film parody. Shot by pointing a camera at the television prop, and feeding it with Andy performing the scene live in another part of the studio. Meaning that a full-frame version of this footage probably never existed.
We are also clearly missing material here as well – Ed can be heard telling Andy that “We thought we’d just have another, because you know what we’re like”. This means that although we only see one take here, there must have been at least two takes done of this material. Annoyingly, the single take we have here is the one used in the final show. Boooooooo, boring.
Luckily, the next scene after the dinner break proves to be anything but.
(19:58) An hour and a half later, and there’s a little tension in the air. Ed needs to get something very clear. “Nice and quiet, please. No talking. No movement. No walking round the back of the lorry at all. Keep absolutely still until we finish this entire sequence please.” It seems everyone would like this scene to proceed without somebody being flattened by the lorry stunt they are about to shoot. Fair enough.
Unfortunately, the scene gets off to a false start, and Ed isn’t happy. “Now, somebody coughed then, didn’t they? Brilliant. BRILLIANT. SHUT UP!” Oh dear. Luckily, the rest of the scene goes entirely as planned, lorry coming through the window and all. Ed is now happy. “Thank you, visual effects, that was absolutely right.” That’s television talk for “nobody got squashed”.
It’s worth noting at this point that this scene was shot entirely differently to how I expected from watching the final programme. I assumed that all the cards dialogue was done in front of the audience, and just the lorry cutaway was done on the pre-record day. Even if I’d known that the cards dialogue was shot on the pre-record day, I still would have assumed the lorry stunt was done as a completely separate shot. Instead, it was all done as one sequence; sure, a brief pause before the lorry comes crashing through was edited out in the final show, but it’s still essentially shot as one scene. No wonder the production was a bit nervous about it.
One other thing about this sequence: Vyv’s “Brilliant!” as the truck comes crashing through is recorded in an interesting way. You can hear Ade doing the line during the stunt, and afterwards they quickly take a cutaway of Ade saying it in-vision. In the final edit, they use this cutaway… but only use the visuals. The audio is actually taken from the original take where the lorry comes crashing through! You really can’t tell this at all when watching the finished episode, as it’s extremely well done – the only way of figuring this out is through watching the raw studio footage.
(20:04) OK, this is a really good bit. We get to watch the telecine process of the climactic model shot of the house exploding – literally, the film footage being transferred onto tape in real time. And here we can spot something very, very interesting.
During the first section, we see the transfer of the raw footage of the model exploding. The next take is where the interesting bit happens: a separate element of the flaming door is composited onto the shot! The final effect isn’t absolutely perfect if you look at the broadcast episode – the last stage of compositing means that the debris which flies in front of the door is actually transparent – but it works extremely well. I really love that they bothered to add the extra element to try to sell the effect, rather than just relying on the raw footage.1
It’s just a shame that the quality of the footage at this point is so poor, that we can’t really see exactly what the separate door element looks like. The only thing we can be certain of is that this separate element was done on film like the rest of the model sequence, and not as a video element composited in; there’s no tell-tale sign of video-like movement in the final shot.
(20:23) And we’re on a roll with the fascinating revelations. This is two takes (and one false start) of Steve Dixon being weird; the first one with him pushing the Quantel sliding effect with his hands, and the second (used) take without.2 What I love about this sequence is finding out for ourselves that in 1984, it was easier to do this effect live in the gallery than the edit suite. I knew this logically, but actually seeing it is fascinating.
We also get Ade trying to provoke Paul Jackson sitting in the gallery, presumably unsuccessfully. “He hasn’t thrown a wobbly yet, has he? He hasn’t thrown a wobbly yet… have you?” Excellent work. Also, note Mayall taking the business of cigarette continuity photos extremely seriously, which is a million times more interesting than watching an interview where he pulls a face and makes a noise.
(20:44) Probably my favourite part of the whole video, a section of which got an outing on Gold’s How The Young Ones Changed Comedy in 2018. Yes, it’s Rick falling down the stairs in a highly unpleasant fashion. “This is a very difficult shot for the artiste”, announces Ed Bye. First, we get two takes of Mayall falling down the top part of the stairs, limbs poking wildly into frame. This is the kind of shot which looks very strange in isolation, but which works absolutely perfectly cut together. It’s almost like The Young Ones was brilliantly directed, or something.
Then, we get the shot: two takes of Rick sliding down the bannisters and hurting his knackers. And how did Rik Mayall achieve this brilliant stunt? By, erm, sliding down the bannisters for real and putting his knackers in danger. The first take is accepted, but is slightly awkward, and Rik thinks he can do better.3 The second take is perfect, and the one used in the final show.
At this point that it’s worth bringing up the final proof that the video we’re watching isn’t a dub of the master tape done after the fact, but is a low-res offline version created separately during the actual recording session. At the end of the two takes of this scene, we can briefly see a playback of the accepted take, without any break in timecode at the bottom. Clearly, this would be an impossible thing to see on the real studio tape of the episode; you can’t play back and record on the same tape at the same time.
(20:55) Dog puppets, courtesy of David Claridge and Graeme Galvin. One false start, then two takes, the second of which is used in the final show. Job done. But then there really isn’t the time to mess about; there’s a significant amount of material left to shoot, and only an hour before the plug is pulled for the night.
(21:19) Neil breaking up Warlock’s party. Unfortunately, from this point on, the quality of the tape gets significantly and increasingly worse. Things can get very difficult to figure out through the fuzz4. Which is a shame, because there’s an awful lot of stuff to figure out.
We also get another insight into the production process here, with Nigel Planer and Paul Bradley hanging around on set while “Electrick Gypsies” plays in the background. This is so the music can be used to dub onto the previous location sequence at the door of the house, just before we cut inside for this scene. Not for the first time, something you’d assume was done in the edit was much easier to just make happen on set instead.
There are two takes of this scene; the first is stopped near the end. “It’s a bit… slow”, Bye can he heard saying to Planer. There’s then a second take from the top, which is the one used in the final show.
For the first (and indeed only) time for “Cash”, we also get some dialogue here that was cut from the finished programme. As Stonehenge collapses to the floor, she glances at the lamp:
STONEHENGE: Hey man, I don’t know about you but I’m having a really bum trip here.
Rolling straight on, the team then grab a load of reaction shots from the party-goers to Neil’s announcement of their impending arrest. Precisely zero of these are used in the final show. Without a recording break, we then immediately get the police barging in and brutalising everyone. One take, job done. The clock is ticking down to 10pm, and there’s still much more to do.
It is perhaps worth mentioning that Ed very specifically comes onto set after the shooting of this scene – even with the production running out of time – and checks that everybody is fine, and that nobody got hit for real. A nice little duty of care moment which makes me feel all warm inside, even if making sure that nobody is left for dead on a studio floor of Television Centre is a bare minimum.
(21:36) Neil arriving back at the main Young Ones house, to find them all loaded with 24 carat gold… and 24 minutes left before the studio lights go off and everybody has to go home. We only get to see one take of this scene, and it isn’t the take used in the final show. Presumably just another missing take from that day’s shooting, yes?
Maybe. But for this scene, I want to throw open another possibility. I have no proof of the following, but I think there is plenty of circumstantial evidence. Unlike the rest of the missing material we’ve talked about, I don’t think the version of this scene used in the final episode was actually shot on this studio record day. I think it was entirely remounted, probably the next day in front of the audience.
So, what is that circumstantial evidence? Take a look at the following shots in the unused take, and then compare them to the final episode. First, the shot of Mike counting his money:
There seem to be many subtle differences between these two shots. The set dressing on the left of the picture seems to be entirely different, and so does Ryan’s hair. There also seems to be a bracelet on his right hand during the pre-record day, which is missing in the broadcast episode.5
Then the wide shot of the living room:
Mayall is obviously in a different position, but this could perhaps be explained away. There appear to be differences with the set dressing in the background as well, but the quality of the raw footage makes it difficult to tell. The lamp on the right of the picture going missing would seem to be a giveaway, however; this definitely indicates a remount to me.
Finally, there’s the shot of Neil arriving back at the house:
A shot that is completely differently framed between the two versions. Having viewed the entirety of the studio footage, I would say that decisions like this between takes on The Young Ones are rare-to-non-existent – the camera positions seem to be pretty locked down. I would say this would be far more likely to happen with a remount the next day.
Now to be fair, there is a 15 minute break in the tape after this point. The broadcast version of this scene could simply have been recorded in this time. But I don’t think it’s likely, for the reasons stated above. (The missing bracelet is the clincher, I think – why would Ryan take it off?) I think a far more likely scenario is that they rushed the recording of this scene at the end of the session, decided they could do a better job, and reshot it in front of the audience the next day.
Speaking of rushed recordings…
(21:53) …we come to the last part of this video. And it is, unfortunately, a little uncomfortable. Much as I’d like to end this article on a positive note, things have got rather strained in the studio; there seem to be issues with Vyv’s inflation effect. And with seven minutes to go before lights out, Ed Bye is cross. “Look, Patrick, this should have been worked out before, where the fuck do you want to go?” Ed then stands, hands on his hips, in the middle of the studio. “Patrick, I can’t tell you how urgent this is…” Poor Patrick isn’t listed in the end credits, but he seems to be a beleaguered visual effects technician.
And with that, the video ends, at 21:54:20. A shade over five minutes before the end of the session. Leaving whether they
About par for the course for The Young Ones, really.
Although if you look carefully at the final episode, you can actually see the door on fire before the explosion. This entirely ruins the whole episode. ↩
You would presume that Steve’s material here – “You won’t catch me with me trousers!” and all – was part of Steve Dixon’s stand-up act at the time. He doesn’t get an Additional Material credit, though. Hmmmmmm. ↩
I believe Rik murmurs the phrase “a bit spazzy” under his breath. Somebody call the Daily Mail. ↩
I did consider doing a joke about the police here, given the scene we’re just about to examine, but I simply respect you too much for that. ↩