A Brief Investigation into Recording Dates for So Haunt Me

As we come to the end of the year, it’s a time for reflection, and pondering exactly what you have achieved with your life. It’s a shame, then, that this is exactly the moment that I find myself digging through the paperwork for 90s BBC1 sitcom So Haunt Me. It wasn’t intentional. It just happened.

Still, as I was idly flicking my way through, something caught my eye. Series 1 of the show was broadcast between February and March of 1992. The location material was shot between 12th – 16th January of that year. And when were the studio dates for each episode?

Although the series only started transmitting at the tail end of February 1992, every last shred of material in the series was shot that same year. Even the location stuff. Moreover, studio sessions for the series only started three weeks before transmission of the first episode. When the first episode was broadcast, they still had the last two episodes of the series left to shoot.

Out of interest, I then looked at Series 2, broadcast in January and February 1993. There was a single week of location shooting again, between the 1st – 5th November 1992. This time, a Christmas special was part of the block of recording, airing just before the main series:

The most startling thing is that the Christmas special was shot just two weeks before TX. The break for Christmas also means that while the first half of the series was shot a little more in advance compared to Series 1, the second half ended up being shot three weeks before transmission again.

Finally, we come to Series 3, which aired in January and February 1994. No Christmas special this time, but in some ways the dates here are the most interesting of the lot. Yet again, there was a week of location shooting between the 16th – 19th November 1993, and then:

Here, the Christmas break and the earlier transmission date means that the second half of the series was recorded just nine days before transmission. And when Episode 2 aired, they still hadn’t shot the last three episodes of the series!

And I have to admit, I’m constantly surprised by these kind of revelations. When I was growing up, I never dreamt that shows like this would be shot so close to transmission. I assumed sitcoms, or non-topical comedy in general, were always recorded a few months before. “What if something goes wrong? You need time to fix it”, was my thinking.

Far more recently, as I’ve done more research into this kind of thing, I’ve been slowly disabused of this notion. Series 5 of Are You Being Served? in 1977, for example, was recorded just a week before TX. The first episode proper of KYTV, “Launch Show”, had its main studio record on the 27th April 1990… and was broadcast on the 3rd May 1990, less than a week later. But damn it, it’s difficult to get those old ideas out of your head sometimes.

But something like this finally – if belatedly – hammers the point home. So much of the TV which was around when I grew up was shot far closer to transmission than I ever imagined. And while some sitcoms were indeed shot months before TX – Series 1 of The Brittas Empire was shot July/August 1990, for transmission January/February 1991 – others were closer to the wire than I could possibly have guessed.

And the climax of Series 3 of So Haunt Me really was just a cast member illness away from complete disaster.

1. Yes, this isn’t a typo. According to the paperwork, this episode really was recorded on Sunday the 22nd, rather than the expected Saturday 21st. ↩

2. Episode 2 of Series 3 was recorded before Episode 1. ↩