You Ain’t Seen All of These… Right?

“This is it! It’s THE FAST SHOW as you’ve never seen it before – literally! This special video compilation has sketches you will not have seen on TV featuring all your favourite characters as well as loads of completely new ones, so fresh and raw they don’t even have proper names – Mid-life-Crisis Man, Road Rage Man, Up All Night Shagging Man. Plus the New York Eskimo, Ponce In The Garden, The King, The Over-Sensitive Dad and Danny Klein, a cop like no other cop you’ve ever seen before, because he’s Conventional Cop.”

Back of VHS cover, You Ain’t Seen All of These… Right?

The problem with something like The Fast Show – a programme which for many years has essentially lived on DVD – is that the origins of various things can become a little murky in your brain. Or at the very least, my brain.

So let’s quickly nail down the facts:

• In 1999, The Fast Show put together a fantastic compilation of previously unseen sketches, titled You Ain’t Seen These… Right? This was broadcast on BBC Two as part of Fast Show Night on the 11th September 1999, in a 30-minute edit.
• A couple of months later, on the 15th November 1999, it was released on VHS in an extended 50-minute edit, as part of the Series 3 Fast Show boxset.¹ This version was called You Ain’t Seen All of These… Right?
• Finally, this 50-minute edit was also part of the Ultimate Collection DVD boxset, released on the 5th November 2007. Both the VHS and DVD edits are identical.

For my part, I have fond memories of watching the show on the original broadcast on Fast Show Night… but never owned the commercial VHS at all. In 1999, I just couldn’t afford to keep up with every brilliant BBC Video release back then. So the first time I saw the extended edit was on the Ultimate Collection boxset years later, where the 20 minutes of extra material took me by complete surprise, despite the fact that the extended edit was first released eight years earlier.

You know where this is going. Last time, we looked at the 30-minute edit of the show. Let’s take a look now at the 50-minute commercial release. Sadly, I don’t have access to the same kind of production paperwork this time round; the BBC’s commercial releases are generally much harder to research than broadcast material. This means that for the extra sketches, we don’t know the official titles, authors, or even which series they were originally recorded for. Although on that latter question, trying to figure it out from the sketches themselves is half the fun.

Regardless, here is a complete list of every single difference between the broadcast 30-minute edit of the show, and the commercial 50-minute edit. I do find this extra material fascinating, because it was essentially rejected twice; once for the main series, and then again for the broadcast version of You Ain’t Seen These. If any Fast Show material was going to be of questionable quality – at least when it comes to stuff that the public got to see – then the material listed here is going to be it.

All times given are for this 50-minute edit of the show. This version isn’t available online, at least legally and in good quality, but I suspect the crossover between “people who read Dirty Feed” and “people who don’t own The Fast Show Ultimate Collection on DVD” is fairly small.

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(00:25) Change
Our first change, and one I think has gone unnoticed by many. Not only was the VHS release called You Ain’t Seen All of These… Right? on the box, but the on-screen title of the programme was changed as well:

The title change is, of course, entirely correct – most people buying the video will have seen 30 minutes out of the 50 – but also feels weirdly pernickety at the same time. Were they genuinely worried about compliance issues here, in terms of not wanting to promise the audience 50 brand new minutes of material?

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(2:27) Addition
“Brilliant: Girlfriend”

Our first additional sketch in the commercial release, and it’s Brilliant and his girlfriend. “Shut up!”

This was almost certainly shot for Series 1; the location is the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge, which was also used as the establishing shot for the Amazing Tales sketches featuring Day and Williams as two bridge workers. The paperwork for Series 1 confirms this establishing shot was specially shot for the series, rather than being stock footage, so that and Brilliant’s girlfriend were almost certainly shot on the same day.

This sketch represents the only new piece of material featuring Caroline Aherne in the entire show, and it isn’t even present in the broadcast edit. I find both facts mildly odd.

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(5:37) Addition
“Conventional Cop: New Partner”

The start of three additional sketches in a row in the commercial release. First off, it’s Simon Day as Danny Klein, Conventional Cop; the start of a running sketch which was entirely eliminated for the shorter broadcast version.²

I highly suspect these sketches were shot for Series 1. There’s plenty of circumstantial evidence; for a start, there’s a filing cabinet in this sketch which also shows up in The Unpronounceables in Episode 1.1, and the cast all look very fresh-faced. More to the point, Colin McFarlane also makes a brief appearance as the Police Chief in the Turner & Hooch parody which opens Episode 2.2, in a different set and wearing a different tie, indicating Conventional Cop was surely shot for Series 1:

Oddly enough, this means that Episode 2.2 makes a back-reference to an unbroadcast Series 1 sketch!

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(6:26) Addition
“Patrick Nice: Clintons/Blairs”

Patrick in his conservatory, so this is clearly an offcut from Series 3. He’s got some cock and bull story about the Clintons and the Blairs visiting. That man talks a load of old shit.

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(6:51) Addition
“Mints”

A faintly bizarre advert parody: “Old people just love mints!”

This is a direct parody of a Winalot Prime campaign, which started in 1988:

No idea which series The Fast Show originally shot this for, although considering the date of the original advert, it’s tempting to say Series 1 in 1994.³

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(8:03) Addition
“Conventional Cop: The Law is the Law”

I’ve generally steered clear of guessing authors in this piece, as I’ve learnt from past experience that it can be dangerous. But it does feel worth pointing out that an obvious predecessor to Conventional Cop is “Cop With A Sofa”, from The Dead Good Show. This was a comedy pilot broadcast by Granada on the 9th November 1992, featuring Caroline Aherne⁴, Steve Coogan, and John Thomson.

John Thomson does seem a very likely candidate as an author of both sketches. Especially when you consider Bernard Righton is virtually the same joke as Conventional Cop.⁵

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(8:26) Change
Here is where things start getting more complicated; the order of sketches which are present in both edits starts getting swapped around. So the broadcast version here has the first Mid-Life Crisis sketch between Road Rage and Shagging; the commercial version places it later.

The reason for this will become clear shortly.

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(9:08) Addition
“You Ain’t Seen Me: Cows”

Noddy hiding among some cows. I don’t want to know.

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(9:17) Addition
“Anyone Fancy a Pint: Chess”

A professional chess sketch, with the inevitable “Anyone fancy a pint?” punchline. This is one of my favourite Fast Show things – using a quickfire sketch show to contrast with nothing happening for ages.⁶ But as most of this sketch is 1’25” of silence, amusing though that silence is, it’s an obvious thing to sacrifice for the 30-minute version.

This sketch was likely shot for Series 2, as it features John Thomson with curly hair, which is unique to those location shoots:

Incidentally, “Anyone fancy a pint?” man is called Brian in the paperwork. So now you know.

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(11:18) Addition
“Ted & Ralph: Hiding”

A quickie of Ted hiding from Ralph behind some trees.

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(11:49) Addition
“Conventional Cop: Root Beer”

It’s frankly bizarre that Conventional Cop was relegated to the 50-minute edit of the show. It shouldn’t have even been in the 30-minute version – it should have been in Series 1 proper. Not only is it very funny, and better than some other material in Series 1, but the production values are excellent. It seems such a waste.

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(12:35) Addition
“Unlucky Alf: Dog”

Alf gets bit by a dog. Obviously.

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(13:01) Change
A bit of an odd one, this. The Embarrassed Dad⁷ sketch on Dr Miriam Stoppard⁸ is placed here in the commercial release, between Unlucky Alf and a Road Rage. In the broadcast version, it’s much later – at 23:16, between a Mid-Life Crisis and Up All Night Shagging.

There surely was some kind of sensible thinking behind this change, but I’m at a loss as to what it could be.

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(14:20) Addition
“Violins”

A very unusual Fast Show sketch in that it features no regular cast members at all. We can tell this was shot for Series 1, as there’s a Patagonians sketch from 1.1 in the same location:

It does seem like the initial idea might have been to have lots of different kinds of useless buskers, which was pared down to just the Patagonians in the final show.

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(15:10) Addition
“Conventional Cop – Ear Muffs”

In the 50-minute version, the first two Mid-Life Crisis sketches are sandwiched between “Violins” and this “Conventional Cop” sketch. So the removal of both of them from the broadcast version explains why that edit had to move the first Mid-Life Crisis sketch to be much earlier; otherwise, the first two Mid-Life sketches would end up being bang next to each other.

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(16:37) Addition
“Mr Kipling: Biscuit”

Obviously shot for Series 3, as Mr Kipling was a new character for that series.⁹

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(17:24) Addition
“King & Jester – Violin”

The broadcast version has three King sketches shot for Series 1, but the extended version has four; this additional one is a callback to the violin buskers sketch from earlier. As that was cut from the broadcast version, this one obviously had to go too, as it would make no sense otherwise.

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(17:42) Change
The broadcast version at this point has the first Alcoholic Dad office sketch, between the second Mid-Life Crisis and Ron Manager. The commercial version moves it much later, to 33:52, between Snooker and Rowley Birkin.

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(18:15) Addition
“Anyone Fancy a Pint: Apocalypse”

A bit of an odd sketch this one, as this expansive – and expensive – location shoot seems to be begging to be used in more than one sketch in the series, but I don’t believe it is.

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(19:05) Addition
“Patrick Nice: Awkward”

Again, in his conservatory, so clearly from Series 3. Honestly, can you really call a comedy show a comedy show unless you have a reference to E. coli?

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(23:45) Addition
“The Girl Who Boys Can’t Hear: Hippodrome”

A new character for Series 3. In fact, she only appears twice in that series, in the final two episodes, which is mildly odd in terms of structure.

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(24:27) Addition
“The Patagonians: Escalator”

From Series 1, and presumably shot in the same tube station as the Violins and Patagonians sketches mentioned earlier. I shall leave exactly where as an exercise for the reader, although the wooden escalator should give you a head start.

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(25:39) Addition
“Unlucky Alf: Shoes”

I don’t really think this sketch works; it’s not immediately clear exactly how and why Alf has landed himself in this situation. It certainly lacks the immediacy and directness that the best Unlucky Alf sketches have.

Go on, have a goose bite his privates again or something.

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(26:02) Addition
“Andy the Affair Man: Donaldson File/Lift to the Station/Wife”

Not only is this obviously Series 1 – the only series that the character Andy appeared in – but we can pin it down even more. This was the very first day of shooting that Simon Day did for The Fast Show. From Comedy and Error: They Really Were Marvellous Times, Simon’s autobiography:

“The character I performed on the first day of filming was Andy the Affair Man, a guy who deluded himself that everyone wanted to sleep with him.

I had no experience of moving and talking at the same time: I’d been standing still for all my other TV work. Here you had to hit your mark (a piece of tape on the floor) and then deliver your line. It sounds easy but it isn’t, especially when you’re already nervous. I kept missing the mark. I did so the whole morning, and this in turn caused me to forget my lines as well, but the finished result was not too bad and I came up with a variation of the character while we were filming (I’m Not Gay) and some lines in the other bits as well.”

This wasn’t just the first Simon Day material shot for the show; the Series 1 paperwork reveals that the Andy material was the very first day of shooting for the show full stop, on the 27th February 1994. So all the Andy sketches are historically important, dammit. Given that, how delightful that we got an extra batch saved here.

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(31:39) Addition
“Graffiti Man: Art Museum”

The first Graffiti Man sketch ended up in the broadcast version, and looked like a one-off sketch, but no; the commercial version has this follow-up. Like the first sketch, this one would have been shot for Series 1.

You have to wonder if they shot a third which has never been seen.

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(32:51) Addition
Billy Bleach: Snooker

Very clearly shot during the same session as the Shaft snooker sketch in Episode 2.2. This was a pre-record day done at Fountain Studios, rather than location material. Interesting choice to include Shaft in the main series rather than this, as this one is the more “normal” sketch.

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(36:22) Addition
“The Judge: Amazonian Rainforest”¹⁰

Here’s something which very few people have spotted: Rowley Birkin’s ramblings are shot in three different places, depending on whether you’re watching Series 2, the Xmas Special, or Series 3. We can see here that the sketch in You Ain’t Seen These must come from Series 2:

I presume he keeps showing up at the wrong house because he’s pissed.

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(38:27) Change
Now, this is an interesting one. All the extra material in the commercial version is from entire sketches being added… aside from this one instance, where there is a snatch of additional dialogue in the Mid-Life Crisis sketch at the cricket match, which was cut for broadcast:

SIMON: What exactly is that?¹¹
JAMES: It’s just a scab at the moment, but when it heals, it’s going to be a Celtic Love Knot.
SIMON: Have you any idea how pitiful you look?
JAMES: Yeah, Gina had one done as well, her hair’s grown back a bit now, you can’t see it so well, but I am looking forward to the weekend. She said I could shave her again. Oooh, bitchin’!

Presumably this was just done for time, although it only saves a few seconds. But as the broadcast edit is 29’45”, it really is in the upper end of what you’re supposed to have for a half-hour slot.

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(38:44) Addition
“Competitive Dad: Arm Wrestling”

This clearly matches the material shot for Series 2, in the living room set:

Simon telling one of the kids “Hello there. Sit down.” is extraordinarily amusing.

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(39:34) Addition
New York Eskimo

Cut from Series 3, but the same setup was used to do a Insecure Woman quickie in 3.5:

Highly amused that this ultra-short sketch got a mention on the VHS sleeve.

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(39:53) Addition
“Mr Kipling: Death”

“There was no squeamishness about death in Big School. Everyone knew someone who had recently died. And indeed the prefects knew exactly who was about to die…”

Again, from Series 3. I would have kept this one in the actual series. It’s filmed in a delightfully grim location, which perfectly matches the sketch, which gets more unpleasant the more you think about it.

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(41:01) Addition
Janine: Supermodels

This is deeply peculiar, because this sketch isn’t unseen! It’s present and correct in Episode 2.7. What the hell is it doing here? Especially in a show where a lot of care has clearly been taken in terms of getting the structure of the show correct, and for two different edits to boot?

What’s even odder is that the Gold documentary Just A Load of Blooming Catchphrases contains an unused “Simple as That” sketch featuring Aherne; timecoded, but surely a proper version could have been dragged out at the time of making You Ain’t Seen These.

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(42:37) Addition
“Ted & Ralph – Armour (1)”

An amusing sketch, but also 1’19” of Higson clunking in a suit of armour, so a fairly obvious cut for the broadcast version if you’re making something called The Fast Show.

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(44:09) Addition
“Ted & Ralph – Armour (2)”

Sandwiched in-between these two Ted & Ralph sketches in the commercial version is a Road Rage. The Road Rage sketch itself is retained for the broadcast edit, but you lose a nice bit of structure here; Mark Williams’ frenzy contrasts nicely (and deliberately) with the lethargic pace of the Ted & Ralph sketches.

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(48:14) Change
One of the most conspicuous changes between the two versions. In the broadcast edit, as the Alcoholic Family ponder a life without the booze, the strains of Louis Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World take centre stage. Unfortunately, there were rights issues with including this on the commercial release, and a substitute version is used there instead. It’s clearly an obscure rendition; Shazam has no knowledge of it.

This change hurts the sketch – nothing can compare with Louis Armstrong – but they probably had no choice in the matter. It’s the one part of the show where the broadcast is clearly the “real”, intended version of the programme.

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(49:56) Change
And finally, we get into some credit changes to take into account the new sketches in the 50-minute edit. Notably, Caroline Aherne is only credited in the the extended edit, as both her sketches were cut for broadcast. Colin McFarlane also only appears in the extended version, for “Conventional Cop”.

Caroline Aherne, Craig Cash and Henry Normal also get Additional Material credits added for the two additional sketches:

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(50:02) Addition
“Ted & Ralph – Armour (3)”

Clunking around during the end credits too. Oh Ralph, you complete dickhead.

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(50:27) Change
Back to the credit changes. Geoffrey Perkins gets an additional credit here on the extended version, but unfortunately Mark Lawrence, an editor on the first series of The Fast Show has his name misspelled. It was correct on the broadcast edit:

Danny Wiseman is given an “and especially” on the extended version:

Finally, the next two cards swap many of the names around; perhaps the most notable change is that only the broadcast version specifically mentions the Theme Night that You Ain’t Seen These formed the centre of:

*   *   *

It is tempting, of course, to try and come up with a preferred version of You Ain’t Seen (All of) These… Right? I confess that I have a particular liking for the broadcast edit of the show, where its shorter length means the running sketches – especially Mid-Life Crisis – give it a particularly satisfying structure. Having said that, I certainly wouldn’t want to actually lose any of the 20 minutes extra material.

Because that’s the point, really. We very nearly did. In fact, in a parallel universe, we missed out on a full 50 minutes extra of The Fast Show.

Let me point you towards Harry Enfield and his Humorous Chums (Penguin 1997), which is one of my favourite books about comedy, with Harry taking the topic seriously. In it, Harry describes a sketch which was shot, but never made it to the screen:

Bird in A BMW
This was me as Tim Nice But Dim’s girlfriend, a hideous Sloane in an open-top BMW who barged into the front of a queue of cars at traffic lights while smiling and waving “Hanks! Hanks a lot!” to the driver whose car would be smashed up if he didn’t let her in, and “Horry! Hawfully horry!” to drivers whose cars she bashed in her effort to get to the wine bar asap.

This anecdote is accompanied by a script of the sketch, and a picture of Harry in a rather fetching blonde wig.

And why did the sketch never make it into a finished episode? Harry has this to say, as part of a chapter detailing what a studio recording night is like:

8.55: I’m off to change again, into Lee. We play in more stuff – ‘Women! Don’t Drive!’ and ‘L is for Labour. L is for Lice’ go well, a sketch called ‘Bird in a BMW, with me as a blonde posh woman in an open-top BMW driving badly also goes well, but I watch it on the monitor while Lee’s make-up is being put on and decide it’s too short and doesn’t have enough special effects to make it interesting enough. Laughter is infectious, so a studio audience will laugh more than an audience at home.¹²

In other words: this is exactly the kind of sketch which might have shown up in a Harry Enfield and Chums version of You Ain’t Seen These… Right? Remember, some of the material in the show is stuff that Higson and Whitehouse specifically had reservations about; they have been directly critical of the Mid-Life Crisis sketches, said they didn’t quite work, and expressed a desire to potentially reshoot them.

Now, does that Bird in a BMW sketch still survive, on an insert tape filed away somewhere? Possibly. Maybe in the BBC archives, maybe at Tiger Aspect. But it could very easily have been wiped or dumped by now. And even if it hasn’t, somebody has to have both the money and the will to go through the archives to find it. Something which is far from guaranteed, and only becomes less likely as the years roll on.

I do admit that some unbroadcast Harry Enfield material was saved, at least. In 1998, a VHS was released of the 1997 Harry Enfield and Chums Christmas special, featuring 15 minutes of unbroadcast material.¹³ And Smashie and Nicey: the End of an Era also had an extended VHS release. Both are lovely to have, but are not exactly a substitute for a programme which grabbed a wider range of deleted material across Harry’s work.

And that’s why You Ain’t Seen These is so valuable. Not just because it’s a great, entertaining TV programme in its own right, although it is. It’s one of the best-structured collection of deleted scenes that anybody has ever put together. In fact, as it takes material across all three series of The Fast show, it bizarrely works as a “Best Of” for the show, despite consisting of brand new material. Everything you want from the show is there, and that includes brilliant one-offs.

But it’s also valuable because by grabbing unused material from the show, and bunging it through both broadcast and commercial funnels, it protects material which otherwise stands a high chance of being lost. By making it a proper TV show, it makes it something which is officially archived, and looked after, and is far less likely to be dumped.

Sometimes, you need to shove these things in front of the viewing public when you can. Because there’s no guarantee you’ll get another chance. At the height of its popularity, The Fast Show took a look back, and saved a part of itself, and its history.

If only more shows had done the same.

With thanks to Darrell Maclaine for huge amounts of research for this piece. Also thanks Dr Paul Lee and Si Williams for help with the Winalot ad, and Tanya Jones for help with editing.

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1. It never had a separate release. ↩

2. Is “Danny Klein” is a reference to Daniel Kleinman, or is that a complete coincidence, I wonder? ↩

3. Oh, and the music? The Long March by Christopher Gunning, specially recorded for the Winalot advert. Credited to the Barking Light Orchestra, which is a brilliant joke. Christopher Gunning also did the music for a long-running Black Magic ad campaign. ↩

4. The other sketch from The Dead Good Show with links to The Fast Show is “Caroline’s Scary Stories”, which is a very early version of Worldview from 1.3. ↩

5. Theory time: was the original edit of Conventional Cop all one sketch, done like a trailer, much like Cop With A Sofa? Certainly, the trailer voice in the initial Conventional Cop sketch is suspicious. If this is the case, then perhaps the production figured out how to finally make it work, by splitting it into parts. ↩

6. The team realised the power of this in the very first episode of Series 1 – remember Unlucky Alf’s long, doomed walk down the street. ↩

7. And yes, “Embarrassed Dad” is called “Over-Sensitive Dad” on the back of the VHS cassette. Without the paperwork giving the official name, I’m going with the more commonly-used one, seen in the Radio Times. ↩

8. Fun fact: in this sketch, the TV set is playing… the music from Monkfish! The Sharp Edge, by John Devereaux. ↩

9. Often just called “The Historian” elsewhere, but Mr Kipling is the character’s official name in the Series 3 paperwork. ↩

10. Yes, the Rowley Birkin sketches are simply called “The Judge” in the Series 2 paperwork. Even the character name is simply given as “The Judge”. It seems highly likely that the name Rowley Birkin only came up during the edit, when they decided he needed a name caption. For the ’96 Christmas Special, and throughout Series 3, the sketches are called Rowley Birkin as expected. ↩

11. A word about character names. Charlie Higson is James, obviously, but the rest of the characters aren’t named in the sketches. The paperwork reveals that Paul Whitehouse is playing Paul, and Simon Day is playing… Simon. And Paul Shearer is playing John, because there can’t be another Paul. This might be the single most useless footnote I have ever written. ↩

12. Elsewhere in the book, Harry says that he decided the sketch was no good when he saw it in the edit, and threw it in the bin then. I tend to favour the idea that he realised while watching it with the audience, as it’s a more specific memory, but the details don’t really matter here. ↩

13. This extra material is variable, but does include an extremely funny Cholmondley-Warner 999 parody. ↩

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