Strange Anarchic Happenings

Recently, I’ve been rewatching quite a lot of documentaries about The Young Ones, seeing as I can’t seem to stop writing about that damn show. This is why I find myself watching The Making of The Young Ones from the 2007 DVD release… for the 2000th damn time.

One little section of that documentary stood out in particular to me this time round, about one of the early reviews the show got in the press:

ALEXEI SAYLE: There was a guy called Ray Connolly, he was the TV critic for the Evening Standard. He’d always disliked me, I think, he’d called me “as funny as a funeral” either before or in this review. But he said something really interesting. He said ‘There’s something going on in my house.’ He said ‘My kids are sneaking off to watch this show that I don’t understand at all, called The Young Ones. And yet they find it hilarious. I don’t get it.’ But clearly, it was like this idea that something was going on.

PAUL JACKSON: I think he almost made the analogy – of course, Ray came through as a writer in the 60s music generation I was talking about – I think he almost made the analogy to, you know, we had our music, this feels to me a bit like that. Like we had the Stones, they’ve got The Young Ones. Which was fantastic.

Wouldn’t it be nice to actually read this review, rather than going on Sayle and Jackson’s memories? Of course it would. Luckily, because they got the name of the TV critic correct – it was indeed Ray Connolly – it wasn’t very hard to find.

The review appeared in the Evening Standard on the 8th December 1982. This is the day after the first broadcast of “Interesting” from Series 1, and is a genuinely valuable snapshot of initial reactions to the show, from someone who wasn’t really its target audience.

“My children are my antennae on the world, my eyes and ears, bringing me news of pastures I no longer travel. The Young Ones (BBC-2) is such a pasture.

For weeks now reports have been reaching me of the strange anarchic happenings which befall the children’s TV set every Tuesday evening while I am watching the news in another room. Last night I tuned into my antennae and watched with them.

My first response was surprise that they should have been amused by so much about what they know so little.

Because The Young Ones with the playfully ironic title stolen from a saccharin and sawdust film of two decades ago, is very much a collision of styles and youth culture.

A bored hippie, a manic modern student, a punk and a Cliff Richard idoliser share a flat, all attended by their various friends in style.

Last night the student, dressed in yellow dungarees and with a Cleese-type hysteria, tried to throw a party to which the various cults of the past 20 years had each decided to send a representative.

There were Hell’s Angels, Hooray Henries, Mods, probably New Romantics, and even a Victorian boy chimney sweep. And, to represent an alien generation – that is over the age of anyone 25 – there was Nicholas Ball as a sociology lecturer.

Where Alexei Sayle quite fitted into the mayhem I cannot honestly say, but there is a wit and energy which is addictive in its effervescence and quite overcomes one’s reservations.

Earlier this year Central TV’s anarchic youth programme OTT was a complete disaster, mainly because of the high level of slapstick vulgarity and low level of intelligence demonstrated by the performance.

In contrast, The Young Ones is high in a kind of knowing sophistication and assumes a similar level in its audience. Thus there are jokes about the triteness of David Bowie’s lyrics and a wicked putdown of all the different fads of fashion followed over the years by young people.

A joke about tampons, in which the student mistakes one for some kind of joint, would have undoubtedly had the Whitehouse brigade screaming blue murder had it been shown on Channel Four. But it was inoffensive enough.

My daughter, who is 15, knows about such things, was amused. My two younger sons, who don’t, smiled patiently, and waited for something they could understand. I wasn’t offended either.

I should have liked to have ended this review by giving particular praise to the individual artists. But since they are not identified by the Radio Times I am afraid this is not possible.¹

Anyone who has lived in the shared squalor of a communal flat must identify with at least some moments in The Young Ones. Anyone who hasn’t will, should they stumble across it, probably begin to wonder if the world has gone mad.”

As with Jonathan Lynn and Yes Minister, the intervening years have somewhat taken a toll on Sayle and Jackson’s memories. Jackson’s interpretation of the review really seems more like wishful thinking than anything else, although to be fair he added enough qualifiers in his interview to make you suspicious.

Sayle’s memories are a little more interesting. He seems to recall that Connolly simply didn’t understand the show, which isn’t especially borne out by the review. Sure, he gets some things wrong, partly because he’s walked into the series five episodes in; he’s clearly gets Rick and Mike confused, for a start. He also doesn’t seem to understand that all four of the main cast are playing students. As for the idea that Rick mistakes the tampon for “some kind of joint”, that reminds me very much of Jim Moir allegedly accusing Vyvyan “fucking the floor” in the same episode – people simply making up their own dodgy jokes.

But those are details – to me, Connolly seems to understand the broad thrust of the programme well enough. And there’s one thing that both Sayle and Jackson seem to miss entirely – Connolly genuinely enjoyed the show. It’s an extremely positive review! Something very pleasing to have published in the Evening Standard, especially five episodes in.

*   *   *

Which leaves us with just one more thing to investigate. What’s all this about Ray Connolly accusing Alexei Sayle of being “as funny as a funeral”?

He did in fact say that… but there’s a key piece of context missing. In his column published in the Standard on the 20th January 1982, Connolly reviewed an edition of Arena, titled Private Life of the Ford Cortina, broadcast the previous night.

This Arena featured a sketch starring Alexei Sayle, about which Connolly says the following:

“…while in a very funny pastiche of Mastermind² Magnus Magnusson litanised the vehicle’s attributes – the answer to his every question being “Cortina”.

Even Alexei Sayle, who is about as funny as a funeral on the appalling OTT, showed what a comic can do with good material.”

So while Sayle remembered the insult – fair enough, I’d remember it too – that insult is actually in service of saying that Sayle was great in this particular programme. To be honest, I read the insult as more of a slam on OTT than anything else.

Anyway, it sure would be nice to see that Mastermind sketch, wouldn’t it? But we’d have to be very lucky for a random episode of Arena from 1982 to be uploaded online anywhere.

It’s at 1:32 into this video. And Connolly was right; it’s very funny.³

Make sure you also skip to 28:28 in, for Alexei singing about the Cortina. And if that isn’t the most inviting link in the world, I don’t know what is.

With thanks to Mike Scott.

1. The Radio Times capsule does credit the performers, but simply as “Ade Edmondson, Rik Mayall, Nigel Player, Christopher Ryan”, rather than giving their character names. A reminder that in 1982, this shit was a lot harder to figure out than just typing a name into [search engine of your choice] now. ↩

2. What is it with newspapers of this period and their dislike of using enough commas, anyway? There should clearly be one here. ↩

3. Shot on film, surely the wrong choice for a Mastermind parody, but Arena gonna Arena. ↩

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