The Voice of Youth

It somehow seems fitting that the very first thing recorded in studio for The Young Ones was one of its most well-remembered sketches. On the 23rd January 1982 at 7:30pm, without a studio audience – it was played in for their reaction the following night – Nozin’ Aroun’ was put in front of the cameras.

“Well, I’m standing up here on this scaffolding because that’s what this programme is all about – shock.”

The inspirations for Nozin’ Aroun’ are clear: a parody of TV “for young adults, made by young adults”, most obviously Something Else (1978-82) and the Oxford Road Show (1981-85). The latter is often mentioned in connection to The Young Ones, as Ben Elton made several appearances on it. A person contributing to the real thing… and also doing a parody of it. The link is irresistible.

Irresistible… and yet often slightly confused, especially when it comes to the chronology. For instance, BFI Screenonline tells the following story:

“But by the late 1980s Elton had decisively emerged from behind the typewriter. Although he had had some onscreen experience (even parodying his Oxford Road Show appearances in The Young Ones‘ mock youth TV programme Nozin’ Aroun’), it wasn’t until he became the regular host of Channel 4’s alternative comedy variety show Saturday Live (1985-87) and its successor Friday Night Live (1988) that his face became as famous as his scripts.”

So the Oxford Road Show appearances came first, and then The Young Ones. And yet on the DVD commentary for “Demolition”, the Young Ones pilot, with Paul Jackson and Geoff Posner¹, we get:

PAUL JACKSON: Funnily enough, he [Ben Elton] went on to present the Oxford Road Show of which this is in fact a parody.
GEOFF POSNER: Absolutely. Oxford Road Show used to be a sort of youth show, done from Manchester, Oxford Road studios in Manchester, and he ended up sending himself up.
PAUL JACKSON: And then, having sent himself up, presenting the show.

Jackson and Posner seem to be talking at cross-purposes here; Jackson thinks The Young Ones came before Ben’s Oxford Road Show work, while Posner seems to think it came afterwards. It’s all a bit confusing. After all, how can you send yourself up in this fashion before you’ve appeared on the real show?

Still, the idea that Ben is directly making fun of his own work in Nozin’ Aroun’ is a fun one. It’s not difficult to imagine the thought process here, once you’ve disentangled the temporal confusion. Ben did some embarrassing early appearances on the Oxford Road Show, finally got a show of his own, and used it to mercilessly take the piss out of how awful he was on it. Or at the very least, how awful everybody was around him.

The truth is altogether more interesting.

*   *   *

The very first episode of the Oxford Road Show was broadcast on the 16th January 1981. Amusingly enough, it was billed in the Radio Times as: “Not from Oxford. Not a roadshow.”² More to the point for our purposes: it was not a show which featured Ben Elton. In fact, Elton doesn’t appear anywhere in the show’s first series.

Series 2 started later that year, and Ben’s first appearance was on the second episode, broadcast on 27th November 1981 – two months before the recording of The Young Ones pilot.³ And luckily enough, virtually the entire episode has been uploaded to YouTube for us all to enjoy, by VHS extraordinaire Neil Miles.

Ben has two sections in the programme. The second is roughly 18 minutes in, and is some straight standup concerning sitcoms and mammary glands. (Which is very good, and chiefly notable for Ben managing to win round an uncertain audience by the end of the routine.) But the first section, straight after the opening titles, is the really interesting bit: it’s some character standup.

Meet Roland Tarquin… the “producer” of the Oxford Road Show.⁴

“My job is to tell you what we’re going to do on the programme tonight. And what we’re going to do, right, is listen to some bands, and talk about unemployment.”

The similarities to the material used in Nozin’ Aroun’, shot two months later, are startling. Presenter who thinks he’s down with the kids, but is actually anything but: check. Use of the phrases “young adults” and “street level”: check. Jokes about the programme being obsessed with unemployment: check. A gag involving the word “intercourse”: check. We even have the reuse of the name Roland to signify someone being posh and hopelessly out of touch!⁵

But the specifics aren’t really that important. The key thing here is the widespread assumption that Elton appeared on the Oxford Road Show doing either presenting or straight standup, and then made fun of the show on The Young Ones from his direct experience on it. This clearly isn’t the case at all: he’s making fun of the Oxford Road Show on the Oxford Road Show.

Moreover, he’s doing it on his very first appearance.

*   *   *

Ben Elton guested on five further episodes of the Oxford Road Show, all of them in that second series.

His next appearance was in the fifth episode, broadcast on the 18th December 1981. Sadly, this episode, like many of his appearances, isn’t online. But I have managed to view a copy.⁶ Again, Ben has two sections in the programme, and this time, both are extremely relevant.

Firstly, he’s back as Roland the producer, doing more material taking the piss out of the show, and specifically how the show treats its studio audience. “It could easily be a discotheque… except for the fact they’re not allowed to move unless we tell them to.” He also called the show “the zappiest, clappiest, good time vibe on television”, echoing another of Nozin’ Aroun’s lines: “N-O-Z, Z for Zap!” And then there’s this:

“It reminds me of that Sham 69 lyric: if the kids are united, they will never be divided!”

One of the most famous lines from Nozin’ Aroun’.

As for Ben’s second item in the show, it’s even more fascinating. It’s another character piece, where he plays… Baz Whinger, a young adult. This Baz is slightly different to the Baz that presents Nozin’ Aroun’ – rather more nasal, and wearing glasses – and appears in a piece called ‘Soapbox’, which is very much like the vox pops section of Nozin’:

“This one’s really heavy. And yet it goes unnoticed. Thousands, maybe millions of young people are totally unaware of what a bummer it is. I was not aware myself, until Roland Tarquin told me what to think…”

After two minutes of this, Baz never gets round to telling us what the problem actually is, which is extremely amusing. It feels to me like the Baz who presents Nozin’ Aroun’ is pretty much a combination of the Baz and Roland as seen in the Oxford Road Show.

That was the Christmas edition of the show, and there’s now a break until the New Year.⁷ Ben in fact appears in that very next programme, on the 8th January 1982. Yet again, he has two sections; the second is some straight standup near the end of the show, where the material feels like the closest to what he is supposed to be doing:

“Trends and styles. A lot of things were very trendy last year. For instance, I noticed not having a job became very fashionable all of a sudden, didn’t it? Everybody looking round for jobs, marvellous. Caught on like wildfire that. Because people are like sheep, you know. Once one person is living below the poverty line, everybody wants to do the same…”

Actual jokes about unemployment, rather than jokes about the show being obsessed with unemployment.

As for the other section, Roland Tarquin is back… and this time, he’s kicking off the show from the production gallery.⁸ This is some of my favourite material from Elton in the whole run of the Oxford Road Show:

“Here we are, we’re talking to you, because I’ve done a sociology degree at Cambridge so I ought to understand working class people, right? Power! OK, right, the vibe this week is style. And let’s face it, a lot of us can’t afford all those wacky styles. Well, when I say us, of course I mean you, obviously I can afford it, wow, but like it’s you we’re thinking about. Let’s face it, this programme goes out in the North of England. Wow, power to the people! If John Lennon wasn’t dead, he’d be with us right now, here and now. And let’s face it kids, style doesn’t have to be expensive, like there’s upfront people in London dressing in dustbin liners. I think they call it punk. And don’t forget, you heard that first on the Oxford Road Show. I don’t know if you people in Manchester know what a dustbin liner is, I mean I just come up here to do the programme and then fudge off back to London quick as I can, OK… I’ve never even tasted haggis…”

1982, and Ben Elton was coming up with material easily applicable to what the BBC was doing 30 years later, and having certain people travel routinely from London to Salford and back.⁹

Ben’s next appearance was two weeks later, on the 22nd January 1982. A date which is rather special. This is the day before The Young Ones pilot went into studio, and so the very day before Nozin’ Aroun’ was recorded. This time, Ben only has one section on the show, but it’s a good one.

An interview between Roland and Baz. Recorded on the afternoon of the live show, due to the obvious special effects work required. This is introduced by Robert Elms as “angry young man on a soapbox meets trendy old man on an ego trip”, which feels rather too much like explaining the joke, but to be fair, I’m the one writing 4000 words about it.

“Where else better to talk about boredom than the Oxford Road Show?”, Baz nasally intones, in my favourite line of the sketch. And let’s be clear: this is a proper sketch, rather than character stand-up, like Ben’s previous contributions. In fact, I believe it’s the very first sketch ever broadcast on television written by and starring Ben Elton.¹⁰ It even has an introduction shot on location, with Baz:

“This is a street. And yet there are no facilities for young people. When it was built, we were completely ignored. Where are the discos, the skateboard parks, the discos? If they knock down some of these houses, there could easily be room to build some. And yet the so-called council refuse to act.”

“Where are the discos, the skateboard parks, the discos?” is a brilliant jab at tired old talking points, which rings as true today as it ever did.

The interview itself is yet again extremely amusing; the following is just a partial transcript:

BAZ: Last week, Roland Tarquin, the producer of the Oxford Road Show, best pal to the kids, was beaten up… by the kids. No doubt they did not realise he was their best pal. He has agreed to talk to us about it. Roland.
ROLAND: Baz.
BAZ: Being beaten up must be a total bummer.
ROLAND: Yes Baz, it was heavy.
BAZ: Heavy, huh?
ROLAND: Yeah, but I don’t blame the kids. I mean, it’s just fudging bollards to blame the kids, a real load of sugar, right.
BAZ: Right.
ROLAND: I mean, they just wanted to talk to me, OK? I’m their friend on the telly, the broken bottle in the face was just an attention-getting device.

Although for me, the most delightful bit of the sketch is where Baz asks what the studio audience think, and we get this brief cutaway:

Now that’s comedy.

This is sadly the last time we see Baz. Two weeks later, on the 5th February 1982, Ben was back… but this time, only as himself. In fact, Robert Elms does a gleeful mock-apology for the absence of Baz and Roland; instead, we get Ben doing some more straight standup. But Ben makes up for the absence of the two characters he’s been using to make fun of the Oxford Road Show. He just insults the show directly instead.

Brilliantly, this routine is sitting nicely on YouTube – uploaded by Paul Putner – so you can watch it in full.¹¹

“As everyone knows, the Oxford Road Show is the social conscience for the whole of the BBC, so I’ve been asked to talk about unemployment. Yes, fair enough. Which seems fair to me, because after doing this show I doubt I shall ever work again.”

This is a strong routine; I particularly enjoy the part where he briefly has a go at the audience.¹² But the most important thing here is that it’s this edition of the programme where the interplay between the Oxford Road Show and The Young Ones finally becomes clear. It wasn’t that Ben did the Oxford Road Show before The Young Ones, and it wasn’t that he did it afterwards. He did both. The fact that the Young Ones pilot sat on the shelf for nine months until it was broadcast just disguises this fact entirely.

In short: that confused conversation between Paul Jackson and Geoff Posner on the “Demolition” commentary? That might actually be the most accurate anybody has been about this whole affair.¹³

But we’re finally reaching the end of Elton’s time on the show. His final appearance was just two weeks later, on the 19th February 1982, which was also the final show of the series. From various references in the programme, it feels like the team thought this was probably the final show ever. In fact, it would go on for three more years, although without Elton to twist the knife.

Ben has two sections in his final show. First there’s some more standup, with a fair amount of it yet again about the Oxford Road Show itself:

“This is the last Oxford Road Show and time has come to admit that we have been deceiving you. Everything is not as it seems. Well, I realise it seems like a load of rubbish and it is that, but apart from that: there is one problem. This is not a show: this is a government remand centre for the administration of the short sharp shock.”¹⁴

He ends the routine with an answer to the question we’ve all been wondering:

“What I’d like to end on is people ask me why I take the mick out of this show all the time, and yet I appear on it. Well this is going to surprise you. The reason is one word: love. I do it for love, right? Love of being paid. My name is Ben Elton, good night.”

And Ben’s final section?

Yes, it’s the return of Roland Tarquin, this time making his way back from Manchester to London. This is a sequence done entirely on film, taking us through the New Broadcasting House reception, into a taxi, through Manchester Airport, and ends up boarding the plane itself. The kind of production value which you wouldn’t necessarily associate with comedy sketches on the Oxford Road Show.

Roland himself is in a slightly more reflective mood than usual:

“If I have to look at one more ruddy skinhead, I’ll… [notices camera] Oh, hi! Roland Tarquin here, yeah. Look, I just had to get away early or I would have blubbed, right, you know. I mean, this is the end. And what have we done? Well, we’ve helped you, right. We were the ones who looked into just what it’s like to be unemployed, and we discovered it’s not very nice, right? We were the ones who looked at just how difficult it is for young people to sign on, and we discovered it’s pretty difficult, OK? I mean, we asked the question: just how nasty is a short sharp shock? Well take it from us: it’s nasty. And on a lighter and more wacky note, we looked into unwanted pregnancies, and we found out that nobody wants them, you know?”

Or, as Nozin’ Aroun’ puts it:

“And now, I’m gonna be looking at what it’s like to be a young unemployed adult. Because more young adults are becoming unemployed on account of the fact they can’t find work. Basically, the problem is this: if you haven’t got a job, then you outta work. And that means only one thing: unemployment.”

It feels appropriate that Ben’s final piece on the Oxford Road Show is another riff on a joke that became so famous in The Young Ones.

*   *   *

These days, the Oxford Road Show does not have an especially good reputation. In fact, let’s be honest: it has a bloody awful one. Certainly, Nozin’ Aroun’ is generally considered to be a parody which was right on the money.

Typical is this piece by Nick Pinkerton, published shortly after the death of Rik Mayall:

“Later, Rick switches on the television to watch a new young adult–oriented programme called Nozin’ Aroun’, only to kick in the set in disgust when the host, a cheery twit in a Clash tee, starts sucking up to “very special guest Roland Percival, who’s Careers Officer at East London Poly,” a gray-haired establishment plant in a natty suit. The significance of this gesture is clear: unlike the Nozin’ Aroun’s of the world — programmes that used the trappings of youth culture to perpetuate the status quo — The Young Ones was the real thing, a one-for-us moment when an identifiably counterculture comic sensibility overflowed into the view of the broader public, something like the how the debut of Saturday Night Live had been received by American viewers years earlier.”

Perhaps Ben Elton himself would agree with much of the above. After all, he was the one who spent a great deal of his time on the Oxford Road Show ripping it apart. What else is Roland Tarquin than a literal embodiment of somebody who uses the trappings of youth culture to perpetuate the status quo?

But I would also ask the following question. Which is the more daring programme? The Young Ones, essentially a variety show in slightly unusual clothing, doing a parody of another show, as variety shows had for years? Or the Oxford Road Show, in allowing itself to be ritually disembowelled on live television every few weeks? To me, the “counterculture comic sensibility” seems to be at least as present in the Oxford Road Show as it is in The Young Ones, if only when it comes to Ben Elton’s sections – sections which were repeatedly approved week after week by the show’s real producer.

In fact, I find much of the material in the Oxford Road Show which I’ve discussed in this article more surprising and dangerous than Nozin’ Aroun’. Partly because of the context, partly because of the amount of time dedicated to it, and partly because the material is often harsher. (All the gags regarding Roland Tarquin and class are particularly pointed.) It therefore seems awfully unfair to let The Young Ones take all the credit, when the show which was being parodied got there with the parody first. A fact which changes the nature of the piss-take in The Young Ones significantly.

It’s a real shame that everybody has forgotten that the Oxford Road Show was already in on the gag. Well, there’s one easy way to fix that.

The Best of the Oxford Road Show, what do you think, BBC Four?

With thanks to Tanya Jones for editorial advice, Neil Miles for the initial video which kicked all this off, Paul Putner for the other video, Mike Scott for extremely important Young Ones minutiae, and John Williams for useful discussions on the topic. Thanks also to Gary Rodger and Milly Storrington for archive research.

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1. Paul Jackson produced the pilot, so is an obvious choice for this commentary. Posner is perhaps slightly odd; he only joined the production for the rest of Series 1, as Associate Producer/Director. But we do get the story of Posner overhearing Jackson editing the pilot of The Young Ones deep within the bowels of the BBC, which probably makes it worth it. ↩

2. The name Oxford Road Show has caused deep confusion to many over the years. As Geoff Posner says, rather than being a roadshow, it is a show from the BBC’s Oxford Road studios in Manchester. ↩

3. The first episode of the series, broadcast the week before on the 20th, featured Rik and Ade as 20th Century Coyote. A clip which doesn’t seem to do the rounds much, perhaps because the audience clearly aren’t on board with them in the slightest. ↩

4. Guesses please, on whether the horrible pause at the top is a joke about Roland missing his cue, or Ben Elton actually missing his cue. I suspect the latter. If it’s the former, it’s one of the bravest pieces of comedy I’ve ever seen. ↩

5. Called Roland Percival rather than Tarquin in The Young Ones, and given to the careers officer “Roly from the Poly”, brilliantly played by Anthony Sharp. ↩

6. No, I’m afraid I can’t upload clips. Yes, I understand this is annoying. But I thought you’d rather have most of the story than none of it. ↩

7. Delightfully, the paperwork for the 18th December edition of the Oxford Road Show describes it as “the Christmas edition trying to create a party atmosphere”. I am delighted that the paperwork itself seems unconvinced that they actually managed it. ↩

8. The old Red Dwarf nerd in me is pathetically excited by this: the exact gallery the first three series of the show were directed from. I need a lie down. ↩

9. Yes, I know this isn’t the whole story with the BBC’s move to Salford, but it is part of it. ↩

10. It’s not the first sketch Ben wrote for television, though. That’s “Woman Newsreader” for Three of a Kind, broadcast on the 22nd July 1981, and which also made it onto the BBC Records release. ↩

11. You might have to turn your volume up a bit. ↩

12. The “belated entry for the International Year of the Disabled” gag at the beginning is probably less well-advised, but I do enjoy Elton being nasty to Robert Elms for no reason at every opportunity. ↩

13. There is one thing regarding the timing of all this which is less easy to work out. It’s clear that Ben Elton first did material slagging off the Oxford Road Show before it was recorded for The Young Ones. But when was it written?

    In this clip from the Gold documentary How the Young Ones Changed Comedy, we see Ben Elton and Rik Mayall reading a section from an early draft of The Young Ones pilot script. This has the date “Jan 1981” on the front cover. The big question: is there a version of Nozin’ Aroun’ in this draft, or was it added later? Of course, Something Else had already been running for three years at this point, but the Oxford Road Show‘s first episode was in… January 1981.

    Such questions are interesting, and it’d be nice to get an answer one day, but they don’t affect the fundamental point of this article. ↩

14. The phrase “short sharp shock” was a topical one at the time; it appeared in the 1979 Conservative manifesto, and Thatcher’s government oversaw the end of the borstal system, in favour of youth detention or remand centres. ↩

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