Hello there. Welcome to another exciting instalment of “interesting studio recording dates for audience sitcoms”. And if you’ve managed to get past that sentence and onto this one, I’m presuming you find them exciting too. Hey there. I like you.
Previously, we’ve taken a look at recordings for So Haunt Me, where part of Series 3 was shot just nine days before transmission. We also proved wrong some nonsense on Wikipedia about Series 5 of Are You Being Served? being shot the day before air – in fact, it was a week. Still close to transmission, but rather different than a mere day.
That particular situation is far from without precedent. Huge chunks of Series 3 and 4 of Dad’s Army were also recorded in studio a week before transmission1; “The Day the Balloon Went Up” was recorded on 23 October 1969, and broadcast just a week later on the 30th October. A couple of weeks later, “Menace from the Deep” was recorded on the 7th November, and broadcast just six days later, on the 13th November.
All of which is worth noting. But there is a vague disappointment that I couldn’t find a normal sitcom which really did record the day before it was due to air. Sure, we could cheat and just say Drop the Dead Donkey, but that’s no fun. That was a topical show specifically designed to be shot close to transmission. The joy here would be an otherwise normal sitcom being made surprisingly down to the wire.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have one. Regular helpful person to this site David Brunt stepped in, and gave us a brilliant, highly unexpected example.
As referenced in Graham McCann’s Dad’s Army: The Story of a Very British Comedy. ↩