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You Ain’t Seen All of These… Right?

Published 20th November 2024

TV Comedy

“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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  1. It never had a separate release. ↩

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You Ain’t Seen These… Right?

Published 10th November 2024

TV Comedy

NO OFFENCE: Anyway, you’re about to see a show that has been cobbled together using bits of shoddy old material previously thought unworthy for your eyes, but now in a desperate attempt to stuff their schedule with any old tat, the once trustworthy BBC is pretending it’s something really quite exclusive. No offence.

Introduction to You Ain’t Seen These… Right?, The Fast Show Night

On the 11th September 1999 at 9pm, BBC Two broadcast two hours of programming under the title The Fast Show Night. If you can get over the idea of two hours being called a theme night – I always think three is the bare minimum – it really was a splendid collection of shows, and one I remember very fondly from first transmission. I still have my off-air on VHS somewhere.

The evening consisted of the following, all of which ended up on The Ultimate Collection DVD in some form or another:

  • Links from the Fast Show gang, bizarrely shot against a very unflattering grey background.1 One of the highlights comes early on, with Lyndsay of the Off-Roaders yelling “Suits you, sir!” repeatedly.
  • Fast Show Fanatics, three sequences featuring various fans of the series. Thank you Johnny Depp, I heard enough from you back in 1999.
  • The very first episode of The Fast Show. It helps that it’s a pretty good one, with few of the problems often encountered when pulling out the first episode of something for an evening of celebration, and it turns out to be weird and/or actively bad. See: Spitting Image.
  • A 40 minute documentary, Suit You, Sir! The Inside Leg of the Fast Show, which I’ve always really enjoyed, especially the baiting of Harry Enfield.2
  • And finally, our topic for today: You Ain’t Seen These… Right?, a 30-minute compilation of previously unseen sketches from across the first three series.

It’s become a cliche to say that the offcuts of some programmes are better than what other shows deem their best material. It’s a cliche which I’m afraid I can’t shatter here. The material in You Ain’t Seen These… Right? is well up to scratch, with some brilliant sketches included, and one moment which is a serious contender for the very funniest moment in the whole of The Fast Show. It’s so good, in fact, that it deserves a closer look.

What follows then, is a list of all the sketches in the show, including their proper titles, authors, and crucially, which series they were originally shot for, which is the bit I find most interesting.3. The 30-minute broadcast edit of the show is available on iPlayer, and is the version we’re dealing with here, so feel free to watch along.

You can insert the Off-Roaders catchphrase here if you like. I can’t quite bring myself to.

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  1. These links were shot on the 9th August 1999, at Broadley Studios in London. ↩

  2. I’ll never write something proper about this documentary, so: are you up for a list of people who were interviewed for it, but never made the final edit? Leslie Ash, Bryan Ferry, and Dannii Minogue. I kinda want to see what Dannii Minogue had to say about The Fast Show. ↩

  3. The titles, authors and originating series come from the production paperwork. Sometimes the paperwork gives secondary titles identifying the specific sketch; others use the umbrella title only. ↩

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An Extremely Important Point About The Fast Show

Published 5th November 2024

Meta / TV Comedy

I am currently in the middle of writing about the previously unseen sketches from The Fast Show which featured on Fast Show Night. The only surprising thing about the above sentence is that I haven’t got round to it before now. You can plug all my obsessions into a spreadsheet, and the above article pops out like magic.

But before it’s published, I have to make a decision. What do I call the programme?

The Radio Times capsule from the 11th September 1999 gives the following title:

Radio Times capsule for the show, featuring: You Ain't Seen These, Right?

You Ain’t Seen These, Right? Brilliant, I’ll go with that. Still, I’d best just check that article they point to on Page 7…

Radio Times article, featuring: You Ain't Seen These Right!

You Ain’t Seen These Right! Hmmm, OK. Best check what the actual programme has:

Grab from the programme title card, featuring: You Ain't Seen These... Right?

The line under the programme name is mildly irritating, but the above is clearly meant to be You Ain’t Seen These… Right? Three different ways of punctuating the show. What to do?

Maybe the production paperwork for the programme confirms which of the three it should be:

The production paperwork, featuring: You Ain't Seen These. Right?

Yes, that is a full-stop. You Ain’t Seen These. Right? Sigh. Make that four.

In the end, I’ve decided to go for You Ain’t Seen These… Right? When I worked in BBC pres, in cases like these when there was inconsistency, we’d often plump for what was actually on the programme’s title card. Moreover, the extended commercial video edit of the programme, called You Ain’t Seen All of These… Right?, is not only punctuated like that on the title card:

Grab from the programme title card, featuring: You Ain't Seen All of These... Right?

But also has that name on the box:

Photo of the VHS case, featuring: You Ain't Seen All Of These... Right?

Look, if nobody in 1999 was going to be consistent, THEN FINE, I’LL DO THE DONKEYWORK.

Just nobody mention that the ellipsis has four dots on the videocassette itself. I have a headache.

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Light-Hearted & Fun

Published 20th August 2024

Music / Other TV / TV Comedy

One of the great things about library music is the unexpected links it can create across some of my favourite comedy.

For instance, take the Carlin release Light-Hearted & Fun from 1989.1 Every single track on that album was written by Andrew J. Hall. So, there’s the vaguely terrifying “Clowns”:

Which was, of course, used in Alexei Sayle’s Stuff and Monsieur Aubergine, first broadcast on the 3rd October 1991:

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  1. The Warners site gives the release date as 1990, but every other source I’ve seen says 1989. ↩

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I Love Doing Research

Published 3rd May 2023

TV Comedy

Every so often, I post one of those “Send me anonymous messages!” things to Twitter, and let people do their worst. I usually receive a mix of responses, including plenty of questions I wish I could answer but can’t. Yes, here is my exact opinion about certain bits of television I don’t like, and here is my inevitable sacking a day later. And no, I ain’t telling you all the juicy details about obits.

But I do also get some great questions which I can actually answer. My favourite this time round was the following:

“What’s the best bit of TV trivia you know, but haven’t been able to include in an article (yet)?”

To which my answer was: two days before Red Dwarf‘s “Waiting for God” was recorded, Studio A at New Broadcasting House in Manchester was used for a Board of Governors lunch. “Waiting for God” was recorded on the 10th/11th October 1987; the Board of Governors lunch was the 8th October. Which is, I’m sure you’ll agree, the most exciting paragraph I have ever written.

Still, had I waited a few days, I might have given a different answer.

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An Evening at Television Centre, Part Two

Published 16th April 2023

TV Comedy

The problem with writing this site is that I seem to go off on endless tangents, rather than writing what I’m supposed to be writing about.

Oh well, here we go again. On the 14th November 1997, a brand new series of The Fast Show started airing on BBC2. That first episode featured the debut of a new Paul Whitehouse character Archie, the pub bore. This first sketch is fairly normal; they get progressively odder.

Now, hidden away on the final disc of The Ultimate Fast Show Collection DVD, is a behind-the-scenes feature on Series 3 by yer man Rhys Thomas. And as part of this feature, we see a little snatch of this sketch being recorded:

At the end of that clip, you can see them setting up for the Chess sketch in Episode 6, which looks like it was recorded directly after.1 But the bit I want to concentrate on is the following bit of amusingness:

PAUL WHITEHOUSE: Coogan’s in tonight. What do you reckon we go round and do him?
MARK WILLIAMS: And then who’s left over? Then we go and do Shooting Stars!
PAUL WHITEHOUSE: Come on Lamarr, come on. You greaseball throwback…

Coogan was indeed in that night; but Whitehouse doesn’t mean he’s in the Fast Show audience. These two Archie sketches were shot on the 5th September 1997… the same night as an audience recording for I’m Alan Partridge. Specifically, Series 1 Episode 3, “Watership Alan”. Yeah, the one with Chris Morris. This episode was broadcast on the 17th November 1997, just three days after Series 3 of The Fast Show debuted.

As for Shooting Stars? The very first episode of Series 3 was recorded this night too, and broadcast on the 26th November 1997 This is the episode featuring Mariella Frostrup, Antony Worrall Thompson, Leo Sayer, and Tania Bryer. I find the latter particularly amusing, as back at the start of 1997, she had appeared in the “Science” episode of Brass Eye, warning us of the dangers of mutant clouds. I wonder if she was tempted to pop round to TC1 and lamp Morris one.

Regardless: The Fast Show, I’m Alan Partridge and Shooting Stars, recording at TV Centre in the same evening. And all broadcast in the same month too.

If I may permit myself a note of melancholy that I don’t usually indulge in here on Dirty Feed: I think we’ve lost something, guys.

  1. There appears to be an invisible edit 24 seconds in; the chessboard magically appears on the table. ↩

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Chanel 9: Unplugged

Published 12th April 2023

TV Comedy

Just occasionally, it seems the comedy historian gods are smiling down at me.

Back in January, I wrote about the Chanel 9 sketches in The Fast Show, and how the degraded picture effect on the sketches was generated. In a pleasing piece of serendipity, the BBC have just uploaded every episode of The Fast Show to iPlayer, making it look like I’m writing about something vaguely of the zeitgeist for a change.1

There are a few strange things about these iPlayer uploads, though. In particular, Episode 1.4 seems to be an early edit, completely different to the DVD release! In the first minute of the programme, we have:

  • Unmixed sound on the initial “Ed Winchester” sketch,
  • A click track and no visuals instead of the opening montage of the title sequence, and
  • No cast member credits during the Kenny Valentine number.

A full list of the differences between the version released on DVD, and this incomplete version on iPlayer, I shall leave as an exercise for the reader.2 But I do want to talk about one major difference later on in the programme. And here is where our smiling comedy gods come in.

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  1. Look, a show which is only 30 years old counts as part of the zeitgeist around here. ↩

  2. I really can’t be arsed. ↩

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Foreign News Sketch

Published 2nd January 2023

TV Comedy

One of my favourite things about The Fast Show is how many different textures it has.

For instance: it isn’t just a programme which knows which sketches need to be shot on location, and which sketches should be shot in the studio. This is a programme which knows that certain location sketches should be shot on film (Ted & Ralph, Unlucky Alf), and certain location sketches should be VT (The Off-Roaders, Fat Sweaty Coppers). And while I could wax lyrical about how shooting each sketch the right way helps sell the joke better, part of the joy here is even simpler: your eyes don’t have time to get bored.

And then we have Chanel 9. A parody of every foreign news broadcast you might imagine you’d seen on holiday, with accompanying dreadful picture quality, it adds yet another texture to the show. Let’s take a look at the first Chanel 9 sketch, from the very first episode of The Fast Show, broadcast on the 27th September 1994.

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The Fast Show: Series 2 DVD Edits

Published 24th November 2015

TV Comedy

The Fast Show Series 2 - selected article

Some people fantasise about power. Some people fantasise about money. Some people fantasise about getting their genitalia constantly sucked by a steady stream of people they have specially recruited. Me? I fantasise of comparing the original broadcasts of every single episode of The Fast Show with the versions released on DVD, and noting down each and every difference. Every so often, someone will pop up on a forum and query something which has changed on the commercial releases of the programme; it’d be nice to get all the facts together in one place.

Sadly, it was difficult enough to track down the original broadcast of a single episode of One Foot in the Grave, let alone every last episode of The Fast Show. But back in September of this year, BBC Two repeated the first six episodes of Series 2. And these repeats are certainly the closest we can easily get to the original versions without disinterring some dusty old off-air VHS tapes.1

Let’s take a look and see what’s different, shall we? Just for clarity, we are comparing the 2015 repeats with the version released on The Ultimate Fast Show Collection DVD set. If this doesn’t sound like your kind of thing, then feel free to go and read the exact opposite of this article.

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  1. It is possible, of course, that the BBC have done some minor edits to the programmes for the 2015 repeat run. They would be interesting to document, certainly, but are unlikely to have a great effect on the differences detailed here. ↩

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