8.00 – 9.00pm
You Rang, M’Lord?
By JIMMY PERRY, DAVID CROFT.
Starring Paul Shane as Alf
Jeffrey Holland as Jim
Su Pollard as Ivy
featuring Donald Hewlett as Lord George Meldrum
Michael Knowles as the Honourable Teddy
Bill Pertwee as PC Wilson
Brenda Cowling as Mrs Lipton.
A new hour-long comedy performed in front of an audience, in which Lord Meldrum takes on a new butler who in turn engages his daughter as a parlour-maid.Radio Times, BBC1, Thursday 29th December 1988
What do Hi-de-Hi!, ‘Allo ‘Allo!, and You Rang, M’Lord? have in common?
Yes, they were all sitcoms produced and co-written by David Croft, and yes, they all have a penchant for punctuation marks in the title. Moving closer to the point, they all had proper pilot episodes that were shot separately from the rest of their first series. And they are all truly excellent pilots.
What’s more, all these pilots were also transmitted before their first series proper arrived. Hi-de-Hi!‘s pilot was broadcast in January 1980; the series arrived in February 1981. ‘Allo ‘Allo‘s pilot was shown in December 1982; the series didn’t arrive until September 1984. And the pilot for You Rang, M’Lord? was shown in December 1988, but the series didn’t arrive until January 1990.
You Rang, M’Lord? trail (for December 1988)
Today, you can easily see two of these pilots essentially as audiences saw them the first time round; the DVD releases for Hi-de-Hi! and ‘Allo ‘Allo contain the shows as they were initially broadcast.1 You Rang, M’Lord? is very much a different story. And it’s a story which has – with the odd honourable exception – gone virtually undocumented.
The clue is in the Radio Times listing above. One of the most notable things about You Rang, M’Lord? is the fact the show had a 50 minute duration, which allowed for – as David Croft put it – “a good opportunity to develop characters and scenes more thoroughly”2 And indeed, if you pop in the DVD, that pilot episode lasts for 49’07”.
In which case, why does that 1988 Radio Times capsule promise an “hour-long comedy”?
The answer: because when that pilot was first shown on the 29th December 1988, it wasn’t 49’07. It was 55’58”. But when the programme was repeated on the 7th January 1990 – the week before Series 1 of the show started properly – it magically fitted a 50 minute slot. What gives?
You Rang, M’Lord? trail (for January 1990)
The obvious explanation is that the show was edited down between its initial showing and its repeat. But what’s unusual for a Croft comedy is that this longer edit never had another outing. The show has – as far as I can tell – never been repeated or commercially released in its original longer version. Meaning that the way the British public first experienced You Rang, M’Lord? has been all but lost to history.3
I don’t like things being lost to history. For the first time, then, here is exactly what was edited out of the 1988 pilot of You Rang, M’Lord? for all subsequent repeats and DVD releases. A piece of David Croft that never usually sees the light of day. Many thanks to Elaine Musselwhite who dug out her copy of this very rarely seen part of Croft’s oeuvre, without which this piece would have been impossible to write.
All times included are for the 50 minute version released on DVD, so you can play along at home.
The occasional additional caption or so aside. ↩
David Croft’s autobiography You Have Been Watching…, p. 231. ↩
The only book I’ve found which even gives the broad strokes of this story of the longer edit is Rob Cope & Mike Fury’s Hi-de-Hi! Companion, from 2009. ↩