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Saturday Live (retitled Friday Night Live for the 1988 series and 2022 one-off special) is a British television comedy and music show, made by LWT and initially broadcast on Channel 4 from 1985 to 1988, with a brief revival on ITV in 1996. A few one-off editions have also been screened sporadically, including a contribution to the BBC's 1993 Comic Relief telethon. It was based on the American sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live but otherwise had no direct connection to the show.

The series made stars of Ben Elton and Harry Enfield, and featured appearances (in some cases first television appearances) by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, Patrick Marber, Morwenna Banks, Chris Barrie, Julian Clary, Emo Philips, Tracey Ullman, Craig Ferguson, Craig Charles and many others.

For the pilot, and the first three series, the recorded shows were edited into much shorter compilations shown later in the year. These were successively titled; Best of Saturday Live, Saturday Almost Live, and Friday Night Almost Live.

History

Development and Pilot

Paul Jackson first pitched the idea of an "alternative cabaret" series to the BBC in 1980. Cautiously, they only agreed to a single 35-minute show called "Boom Boom... Out Go The Lights", which featured the likes of Rik Mayall, Alexi Sayle, Keith Allen, and Nigel Planer, with music from Paul Jones' The Blues Band. But the show went out in a poor BBC2 timeslot and won little attention or audience response, although a second show was produced that same year.

A few years later, after The Young Ones finally broke alternative comedy on television, and with the advent of Channel 4 and its brief to provide a new voice on television, Jackson tried his luck again, and approached the then Chief Executive Jeremy Isaacs with his idea. Isaacs agreed to a 90 minute live pilot episode, and Jackson went ahead with producing the show, deciding to base the format on the already successful American series Saturday Night Live, with a weekly host, a team of comics, and a music band. For the pilot, Jackson said that there was only one person he had in mind to host such a big live TV event - Lenny Henry.

Hosted by Lenny, the Saturday Live pilot show went out on Channel 4 on January 12, 1985. Jackson said it was one of the most exciting studios he'd ever worked in, with laser lights, giant inflatibles, a merry-go-round, and breakthrough performers including Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson, Robbie Coltrane, French & Saunders, Mel Smith, Chris Barrie, and many others.

Ahead of the show, Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson pre-recorded their sketch introducing themselves as The Dangerous Brothers (although at that time, the pair still performed under the name 20th Century Coyote which is what appears in the end credits). As part of the routine, Ade's trousers were to be set on fire, and this was rehearsed with fire-safety officers in the car-park. Ade lay on the ground while the trousers were painted with fire retardant gel before being set alight, and everything went fine. But when it came to perform the stunt in the studio in-front of the cameras, Ade was now standing upright on a stool and the heat and flames quickly rose up his body and into his face. He jumped onto the floor in panic, but was eventually rescued without injury. The sketch was still shown but stopped at the point that he jumps to the floor, where Ade then talks directly to the camera, asking the viewers "can you see what went wrong!?".

At the end of the show, when Slade finished their music number, there were still 3 minutes left to fill and so Lenny was rushed back on stage. Unprepared, he used an old routine about animals in Africa that he hadn't used for a while, but when he messed up the punchline, this brought the first show to an abrupt end. Despite the ending, Channel 4 loved the show, and soon pushed for the full series to go ahead.

First Series

The first series aired in early 1986 with a different guest-host each week, the first of whom was Tracey Ullman, who at that point was already living in Los Angeles. Lenny Henry returned to host the second show. The show's graphics and main titles were given a cutting-edge makeover following the pilot show, with original theme music composed by Paul Hardcastle. Mirage motion graphics were used throughout the show for disolves and scenes folding up into various shapes and spinning away.

When Pamela Stephenson hosted the show, and gave an outrageous performance making numerous jokes about the English actress Joan Collins. This caused such a backlash that Paul Jackson was initially told that this was the end of the series and there would be no more. He was, however, eventually able to convince Channel 4 to continue, but Ben Elton claims that throughout the first series, the show was in danger of being axed on an almost daily basis owing to its lack of success with the audience. According to Jackson, when Peter Cook hosted a show, he repeatedly complained, asking why they were doing the show live at all. He told Jackson that he would never do the show again. Other hosts, such as Michael Barrymore, and Hale and Pace thrived in the live environment.

A regular feature at the start of the series was a weekly spoof soap-opera called "Rich" about the debauched family of the owner of an international stone-cladding empire, performed by Robin Driscoll, Rebecca Stevens, Pete McCarthy, and Tony Haase who comprised Cliffhanger Theatre Company. They were joined by a special guest each week, and these included Suggs from Madness, Gary Glitter, and Pamela Stephenson as Princess Diana. But after just three shows, this segment never appeared again.

Harry Enfield, who went on to become a mainstay of the series, didn't appear until the fifth show of the first series where he made two contributions, including the introduction of his Greek kebab shop character Stavros.

Frankie Howerd was lined up to host the seventh show in the series, but fell ill and had to pull out. Ben Elton, who had already made regular stand-up appearances in the series up to that point, stepped in to host the show for the first time and proved a great success.

The first series of Saturday Live also featured serving MP Denis Healey reciting a reworded Yorkshire poem in one show, and leader of the GLC Ken Livingstone in a Monopoly sketch with Fry & Laurie and Stephen Frost.

For the tenth and final show of the 1986 series, Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson had pre-recorded a Dangerous Brothers sketch titled "Kinky Sex" in which Ade returns home to find Rik dressed in a sexy nurse's outfit with a rubber-clad prostitute hiding in the closet. The sketch was considered too salacious even for the liberal-minded Channel 4, and Ben Elton appeared at the start of the show to announce that The Dangerous Brothers had been "banned" and would not be appearing that night. The pair did however appear live in the studio for the first time, hijacking a Fry & Laurie sketch, and rebeliously blowing up a large Channel 4 logo while blowing raspberries aimed at the channel bosses. The "banned" sketch did later appear on DVD in the "The Dangerous Brothers - Dangervision" release.

Ben Elton also announced that this would be the last Saturday Live, suggesting that it would not return for a second series.

Second Series

As it turned out, the show had a reprieve and was given a second series, albeit in an altered, tighter format. Paul Jackson stepped down as producer of the series, and Geoffrey Perkins was brought in to assist Geoff Posner. Ian Hamilton took over as director. With the large amount of material consumed by the show in its original 90-minute length, the run-time was reduced to a more managable 75 minutes, and rather than the unreliability (from the audience point of view) of a new host and new tone for the show each week, the reins were put into the safe hands of Ben Elton for the rest of the series. Geoffrey Perkins said that this was an easy decision to make.

Ben Elton introduced his glittery suit for the first time in this series. At the beginning of the first show he says "it used to be a quiet little business number, but I did a gig at Sizewell B power station and it's been glowing ever since".

Also in the first show, Ben Elton had written a sketch to be performed by Stephen Fry with Meat Loaf who was the big musical guest that week. Geoffrey Perkins had the foresight to make sure there were idiot-boards placed amongst the audience to ensure the performs got the words right, but it soon became clear that Meat Loaf only really knew one word in ten. In the show, you can see when he sees the cards and pulls Stephen round so that he can be in a position to read his lines.

After the credits at the end of the tenth show of the series, Ben Elton gives thanks to everyone involved in making the series, including London Weekend Television, again suggesting that this will be the last ever show. The series regulars; Ben Elton, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, and Harry Enfield then appear on stage in tuxedos singing a big band style number called "Thanks To You" as a big farewell performance. After the performance, parts of the set are literally blown up on camera with the performers and audience looking genuinely afraid as explosions go off all around them.

Friday Night Live

Yet again, the show did return for another series but with more changes. To boost the viewing figures, the show was now moved to a Friday night slot and renamed accordingly. The show had to be given a new title sequence, this time following the trend of stop-motion clay animation which had been used in a number of music videos at that time, most notably Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer.

This series marked the first appearance of another of Harry Enfield's iconic characters; "Loadsamoney", who was initally introduced as simply "The Plasterer". The character went on to become one of the most recognisable of the 1980s, appearing in numerous TV adverts, and even releasing the single Loadsamoney (Doin' Up the House) which got to number 4 in the charts. Towards the end of the series, Enfield introduced another character, "Buggerallmoney" who was Loadsamoney's Northern tab-smoking nemesis.

When Josie Lawrence performed her "Florence From Cradley" character in-front of the live audience for the first time, she got so nervous with the proximity of the crowd that she got sudden pains across her chest, and her left arm went numb. She thought she was going to have a heart-attack on live TV. As it turned out, she was fine, and she returned throughout the series with her popular recurring character.

• • • Donald & George.. other new regulars?

Rebelious Irish folk band The Pogues first appeared in the second series of Saturday live, but when they appeared in the eighth show of Friday Night Live, there was something of a scandal when it appeared as though they were cut off halfway through their performance of Street of Sorrow when the show suddenly went to an ad-break. It looked like Channel 4 censorship, but Ben Elton refutes this, saying that the show was simply overrunning and that all bands on the show were there as a buffer against the ad-breaks which gave the producers the flexibility they needed for a live show.

As with the end of the previous series, after the credits at the end of the tenth show of the series, Ben Elton again appeared on stage to announce that there would be no more Saturday Live, and no more Friday Night Live shows. He says that although some of the press had reported that the show had been axed by Channel 4, this was false and that the series regulars wanted to quit while the show was good and that they "want to be able to get down the pub on a Friday night". Again, the final show went out with a bang, with explosions going off around the set.

Saturday Live Again!

After Paul Jackson had spent a number of years working for Granada Television's Australian and American ventures, in 2006 he returned to the UK as Director of Comedy and Entertainment for the ITV network. Among the many new comedy shows he brought in, a brand new 90 minute one-off Saturday Live special was commisioned which aired on December 1st, 2007.

Titled "Saturay Live Again!", the new show was hosted by Marcus Brigstocke, and shot in the same studio as the original - LWT1, with the same inflatables, and with Ben Elton among the guests, along with Jimmy Carr, Lee Mack, Jo Caulfield, Mitchell & Webb, Greg Davies, Bon Jovi, and others. Producer of the original series Geoff Posner also returned to produce and direct.

Asked if they could return for a new series if the show was a ratings success, Jackson said "We’d love to do more if this goes well".