Absolutely Out of Order

I don’t want much out of life, you know. I really don’t. Just the basics. Like, for example, knowing which episode of Absolutely Fabulous was broadcast on BBC2 on the 17th December 1992. The final programme of the very first run of the show. Is that really too much to ask?

Apparently, the answer is yes. Let’s track my attempts.

*   *   *

ATTEMPT #1: First things first. Let’s check the BBC website. Always the first port of call.

The episode broadcast was “Magazine”, the one where Patsy goes on TV-am.¹ Sorted. But hey, always best to double-check these things, in case there’s a problem. So…

*   *   *

ATTEMPT #2: …let’s try epguides.com, and see what they think.

…Oh. They think the episode “Birthday” was shown on the 17th December; the one where Edina is somewhat unhappy about turning 40. Damn it.

*   *   *

ATTEMPT #3: OK, fine, we’ll see what IMDB has to say.

We’re back to “Magazine”. Brilliant.

*   *   *

ATTEMPT #4: Time to bring out the big guns. You’d think the Radio Times would know what was broadcast.

“Birthday”. Surely that’s the final word on the matter?

*   *   *

ATTEMPT #5: Perhaps I’m going about this the wrong way. I should be investigating a source of information which is specifically about Absolutely Fabulous, surely they would know for sure. So, how about the Absolutely Fabulous Wiki, that seems a good bet.

“Magazine”. Hmmmmmm.

ATTEMPT #6: OK, so maybe checking the Radio Times was a mistake. After all, it can’t reflect last-minute changes to the schedules. For that, we need to check the contemporary newspaper listings. The Evening Standard published on the 17th is as good as any:

“Birthday”. But I’m no longer convinced of anything any more. Time to cheat.

*   *   *

ATTEMPT #7: You can’t go wrong with a bit of production paperwork, can you?

Here is a small section of a Programme as Completed form for Absolutely Fabulous, detailing the final episode of the series:

Now, the above needs a little explanation. Although it mentions “Programme 5”, the paperwork treats the first episode of the series – a genuine pilot – as a separate entity. So Episode 1 is actually labelled “Pilot”, Episode 2 is actually marked “Programme 1”, and so on. These things are never easy.

Those numbers are irrelevant anyway, though. Just blank them out of your mind. According to the above, “Magazine” was broadcast on the 17th December, matching what the BBC website says.

So surely we can call my question done and dusted? The production paperwork does sometimes get certain things wrong – music tracks, for example – but I’ve never known it get an actual TX date wrong before. I think we’ve cracked it.

*   *   *

ATTEMPT #8: But there is one final place we can check. While the above is the production information for the programme, there is one further source for figuring out what was broadcast.

And that’s the actual schedule for the channel, listing every single trail and programme which was broadcast on BBC2 on the 17th December.

So at 20:31:37, we have an episode of Top Gear, at 29’37” duration. This is then followed by a joint trail for Harry Enfield’s Television Programme and The Comic Strip Presents, for 39″. There’s then an symbol (aka ident) for 7″, followed by Absolutely Fabulous, for 30’01”.

And which episode of Absolutely Fabulous? If you check the programme number, LLV Q734P, you will note that it is not the number which the PasC form claimed was broadcast on the 17th; that was LLV Q735J.

LLV Q734P is… “Birthday”. Not even the PasCs and the BBC2 schedule match.

Right, I’m completely bloody sick of this.

*   *   *

In these circumstances, there is only one thing to do: find someone who recorded the series at the time. You can argue with paperwork, you can argue with newspaper clippings, you can most certainly argue with random websites… but the one thing you can’t argue with is an off-air of what actually transmitted.

As I well know, tracing these off-airs can be tricky. So step forward the modest hero of the hour, Jim Lynn, who had already done the work for me. His site, VHiStory, is succinctly described by Jim as the following:

“I’ve got around 3000 VHS tapes sitting in boxes in my garage. I’m archiving them one by one. This is a blog listing what’s on each tape. In unnecessary detail.”

Or in our case, exceedingly necessary detail. Because Tape 1352 contains… all of Series 1 of Absolutely Fabulous, from its first BBC2 broadcast in 1992, recorded in order. We can be very sure of this: the tape starts with the episode of Top Gear which preceded the first episode of Ab Fab in 1992, including some bike racing.²

And the answer is… “Magazine” was broadcast on the 10th December, and “Birthday” was broadcast on the 17th December. The Radio Times and epguides.com were correct, and the BBC website and the PasC form were wrong.

And why were they wrong? To figure that out, here is a final list of every episode of Absolutely Fabulous Series 1, including the main studio recording dates:

As stated before, the first episode of the series was a pilot, shot eight months before the rest of the series. The rest of the episodes follow in order… except for the final two episodes, which were swapped around for transmission. In fact, the VHS and DVD releases – along with the script book – preserve the original recording order, no doubt adding to the confusion, although I suspect the mistake on the original PasC form is responsible for the error on the BBC’s own site.⁵

And so now we know enough to say for sure that the following video, uploaded to YouTube, really is an accurate reflection of what aired on the 17th December 1992:

That really was more difficult than it needed to be. Bloody hell.

With thanks to Tanya Jones, Jim Lynn, Darrell Maclaine, and Milly Storrington.

1. Something of a last gasp regarding the portrayal of that channel; it went off air and was replaced by GMTV at the end of the month. ↩

2. The final thing on the tape is an edition of The New Statesman, “The Irresistible Rise of Alan B’Stard”… recorded on the 26th December 1992, just nine days after the final episode of Series 1 of Ab Fab. ↩

3. A brief word about Series 1 Absolutely Fabulous episode titles. When originally transmitted in 1992, each episode aired without an on-screen episode title. These were also the versions uploaded to iPlayer in 2019. When the series was released on VHS in 1993, each episode had the episode title added to the opening titles, and these were also the versions released on DVD.

   As for the episode titles themselves, they weren’t published in the Radio Times, but do appear on the paperwork, so they are at least official, rather than fan-created. The one exception to this is “Fashion”, which is simply titled “Pilot” on the PasC.

   The above is the situation for UK broadcasts and commercial releases. Other countries may – and, it seems do – vary. ↩

4. Mistakenly listed as the 3rd and 4th of February on the front page of the paperwork, but this is clearly incorrect for multiple reasons, not least that they correctly list March later on when detailing the pre-record date.

   Yes, my life is hell, why do you ask? ↩

5. One nasty coincidence: one of the recording dates for “Magazine” was the 17th, but it was broadcast on the 10th. And one of the recording dates for “Birthday” was the 10th, but it was actually broadcast on the 17th. Did this add to the confusion at the time? Who knows, but I thought it was worth noting. ↩

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absolutely fabulous, tx date investigations