“Mr Bedford! Mr Bedford!”

What’s the best episode of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em? Probably not the one where Frank is busted for distributing hardcore porn, which is always a good one to throw at people to see if they really remember the show properly.

For my money, the show probably never bettered “Have a Break, Take a Husband” from Series 1, first broadcast on the 8th March 1973. There’s so much to love about the episode, featuring Frank and Betty’s disastrous second honeymoon. Not least a boiling undercurrent of sexual frustration throughout, beautifully played by Michele Dotrice:

FRANK: Now don’t do anything while I’m gone.
BETTY: Well I can hardly start without you, can I?

I highly suspect, Baby Jessica or not, Betty eventually figured out that she could actually start without Frank. She probably also figured out that she could finish without Frank as well.

But today’s topic isn’t Betty’s sexual organs. Instead, I want to focus on Kenny, “a nervous and outrageously camp dabbler in spiritualism”¹, a brilliant performance by Cyril Shaps.² And what prop would you give such a character?

A copy of Psychic News, of course. Which was a real newspaper. And God help me, if you know this site, you know what nonsense I’m about to come out with. Exactly which edition of Psychic News is Kenny holding?

Answer: the edition dated 24th February 1973, where the lead story was about a BBC2 series called Leap in the Dark.

Leap in the Dark was an incredibly odd show. It started out in 1973 as a documentary series on the paranormal, and then started doing reconstructions of supposedly real supernatural events. By the time of its fourth and final series in 1980, it was an anthology drama. I can’t think of any other TV show which has had that kind of trajectory.

The episode discussed in this edition of Psychic News was “A Question of Survival”, broadcast on the 13th February 1973. Sadly, it no longer exists in its entirety, although the BBC do hold some insert material from this particular show. In fact, the only episode of Series 1 which does still exist in full is the pilot from 9th January 1973.

This episode is on YouTube, so you can get a sense of what the programme was like in this particular incarnation:

BBC Four really should drag this out on Halloween. Note that around 25 minutes in, the pilot features an interview with Elsie Sheppard… who also appears in a telesnap on the front of Psychic News, along with more information about her. So clearly “A Question of Survival” reused some material from the pilot.

Back to Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em. And at this point, we can accidentally get a bit overexcited. That edition of Psychic News has the cover date of the 24th February 1973… which just happens to be the studio recording date of “”Have a Break, Take a Husband”. However, examination of the front page of that particular issue reveals a University of London date stamp of the 23rd February. And if we take the masthead’s claim that it was “On sale every Thursday”, then surely the publication date was actually 22nd February.

Still, the short lead time when it comes to broadcasting these episodes does mean that exactly two weeks on from publication of this edition, the finished episode of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em featuring it was transmitted to the nation. Which I find oddly thrilling. Well, for a certain definition of thrilling, anyway.

*   *   *

The appearance of Psychic News on Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em reverberated in its pages for many years, perhaps unsurprisingly. After all, it surely wasn’t often that the publication got shown full-frame on the BBC.

A week after the first broadcast of “Have a Break, Take a Husband”, in the edition published on the 17th March 1973, a column by Maurice Barbanell published the following short piece:

PN seen on TV
PN was seen large and clear on BBC1 TV last week. The so-called comedy programme, “Some mother do ‘ave ’em,”³ featured a couple’s “second-honeymoon” stay in a hotel where everything went wrong.

The “psychic” aspect involved a wardrobe-shifting sequence.

The couple’s neighbour, later seen avidly reading PN, accepted this physical “phenomenon” as an indication that his “dead” uncle was trying to communicate.”

Ah, “so-called comedy programme”. The ultimate calling card of a hack.

But at this point, Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em‘s endless repeats start having a rather odd effect. A year later in the edition published on 21st September 1974, again in Maurice Barbanell’s column, we get the following:

Mum’s not the word
Two excited readers told me that PN was seen in the “Some Mothers Do Have ‘Em”⁴ BBC TV series last week.

I can report that the star, Michael Crawford, who played a dim-witted husband, is no stranger to psychics.

In the programme a character expecting a message from his “dead” grandfather was seen reading PN in bed. One correspondent said there was “a smashing close-up” of our front page.

Two years later, in the edition published on the 25th September 1976, Barbanell is at it one last time:

PN is TV
PN appeared in the popular BBC1 comedy series, “Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em,” the other night.

I didn’t see the programme, but people who did told me one character is depicted reading PN.

Then to his astonishment a rocking chair starts going back and forth, though nobody is in it.

I mean, forget speaking to people from beyond the grave, Maurice Barbanell now can’t seem to remember what he’s written in his own column.

So let’s leave him, and instead give the final word to Elaine Mallaband, who had a letter published in the 15th September 2001 edition:

Psychic News Appeared On Old Comedy Show
Did anyone watch the hilarious episode of the old comedy series Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em in which Frank and Betty booked into a very shabby hotel to celebrate a wedding anniversary? They found several faults in the room which Frank tried to put right and made them worse. In the room opposite, the rather comical guest heard the bangings and thought that his ‘dead’ grandfather was communicating to him. He had been sitting up reading a copy of Psychic News. Whilst he had been in the bathroom, his wardrobe had been purloined by Frank as theirs had been broken. When the guest was trying to sleep, his mat with a chair on it was drawn towards the door and waking up, he saw it moving, his paper on the top of the chair.

The programme, although old, was a tonic, as I had been feeling pretty low and dejected all day and I had a good laugh throughout it. I don’t know how long they were first shown on TV, but I hadn’t noticed the paper the guest was reading in bed.

Which is a lovely little story. I bet she was glad she wasn’t watching the other side.

Sorry.

With thanks to Paul Hayes and Tanya Jones.

1. © Steve Phillips. ↩

2. Who also appears in the pilot of The Young Ones… playing the medium next door. So if you want to say that The Young Ones and Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em take place in the same universe, there’s your excuse. ↩

3. Unusual capitalisation preserved from the original. ↩

4. Yes, the piece does say “Some Mothers Do Have ‘Em”. I presume other comedy shows Psychic News enjoyed were In the Thick of It, Today’s the Day, and Hello Hello. And yes, I am now reusing material from over fifteen years ago. ↩

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newspaper props, some mothers do 'ave 'em