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One Foot in the Edit Suite

Published 27th April 2020

TV Comedy

I had a dream for Dirty Feed, you know. A dream to document every single edit made to pre-watershed showings of One Foot in the Grave on the UKTV network: specifically, Gold, Drama, and Yesterday. OK, it’s not a dream many people have, I admit. But it was mine. They’d been bugging me for bloody years.

So in 2018, I saw that Series 1 was coming up for yet another repeat run, and took my chance. And sure enough, the first two series were broadcast in quick succession. I patiently waited for Series 3. And waited. And waited. And waited. It never seemed to appear. Nor did the 1990 Christmas Special, Who’s Listening? Series 5 came up, bizarrely, and I diligently recorded it. But Series 3 and 4 never appeared.

Well, it’s two years later, and I’m bored of waiting for them. Moreover, my Series 5 recordings got lost when my Sky+ box decided to break just as the country went into lockdown.1 So instead of this sitting on my WordPress backend any longer, here’s what UKTV had edited out of the first two series of the show, as broadcast pre-watershed in 2018. If they ever get round to showing the rest of the episodes again, rather than The Green Green Grass on endless repeat for some reason, I’ll finish this little project.

Cut dialogue is indicated like this. Let’s get going.

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  1. Fucking piece of crap. ↩

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Listen to My Sexy Voice Talking About Red Dwarf

Published 13th October 2017

TV Comedy

Another year, and another series of Red Dwarf. And if you’d told me a few years back that I’d be saying that in 2017, I’d have told you off for talking BOLLOCKS. Yet here we are.

Sadly, with another series of Red Dwarf comes another series of LIVE DwarfCasts over on Ganymede & Titan, the Red Dwarf website where I recently wrote about not liking Red Dwarf very much. So what better person to sit and pontificate about the show for the next five Fridays, starting at 9pm tonight? Just visit our Spreaker page twenty minutes before the show starts for some HOT STREAMING ACTION. Don’t worry, I’m just there to cause trouble – there are people far more qualified than me who are actually running the show.

We’re going at UKTV Play pace this year, rather than broadcast pace – so if you want to join us, make sure you watch the episode available for streaming late Thursday evening, not the episode broadcast on Dave the same day. (We know it’s confusing. We know.) This week, that’s the second episode in the series, Siliconia, available right now.

Oh, and as for the first episode? That was last week, and I couldn’t make it. Don’t worry, we got Clayton Hickman to do it instead. Go and visit his Redbubble store, BTW, if you like an obscure TV show called Doctor Who. I’ve never heard of it, personally. I prefer Starhyke.

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Scrapings from underneath somebody’s crusty bellend

Published 30th August 2017

TV Comedy

Ah, it’s been rather quiet over here on Dirty Feed recently, hasn’t it? Sorry, I’ve been busy over on Ganymede & Titan, the Red Dwarf fansite I write for because I hate Red Dwarf.

Here’s what I’ve been up to over there, if you’re interested.

Better Than Reality
A short piece looking at the genesis of some of Red Dwarf‘s most popular episodes, as found in Radio 4 sketch show Cliché – Rob and Doug’s first solo writing credit. (I didn’t get much feedback on this one, and I don’t think it’s the best-written piece I’ve ever done, but the fundamental point is fascinating, I think.)

End of Part One, Red Dwarf XI Edition
A look at the placing of ad breaks in Red Dwarf XI, because I’m the only person in the world who would actually bother to write that article. (I did enjoy the person who told me on Twitter that ad breaks shouldn’t be used to set up cliffhangers in British TV shows. I told them they lost that argument in 1955.)

Observation Dome: Back From The Dead
About bringing an old part of Red Dwarf fandom back from the dead. (I’ll be writing more about this on Dirty Feed shortly.)

Red Dwarf and Me: Artificial Reality
On my relationship with Red Dwarf these days, which has been percolating in my mind for five years… and I only just figured out how to write it. The comment thread is lovely and well worth a read too.

Red Dwarf, there.

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Sitcom Recording Leaflets: New Yes, Prime Minister

Published 16th January 2013

TV Comedy

As regular readers of this site will know, I have lots of little obsessions – and one of the more obscure ones is the leaflets that used to be handed out to the audience at sitcom recordings. I’ve already detailed such little leaflets for episodes of The Brittas Empire and Every Silver Lining, but sadly these just doesn’t seem to be made any more – I have certainly never been given any since I started attending audience recordings in 1999.

Up until last year, that is. Imagine my delight when I went to see the first episode of the new Yes, Prime Minister series recorded, and a good old-fashioned leaflet was waiting on each audience member’s chair. Whether this was a holdover from the series’s roots as a stage production, or simply because Gareth Gwenlan and Jonathan Lynn like doing things the old way, it was a lovely little souvenir to take home to remember the recording.

Anyone care for a scan?

Yes Prime Minister Episode 1 leaflet - Cover
Yes Prime Minister Episode 1 leaflet - Inside


Lovely stuff. I wish every sitcom recording still did this. I’m still on the lookout for more of these, by the way – if you have any hidden away in drawers, why not hunt them out and scan them in?

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Dave: The Home of Shitty Edits

Published 2nd October 2012

TV Comedy

Over the last few years, the following pattern has occurred in our household. a) Stick Dave or Gold on the telly. b) Spot some stupid edit in a beloved sitcom. c) SHOUT ABOUT IT ON TWITTER OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

For the last four weeks, to prepare for the upcoming broadcast of Red Dwarf X (Thursday 4th, 9pm folks!), Dave have been showing each series of Red Dwarf – backwards. (Don’t ask.) So, I thought, why not use my capacity for moaning and extreme anality and document all of the edits? Here you go, then:

The conclusion to the last article is especially worth reading for how I think Dave could have dealt with things better. The easiest solution all round, however, would be: don’t schedule post-watershed sitcoms pre-watershed. But let’s face it – if Dave can’t treat what is now its biggest property with respect, they’re not likely to do it with anything else.

Whenever you watch a sitcom on Dave or Gold, more likely than not you’re watching some version that’s been hacked about with. That’s no way to treat our comedy heritage.

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A Few Notes on the Recording of the First Episode of the New Series of Yes, Prime Minister

Published 23rd August 2012

TV Comedy

There is a pattern happening over at UKTV. Last year, they commissioned a new series of Red Dwarf – a show that the BBC had decided they didn’t want any more. This year, they commissioned a new series of Yes, Prime Minister for Gold, still written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn – and does anyone remember the stories about the BBC rejecting a proposed series Yes Commissioner a few years ago, based around the EU?

This week, I attended the first of six recordings for the new series. (They’re happening through September, so there’s plenty of chance to grab a ticket.) Interested in a little run-down, in lazy bullet-point form?

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Cock Piss Partridge, etc

Published 24th July 2012

TV Comedy

In a world of DVDs and downloads, one advantage television still has is when it comes to rights issues. Negotiating rights to music for commercial release can be especially tricky – series like Life on Mars and Skins are especially hurt by it. Even a show like I’m Alan Partridge isn’t quite the same on the DVD release as it was on broadcast. So, when Dave decided to do an I’m Alan Partridge Series 2 marathon last Sunday night, it was an ideal way of seeing the programmes as they were originally transmitted, yes?

Anyone reading this blog who has spent more than five minutes watching any of Gold or Dave will know the answer to that question. In fact, the episodes were edited for content for transmission pre-watershed – and then also shown in this state post-watershed. (The first two episodes were shown before the watershed, as the marathon started at 8pm – but they were repeated later in the evening with exactly the same cuts.) Here then, is a list of all the edits made to these episodes – indicated [like this] – and tune in for the commentary at the end.

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A Fascinating Post About I’m Alan Partridge Title Sequences

Published 23rd July 2012

TV Comedy

Yesterday Dave decided to have an I’m Alan Partridge Series 2 marathon. Only I can spin two blog posts out of this fact. It’s the boring one today, and then the really boring one tomorrow.

So, here’s the title sequence – taken from the Series 2 DVD – from the episode I Know What Alan Did Last Summer:

…and here’s the version taken from the Dave broadcast on the 22nd July at 10:40pm:

The same clips, but without all the graphics added. Not even the title of the show! OK, so it’s not up to the standards of this, but still. (It does at least afford us a proper look at the set used for Alan’s pieces to camera which close each sequence.)

Checking the rest of the episode, barring deliberate edits for language (see tomorrow for more on that), the rest of the episode was identical to the DVD version. I’d be fascinated to know how the wrong version of the episode was even delivered to UKTV. Not that it should ever have got to air anyway…

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Red Dwarf X Set Reports Roundup

Published 30th January 2012

TV Comedy

Last Friday saw the last Red Dwarf X audience recording. And last Saturday saw the last Red Dwarf X Ganymede & Titan audience recording report. I’ve been part of the site since 2003, and whilst I don’t like to blow my own trumpet, as Alex Picton-Dinch would say, I do think these are some of the best things we’ve ever published, and worth a link here. If only because it’s fairly difficult to make them boring.

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GOLD “Summer” Promo

Published 21st January 2012

TV Presentation

Here’s a slightly bizarre promo running on GOLD at the moment, which is a good example of how to take an interesting idea and do it in the trademark GOLD irritating way:

I’m certainly not posting this for its quality, but I thought it was worth mentioning just because it’s quite rare for television itself talks about scheduling and transmission to the general public, especially in promos and the like. Feels very odd. Could have been great in the right hands.

Anyway, transmission is more exciting than scheduling, natch.

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