Episodes of a comedy series made by and starring Michael Palin and Terry Jones before Monty Python's Flying Circus have unexpectedly popped up on the streaming channel Britbox.
Six episodes were made of the spoof history series The Complete And Utter History Of Britain in 1969 and shown on London Weekend Television, but it had long been believed that apart from a few fragments only the first two episodes had survived.
Yet now they all seem to be available to watch. The newly found episodes in question cover Edward the First to Richard The Last, Perkin Warbeck to Bloody Mary, The Great and Glorious Age of Elizabeth and James the McFirst to Oliver Cromwell.
Seven programmes were written/produced, but LWT amalgamated the first two episodes into a single "stronger" episode, resulting in a six-part series
No announcement has been made about them at the time of writing and it has taken a number of comedy fans way more knowledgeable about these things than me by surprise. Beyond The Joke understands that the episodes had been in the ITV archive all along but were misfiled. Apparently Sir Michael Palin was unaware they existed.
John Williams @worldoftelly posted the news on X. "Have all six episodes of The Complete and Utter History of Britain really been found? Does anyone know the story behind this? britbox.co.uk/series/S1_74369 I don’t have BritBox so can’t check if the episodes are complete but some people have confirmed this."
And they do seem to be there. RoundTheArchives @Roundthearchiv1 posted that they were watching episode 5.
Andy Miller tweeted: "Incredible news. Astoundingly, Michael Palin and Terry Jones's pre-Python series The Complete and Utter History of Britain, long thought wiped, has just popped up on BritBox and ITVX IN FULL.
The episodes are also on the ITVX premium service.
Hat tip to Didymus Holmes for drawing BTJ's attention to this.
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