Object of the week: Pre-Python promotional shots for 60s ITV sketch show Do Not Adjust Your Set
Before revolutionising TV comedy with Monty Python, many of the same team formed the gang behind Do Not Adjust Your Set, a madcap sketch show that blazed a trail of satire and silliness. These promotional shots capture youthful Pythons alongside David Jason and Denise Coffey.
For fans of Monty Python these images may look strangely familiar, showing as they do three members of the troupe in some quite Pythonesque poses. But these promotional images, preserved by the BFI National Archive, are from the series Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967 to 1969), a precursor to Python which was made for the ITV network by Rediffusion.
As one of the original ITV franchises, Rediffusion produced weekday programmes for the London region from the very start of ITV in 1955, and their output stretched across genres, to include their flagship current affairs series This Week as well as dramas, quiz shows, comedies and children’s programming. It was under the banner of children’s programming that the company charged producer Humphrey Barclay to come up with a comedy series that could be broadcast at teatime.
Barclay, who had experience in comedy at BBC radio, recruited Terry Jones, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, Denise Coffey and David Jason to make up the gang of Do Not Adjust Your Set – the title itself a play on the announcement that would come when television channels were experiencing broadcast difficulties.
The show was jam-packed with madcap sketches written by Jones, Palin and Idle and would feature themes familiar to Python fans, such as comic nudity and satirical portrayals of the British Empire. The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band also joined the show and performed a song every week as well as taking part in some sketches. Critic Philip Purser described the series as having “a line in Flann O’Brienish wordplay humour that’s all its own and should be a sensation with 10 or 11 year olds”. It was hugely popular with kids, but also drew an older audience even in a 5pm slot.
These promotional shots for the show form part of the Rediffusion collection at the BFI National Archive. The company lost the franchise to produce television for ITV in 1968 and was disbanded. Surviving programmes from Rediffusion are preserved in the archive along with scripts, production paperwork and images like these, which were used to promote programmes at the time of their broadcast.
The sensibility of the show is evident in these pictures, with Denise Coffey in a sparkling dress that seems to both encapsulate the 1960s while also being startlingly modern.
The goofy shot of David Jason in a bowler hat shows him in character as ‘Mr Fantastic’, from a regular sketch on the show in which he battled the evil Mrs Black (Coffey) in a series of slapstick stunts.
A group shot with all of the male members of the cast surrounding Denise Coffey may have seemed cheeky at the time but now looks a little menacing, though it does represent Coffey’s poise and confidence as the only woman in the cast. Her contribution to the series was praised by series director Daphne Shadwell in a career interview in which she reflected on her own role in the show.
The group shot in evening dress (shown at the top of this article) best encapsulates the tone of the programme – showing up the silliness of grown-ups for an audience of children of all ages. When Rediffusion closed, Do Not Adjust Your Set moved over to the new franchise at Thames, and added another Python to their number with some animations from Terry Gilliam. In recent years the series has been restored and released on BFI DVD.
Produced with the support of the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.