Every episode of groundbreaking sketch series out on DVD

Every surviving episode of Spike Milligan’s influential sketch series Q is to be released on DVD for the first time.

The first three series – confusingly titled Q5, Q6 and Q7 – are out next month, with the other three – Q8, Q9 and There’s A Lot Of It About – to be released next year.

Only three of the seven episodes from the first series remain as the tapes were wiped after they were broadcast in 1969. But all the other episodes are intact.

The series aired six months before Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which acknowledged the influence of Milligan’s surreal approach, wide scope and sketches without proper conclusion. Terry Jones once said: Watching Q5, we almost felt as if our guns had been Spiked. We had been writing quickies or sketches for some three years and they always had a beginning, a middle and a tag line. Suddenly, watching Spike Milligan, we realised that they didn't have to be like that".

However the Q series is rarely repeated, partly due to some racist and sexist jokes that have not aged well and partly because of the erratic genius, of brilliant scenes sitting next to painfully self-indulgent ones. Q has not even been released on VHS before, except for a 90-minute ‘best of’ from 1987.

Written by Milligan with Neil Shand, Q also feautred Peter Jones, satirists Richard Ingrams and John Wells, and John Bluthal – who would go on to play Frank Pickle in the Vicar of Dibley.

Q Volume 1 is released by Simply Media on November 21, with an rrp of £24.99. Click here to preorder.

Published: 25 Oct 2016