Race to preserve Python precursors

Monty Python forerunners Do Not Adjust Your Set and At Last The 1948 Show are at risk of being lost forever.

The shows, which both began in 1967, are on a danger list compiled by the British Film Institute.

Now surviving material is to be digitised to preserve the shows for the future. Existing footage is on tape that is prone to erode, while there are few machines that can play the old formats – or technicians who can operate them.

'Material from the 70s and early 80s is at risk' said Heather Stewart, the BFI's creative director. 'It has a five or six-year shelf life and if we don't do something about it will just go. Our job is make sure that things are there in 200 years' time.'

Other shows at risk include kids' series Tiswas, Vision On and The Basil Brush Show

Digitising the footage would also free up storage space at the BFI's archive in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire.

Do Not Adjust Your Set was a children's programme which starred Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Eric Idle along with David Jason and The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.

Many episodes were wiped but nine of the 14 episodes from the first of two series were released on DVD in 2005, but only one episode from the second series, which aired in 1969, remains.

At Last The 1948 Show featured John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Marty Feldman, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Aimi MacDonald. A concerted campaign to track down episodes means 11 out of 13 have now been recovered.

It was this show which first included the Four Yorkshiremen sketch which Python later made famous:

Published: 29 Nov 2016