Lee and Herring rewatch

[Stinky Lomax]

I think the cheesy pantomime "Eastern garb" is specifically part of the satirical poke at Kula Shaker and their cultural appropriation.

Anyway, not sure if I'll ever think "that's a classic episode of TMWRNJ", I suspect it's always going to be a mixture of good and bad bits, with the ratio changing from week to week. This week felt about even, but I think the good bits are getting better.
Good stuff: Trevor & Natalie with the escalating small face bit and the politician's kid (again, helps tie the show together, along with the running theme of celeb couples and the Diff'rent Strokes bit), Kevin and Jo with the Tony Blairs twist, Unusual Priest, Curious Orange evolving (Putner does such a good 'I've been hit' reaction), The School (not really anything new, but a good reintroduction and it's cool to see the whole troupe in there - I think maybe even a non-speaking part for Emma Kennedy as the gym teacher?), Histor.
Bad stuff: the gallery and King Of The Show leaning on smug unfunny comedy fans for material (and it finally happened, one of them made a cringeworthy attempt at flirting with Natalie), the Golden Grahams bit is tired now and this week also prominently featured a banana cunt's face,  terrible self-indulgent celeb 'interview', Organ Gang (at least it did something a bit more involved but it's still just a weak POTA reference), Crowley.

Also, I think I've figured out the underlying thing that bugs me about the title sequence: it's Stew being a 9-5 familyman at the start. That doesn't match his in-show persona, and so the whole thing is just one set of characters unrelated to anything in the show turning into a specific parody of two presenters who have a tenuous connection to the show at best, which I think is what makes it read in my mind as 'cartoonish'. I'd maybe like it more if it leant into Stew being a pretentious muso type and Rich being a weird ferret-milk-glugging creep, and escalating those both more week by week with new details, and then them presenting as idealised safe versions of themselves once they get to the sofa.

[madhair60]

the opening is a metaphor

[Stinky Lomax]

Ahhhh!

[Mobbd]

The School (not really anything new, but a good reintroduction

I think it was done slightly differently this time, a pastiche the reality TV of the time. Shows like The Cruise.

I'm never sure if The Organ Gang is supposed to be an actual show from the 70s or something they've made now.

[lauraxsynthesis]

Yay Mel and Sue. Awful interview slot again though.

I'm guessing that's THE Danielle Ward who sent in Mark E Smith on a dog in the Gallery.

Trevor was so cute and charming this episode. I wish I could like him and not think about his gross Russell Brand-adjacent sex scandal. Also he didn't match with me on Guardian Soulmates 14 years ago.

At last the first scream from The Curious Orange. The teacher sketch I thought was well done, but those sketches always make me sad due to Rich's rather effective performance.

Great ending though. The Kula Shaker song I thought was a great joke at the time and I still enjoy it.

[Gurke and Hare]

I'm guessing that's THE Danielle Ward who sent in Mark E Smith on a dog in the Gallery.

Yes! And Rob Adey there, who I know and I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least one other people here who knows him. And he later wrote an episode of Time Gentlemen Please.

[Mobbd]

I just posted this to the Richard Herring thread but it's a Lee & Herring revelation really so I'll make a rare annoying crosspost.

Warming Up is worth a read today. He reflects on some missed opportunities from his career, including missing the Netflix boat and stepping back from On The Hour.

Perhaps most interesting though is that:

the fantastic and much-missed producer Harry Thompson told me he was working on a new radio panel show about pop music in the mid-90s and was thinking about having Stew and me as the team captains. I didn't bite his hand off and it came to nothing. It was, of course, Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

I'd never heard that before but it makes complete sense. Lee & Herring at that time would have been good and apt team captains: Herring's cheekiness and disdain for music versus Stew's coolness and musical anorakism.

So in the next universe over, Stewart Lee is Phil Jupitus and Richard Herring is dead! You know. Because he'd be Sean Hughes.

[madhair60]

1-5

Viewing figures were back to normal (0.9 million - 0.8 million - 1 million) 5 complaints about inappropriate scheduling, but not much else. The Friday repeat is getting about 0.4 million now This is down a bit, but probably because Bill Bailey is not getting many viewers and this has a knock on effect.. Much better show this week - possibly the best so far friom our point of view. Let us know if you agree/disagree.

SHOW 5 STUFF
TITLES - Rich is in bed with the false Rod Hull. I think Denise Van Outen was on the fridge door with "I am stupid" or something coming out of her mouth. There were human hands in the fridge. Stu was smoking some other kind of pipe, I didn't notice.

Trevor and Natalie were dressed as Arabian slaves, for no particular reason. Ian Kignell was played by a child actor called Louis. He came up with the line "Chubby Chops" himself. He was very good.

Something from last week I've just remembered. In the Ironic Review, the line "Radio is where you begin and end your career" is a direct quote from arch curmudgeon Patrick Marber.

Insects - We took a break from Insects to avoid getting too repetitive. We did film another one, which had Rich in a goatee beard being attacked by fleas. We didn't think it added anything to the ouevre. I think the script's somewhere up on the pages (it is, but I'm not going to link to it here - Rob).

Genetic mutants - We got loads of fabulous entries. Thanks for sending them in and congratulations to Toby Poole for winning. He seemd like a nice bloke. He had been sitting opposite an annoying American on the train down, hence his disgruntled law.

Organ Gang - still divisive, but the balance seems to be shifting slightly to people being in favour. Especially given this week's one was pretty funny. Again, it was cut right down, so we'll include a complete script for the Organ loving nits.

Histor's Eye - Again this was quite ruthlessly editted, but works pretty well. Stu and Rich hadn't liked it when they first saw it, but the producer, Charlie Hanson and the director Gareth Carrivick editted it really well and got a workable sketch out of it. In the original the Beatles were crowned kings of England replacing Nazi King Edward VIII. This explains the crowns. We overdubbed a couple of topical references as eagle eared viewers may have noticed. The accents were deliberately rubbish, but Rich's was genuinely the best he could do. We were very tired filming this one (end of a very long day and our arms hurt holding up the puppets. This tiredness manifests itself at one point when Histor's voice becomes more like Zippy from Rainbow. Also you can clearly see Rich trying to remember his lines when he is Ringo. All this just adds to the authemticity of the sketch though, of course! I believe the full script is up somewhere already.

Teachers - the return of the teachers from Fist of Fun. This episode was necessarily a bit of a back track to introduce new viewers to the characters, but in future weeks there will be more development. We filmed at the Grange Hill set. Paul Putner and Jo Unwin were excellent as the inspectors (some marvellous reaction shots) and Kevin Eldon re prises his role of the headmaster, first seen on the FOF tour. We cut two scenes together, so Kennedy's Nazi salute at the end doesn't quite match (he's sitting on a desk) though it is feasible he'd hopped up there. Did you spot it?

MOA 1974 - Another classic. MOA1974 fans are coming out of the woodwork. It is funny and if you do not like it you have a flawed sense of humour.

The attack on Ian Kignell is another routine that we ad libbed on stage during the last tour. Sorry to those of you who feel it is a rip off for us to do tour material on TV, but only about 3000 people saw our tour and 1 and a half million see it on TV. Also, give us our due we have written a hell of a lot of new material for these shows which are 45 minutes long and there are 8 in the series, (the equivalent of 2 series of FOF writing wise and no Pete to write 4 minutes a week this time. It's important to keep the quality of the material at as high a standard as possible to help us get recommissioned, so please forgive us a small amount of re-use from tour, book and radio.

Roger Crowley - This week's evil doing is based on something Aleister Crowley actually attempted. Roger kissed the fish at the end. He is mad.

Curious Orange - The most popular routine yet involving this obnoxious citrus fruit. It was great fun hitting him in the head and all credit to Paul Putner for producing that terrifying noise at the end of the routine. He is a very frightening character.

The closing credits - These crashed, so there were no credits this week. The insect disclaimer read something like "No insects appeared in this week's show, but we killed some anyway, just for fun". The "I made this" riff is getting more elaborate too.
That's all. Keep watching. Just three weeks to go!

[Shaxberd]

It's Sunday morning again! Of course we should all be in church but when you're home, it's time for !

For those of you who care about such things I have opted for the Fist Of Fun Dot Net version over Nearrrrgh as the latter's upload mentioned some audio issues with their copy of this particular episode.

[madhair60]

1-6

Sorry it's late. We've been busy trying to write this week's show! Here's a brief BTS of week 6. The viewing figures were a bit down again (Mothering Sunday lunch?) but the audience grew during the show (0.7-0.8-0.9) so it pans out as pretty much normal. The studio audience were a bit flat this week, but apparently the show looked OK on TV.

SHOW 6 STUFF
Titles - Stu had a liquorice pipe. Rich woke up (wearing a "You want the Moon on a Stick!" T-shirt) with a mannequin wearing Stu's clothes with Stu's face stuck on it. The fridge had a picture of a graffited All Saints on it and had test tubes full of Rich's Dad's Milk inside.

Mother's Day - Luckily Rich's mum is on holiday so missed the spice rack/whore/Bobby Robson tirades. I expect she's videoed it though. Then we'll catch it! The Oedipus joke (more or less) first appeared in Lionel Nimrod, but the punchline was then "Most mum's prefer it if you just help out round the house a bit".

Histor's Eye - This skit was filmed on a different day to all the others (in the studio after show 2) so we had learnt from our mistakes and speeded up a bit. We were really tired and the sketch has a manic feel about it, but is all the better for it. The special effect of the UFO flying was achieved by a toy UFO on a fishing line! Paul Putner had his face painted green, rather than the usual orange to play the alien. He is very good. This sketch originally appeared in Lee and Herring on Radio 1. Histor's wing broke during the filming of this sketch and had to be stuck on, but you can't really tell. Unfortunately the dialogue faded a bit early so you might have missed the ad libbed ending:
HISTOR Anyway bird's don't have anuses.
PLINY I do! I've got 4.

Teachers - again we had to cut this down quite a lot, so a big section with Mr Harris prevaricating about which biscuit to have was lost. Paul Putner's performance as unnamed teacher was a delight of subtlety and is Rich's favourite thing in the sketch. The joke "as it make's them difficult to relight" was written on a polite notice on the toilet wall where our office is. We don't know who wrote it, but we hope they saw the exposure of their crap sense of humour on our TV show. The phrase "sub-Kenny Everett whimsy" was used by John Peel when Kev's band appeared on one of his sessions. Carlton Dixon our assistant producer and Joanna Hanley our researcher play the other teachers.

When Insects Attack - the small boy improvised his description of the attack, hence the fantastic expressions "I shuffled it off" and "then we started playing happily again". This was filmed in a garden in West London. The sketch was shot twice, with each kid being the one attacked, but this was the best take. Worms are not insects of course, as I don't think you need to be told.

Curious Orange - the punching and the shrieking and the general level of frighteningness are proving very popular now and the Orange seems to have entered your affections as we predicted.

The Phone In was not rigged, so MOA 1974 was narrowly voted to be in (We were going to play it anyway) though more people thought it was worth confirming the actor Kevin Eldon's simian features. It was a good job it was in because it was a very funny one. If anyone has a copy of "Noodlehead Stories from around the World" then please let us know.

Adrian Targett - Again this was real, though people thought it was a spoof. Mr Targett genuinely taught Rich and is related to a very old skellington. It was nice to see him again. One person has commented on his physical resemblance to Trevor Brooking.

Roger Crowley - another slow burner, but Crowley fans are emerging from the woodwork as each day passes.

Ice T - surprisingly no-one has complained about the similarity between this routine and one in the first series of Fist of Fun. Don't know why. The jokes are mainly different though!

Queen of the Show - she had a lovely time and she was genuinely an ex-beauty queen. Her husband had secretly rung in with this information.

Trevor and Natalie's humiliation continued apace with their having to be dressed as flowers. Their faces had to be painted yellow which made Paul Putner feel more at home, with his Orange face.

The My Mum's products on the trolley had to be especially made as this line of products has been discontinued.

Compuserve - the Compuserve problems are all real. We've already had offers of a free account from almost every provider in the world (though not Compuserve surprisingly!) We don't know which one we'll take yet, but we advise you to leave Compuserve as well if you are with them. On closing your account, please let them know that the reason you are leaving is because of their shoddy treatment of Rich and Stu. Amazingly enough when Rich got into the office on Monday the account had once again been cut off! This is entirely Compuserve's fault and Rich got very arsey with the bloke he spoke to on the phone!
Thanks for all the e-mails and the advertising us. Some really good stuff in this week. Please do keep telling us what you think. Your comments have been very useful, no matter how wrong most of them are!

[Stinky Lomax]

The sound on this one was bad enough that I muted it and played the L&H Fan account's version in another tab at the same time:

Really good episode this week! Histor, Teachers, Insects, Priest and Curious Orange all great, lots of interaction between all the studio elements, and they solved the Queen Of The Show/Interview sections by basically just having them sit there quietly and throwing lots of prepared quips at them.

Things I particularly liked this week: that amazing cut back to Rich pouring petrol over a terrified Trevor; lots of Histor stuff - Pliny's beak clacking getting louder, their banter getting ever ruder, Paul Putner delivering "Hello there Histor" in exactly the same way for his alien character as for his medieval king et al.

[lauraxsynthesis]

The phrase "sub-Kenny Everett whimsy" was used by John Peel when Kev's band appeared on one of his sessions.

Some great lore there. Very enjoyable episode. I particularly liked the Kev/Jo/Richard Thomas love triangle stuff and the Curious Orange.

[Mobbd]

Sorry I'm late everyone. I was in church for almost four days.

Best episode yet. Everything worked.

"that munchkin event sounds good though, doesn't it? TMWRNJ!"

"our nice Planet Earth milk"

"I see Rich has been getting his jokes off lolly sticks again"

They actually showed rectal endoscopy footage on Sunday morning television. Rich also called his mum "a whore" directly to the camera. Truly, their bosses weren't watching, were they? I wonder if Jane Root was watching from home in her Garfield slippers, currently powerless and vowing to take action.

Rich throwing petrol on Trevor while saying "I love you Trevor."

The "Lee & Herring Child Army" got my attention. When Collings & Herrin were on the radio, they had "Nerd Army," which I just supposed was their answer to Adam & Joe's Black Squadron. But it's heritage went back to this. I like how it acknowledges that their core audience were children (who would later grow up to be nerds). Felt seen.

Bohemian Rhapsody really is a mother's day anthem.

[Mobbd]

This week's man of achievement 1974:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/215866.M_A_Jagendorf

Of his book, Noodlehead Stories From Around the World (as mentioned on the show), Samantha on GoodReads writes "read as a child, don't remember it."

One of his books is called The Gypsies' Fiddle, which was presumably a Viz annual.

Truly, he was a man of achievement 1974.

[Shaxberd]

! Fingers crossed for better sound quality this week.

[Mobbd]

Michael Aflek of Middlesborough - can anyone identify the shopping mall?

"Stage school scumbag" Elliott Tiney went on to be one of Idiots of Ants! https://www.elliotttiney.co.uk/CV

"He's left his door open, the vestigial worm-like pouch."

"Our friend the lettuce leaf will think twice about trying to grow in a garden again."

In the teachers sketch, Kevin Eldon seems to say "is this a classroom or the fucking zoo?"

Jack 'The Inquisitor' Docherty was the best interview guest so far, but the interview is still rubbish and there was obviously too much 90s perviness in this one.

Aside from that, a great episode. I love the riffing on the skits. I guess they did learn about the importance of recurring characters eventually.

The actor Kevin Eldon walking away for ages at the end like the Incredible Hulk was lovely, especially when he knocked that guy over the railing. I wonder if he had permission to put the boot into that white van.

By the way, Stewart Lee says Season 2 is the best season of this. But we know he was wrong to say Season 1 of FoF was the best. So enjoy this while it lasts!

[madhair60]

1-7

Hooray! It's nearly over. Ha ha. The show went all right on Sunday. Again the audience were a little young (hence the few snipes) and reserved. Hopefully you enjoyed it at home. We're really sorry about the people who've come to see the show but haven't been able to get in. It sucks, but that's the way it is. It isn't our fault.

The viewing figures last Friday on 0.5 million and on Sunday we were down to 0.8. So much for the power of advertising! But the clocks going forwards can't have helped (we have an excuse for every week!) I bet loads of you, like David Darlington from Edinburgh were still in bed when we started.

SHOW 7 STUFF
The opening titles - Rich wakes up next to a pantomime horse's head (I think). Stu was smoking some kind of pipe I expect. Rich had a Lady Di doll advert on his fridge and an alien head in his fridge. If you're interested in knowing what is in the opening titles, then watch them yourselves.

I was only joking about that opening titles thing there.

King of the Show - Elliot Tiney was King. His video was very funny, as was the one of the other guy we showed, but we thought that bloke looked a bit mad and took the easy option. Elliot tried to chip in a few gags, but unfortunately kept getting cut off, or verbally attacked by Stew. A bit harsh or fair enough in the circumstances? You decide.

Camelot PLC's TMWNRJ - It is perhaps testament to the BBC that we were allowed to do a show that criticises them so much. Paul Jackson the head of Comedy at the BBC saw the show and came to tease us afterwards that he was upset, becuase he'd been on Radio 4 that morning defending the BBC's Scratchcard show. Rich genuinely won  2 with his first ticket, but as the ticket cost  2 this is maybe nothing to write home about.

The Organ Gang - Adrian Appendix's Big Adventure. Still no definite consensus on whether this is good or rubbish. But it was nice to hear Brain Cant doing such a fine job at pretend annoyance. The script said "Screw You" at the end, but Brain didn't want to say that (he said"I suppose people would find it funny to hear Brian Cant saying 'Screw You' but I don't feel happy about it" - And it was funny hearing him say it, and he had said it, do you see?) so he changed it to "Sod You" which we think is ruder. Rich and Stu voiced the QVC channel showing in Adrian's house. They are discussing a catheter, which comes in red and blue colours. It was very funny what they said, but no-one will ever hear it. We'll try and get a copy maybe!

Trevor and Natalie - dressed as Arthur and Guinevere. They are fast becoming a living Barbie and Ken. But who knows, maybe next week they'll get to speak!

Teachers - a slightly cut down version again. This sketch was intended to be shown 4th, but we felt it worked better third and we still haven't decided what to cut from the intended third show one. The argument between Kennedy and the Headmaster was based on one that got improvised during the teacher sketch from the last tour.

The Hugh Sexey wing - Hugh Sexey was a real bloke and in Wedmore near Cheddar there is a school called Hugh Sexey's which as you can imagine cause Rich some childish mirth. Rich's mum, sister and brother-in-law have all worked there. The sketch was filmed in one of the Grange Hill classrooms, which was incrediby cold.

When Insects Attack - The lettuce leaf was voiced and moved by Stewart Lee. An extensive description of how this worked will appear in the tour programme. We may put it up on the internet pages too, but if one person complains that we've used the same thing twice we will have it taken off the web pages. So watch it.

PFTFTD - The actor Kevin Eldon continues in fine form. The laughter at the end of the first thought was his idea and was funny.

Jack Docherty - perhaps the best guest so far. Good to get him to talk about that Morwena Banks thing. The cat food idea did not mean anything and Jack has no connection with cat food of any kind. The cat food was made from stewing steak and jelly. During the rehearsal Rich was nearly sick because it stank so much, which is why Jack tried to put it in his face. Jack is a fucking nice bloke and was great in Absolutely which our audience was too young to remember. Also we'd been on his show to promote the series, like we had been on nearly all our guests' shows.

The Curious Orange - Mark E Smith of the Fall saw the show this week and apparently really enjoyed the Orange (though it's an odd one to be the first one you'd seen) - he wrote Kurious Oranj, the song that introduces the Orange and inspired the character. The song the Orange sang was a traditional music hall sang that Stu's grandad used to sing. Apparently it also appeared in an old Rutland Weekend Television sketch which neither of us ever saw. The Orange juice hit Rich right in the eyes, blinding him for several seconds, he banged into the podium breaking one of the glasses, though that might have happened off air. The orange is moulding and had transformed to acid which ate Rich's finger when he put his finger through the skin.

Jo Unwin, her husband, the actor Kevin Eldon and her lover Richard Thomas - The story develops nicely. The photos of Richard and Jo were taken near our rehearsal room in Ladbroke Grove. The actors largely ad lib their arguments in rehearsal and are excellent.

What would you eat? - Originally ad libbed during our last tour. Though this was a shortened version. We made the mistake of not asking Rich if he would eat Trevor. His small face could hardly count.

The Incredible Hulk ending - The actor Kevin Eldon leaves town like the Incredible Hulk did at the end of every episode. We toyed with doing the theme from the Littlest Hobo instead. Kev does not know what we said in the V/O at the end. Ha ha.

No insects were killed during the filming of this show, but one slug had salt poured on it and was needlessly stamped on.

[Theoretical Dentist]

Probably the best episode so far, despite not having Histor's Eye. Nearly all the regular features are being subverted now. Even Men of Achievement 1974 where the camera initially zooms in on the wrong picture before a finger points it in the right direction.

The interview is back to the normal type of guest after a bit of variation in the last few episodes, and the weakest part, but it was fun to see a young Jack Docherty since I'm most familiar with him from Scot Squad and other recent stuff, although I probably should have seen Absolutely. And it was amusing that Richard Herring kept covering his midsection with a cushion and crossing his legs as if to hide a stiffy. He doesn't mention that in the programme notes.

I wonder if they got in any trouble for promoting their tour, despite their protestations about the BBC's Camelot promotion. Particularly because the on-screen text scrolling thing for their '1988 tour dates' ('other sub-Kenny Everett comedy shows are available'; also, by the way, the first freeze-frame bit for a while since they seem to have dropped the list of things you can do from the first few episodes) advertises a premium-rate tour hotline which someone must have been making some money off at 50p per minute. The BBC probably has some rules about premium-rate phone lines but they're evidently not completely banned. TMWRNJ itself uses them for the votes (not in this episode), although those calls are cheaper with a maximum cost of 10p and maybe at that rate the BBC or production company wouldn't be getting any money from them. And several BBC programmes were implicated in this 2007 premium-rate phone line scandal. Still, I can't imagine they'd be too happy about promoting a line that's presumably a completely non-BBC thing.

For fans of Lee and Herring website history, after the URL shown in the programme uses the mudhole.spodnet.uk.com domain as before, the contact details screen after the end credits uses their own domain name for the first time I've noticed (and at least the equivalent in the previous episode doesn't use it). Except they write it as lee&herring.com which won't work since domain names can't contain ampersands. Turns out the actual domain name, leeandherring.com, was registered on 20th March 1998 which was eight days before this episode and one day before the previous one, so this may well have been the first time it would have worked for the website, if they'd got it right. Maybe they'll fix it next week for the last episode of the series. I wonder if they registered it as part of their attempts to get away from CompuServe email, or to ensure they're not so tied to whoever replaces them.

[Gurke and Hare]

"That's right, I said 'Crap' in front of the headmaster's Galen from Planet of the Apes face."

[lauraxsynthesis]

That 1 May gig in Canterbury would have been when I saw them live, interviewed them for the uni paper and got introduced to Stew's new fiance that he never married

[Andy147]

FWIW the "lost episode" of The Organ Gang (previously linked here back in 2007) is still available.



I think it was supposed to be shown between the Adrian Appendix episode in s1e7 and the final episode.

[Stinky Lomax]

In the teachers sketch, Kevin Eldon seems to say "is this a classroom or the fucking zoo?"

I think this was perhaps "monkeys' zoo" but the VHS audio warps at just the wrong moment!

Insects Attack, Curious Orange and The School all fantastic - the reveal of the lettuce leaf in the chair still makes me laugh out loud. Interview was excruciating as usual and I found the Morwenna Banks stuff a bit grimy tbh (along with that cunnilingus joke about Geri Halliwell - it works as an aside halfway through a bit, not as its drawn-out laddish punchline delivered smugly to camera). The king of the show was a mixed bag as he was very smug and unfunny and continually insisted on talking over the actual professional comedians as they tried to do the show with whatever crap joke he'd thought of, so that was infuriating, but that did make it doubly satisfying when Stew took him down a peg. Stop being nice and feeling sorry for him like some sort of Mr Harris, Rich!
I'm not surprised to read in Rich's notes that the Kevin/Jo/Richard stuff is based on rehearsal ad-libs - the idea of an ongoing domestic drama between various presenters is funny but it does fall a bit flat due to that same 'we'll just blag it' energy of the interviews.

Not as good as last week for me, but the good bits continue to improve, they just need to jettison the remaining weak links.

[Mobbd]

That 1 May gig in Canterbury would have been when I saw them live, interviewed them for the uni paper and got introduced to Stew's new fiance that he never married

That's awesome. Is the transcript online?

[Mobbd]

Probably the best episode so far, despite not having Histor's Eye. Nearly all the regular features are being subverted now. Even Men of Achievement 1974 where the camera initially zooms in on the wrong picture before a finger points it in the right direction.

it was amusing that Richard Herring kept covering his midsection with a cushion and crossing his legs as if to hide a stiffy. He doesn't mention that in the programme notes.

Glad we both noticed those details. The Men of Achievement hand-and-camera acting was a lovely little bit; really appreciated it. But I think Rich genuinely had a stiffy.

[lauraxsynthesis]

That's awesome. Is the transcript online?

No. I don't think I even kept a copy of that issue of the paper.

[madhair60]

No. I don't think I even kept a copy of that issue of the paper.

do you remember what the paper was called? I have an enormous number of transcribed interviews with them

[Theoretical Dentist]

But I think Rich genuinely had a stiffy.

Oh yeah, I also think the stiffy was real.

[Theoretical Dentist]

do you remember what the paper was called? I have an enormous number of transcribed interviews with them

I don't know if this is the one but the main newspaper at the University of Kent today appears to be InQuire.

There are probably archives at the university library. Digital copies of the printed paper are available here but they only go back to 2010.

[Theoretical Dentist]

FWIW the "lost episode" of The Organ Gang (previously linked here back in 2007) is still available.



I think it was supposed to be shown between the Adrian Appendix episode in s1e7 and the final episode.

This is great, thanks. I was going to ask what the story behind it was but I found the original CaB thread from 2007 which covers it, along with some other interesting background information about The Organ Gang.

[lauraxsynthesis]

do you remember what the paper was called? I have an enormous number of transcribed interviews with them

That would doxx me innit.
I have checked and that issue of the paper hasn't been put online.

I wasn't good at interviewing so it probably wouldn't be worth a look. What I remember is that they had just a day or 2 before had the second series green-lit and when I mentioned that they were both clearly delighted about it. They said that in every town they look for some local thing they can make reference to in the show and asked me if I could suggest something. I think I suggested Oliver Postgate. A woman with a cute blonde bob came in the room briefly, Stew introduced us and I think it was Rich who told me that was Stew's fiance and that they had just that day got engaged. It was probably also during this interview that Stew told me he gets his music recommendations from The Curious Orange/Paul Putner.