ITV has recovered the entire six-part series “The Complete And Utter History Of Britain,” a comedy series produced in 1969 that preceded the creation of the famed “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”.
Written by and starring Python alum Michael Palin and Terry Jones, the original series aired on London Weekend Television in January and February 1969 and was a satirical documentary take on the history of the British Isles.
Specifically, the idea was to replay history as if television had been around the entire time, thus showcasing how famous British events would have been reported on. This resulted in sketches like post-Battle of Hastings shower room interview with William the Conqueror, to King John giving an autograph to a child fan not realising he just signed the Magna Carta.
Within months, the Monty Python troupe was formed and the “Flying Circus” series launched in October of that year. Only the first two broadcast programmes of ‘Utter History’ were known to have survived in full, alongside filmed inserts from the rest of the series.
Then, very recently, the ITV Archive team were in the midst of a major project to fully identify every archive asset the British broadcaster holds. During those efforts they discovered all six half-hour episodes sitting in the ITV vaults, having been miscatalogued for decades.
They flagged it with their streaming division who then had the film restored from the original 16mm telerecordings. Now, the full series has been made available to viewers via ITVX Premium and Britbox for the first time since the original broadcasts.
Source: Comedy.co.uk (via Screen Rant)
