On the Margin

On the Margin
Created by	Alan Bennett
Starring	Yvonne Gilan; Madge Hindle; Roland MacLeod; John Sergeant; Virginia Stride
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	6
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Release
Original network	BBC Two
Original release	9 November –; 14 December 1966

On the Margin was a British satirical comedy sketch show written and performed by Alan Bennett and a regular cast including John Sergeant, Virginia Stride, Madge Hindle and Yvonne Gilan. Guest performers included John Fortune and Jonathan Miller. The show also featured songs and poems by John Betjeman and Philip Larkin.

Each episode featured a mixture of sketches, some prophesying his later television dramas such as the quasi-soap, Streets Ahead, Life and Times in NW1, (about an upwardly mobile Camden couple) and more unexpectedly, serious poetry and music slots incorporating readings by Michael Hordern and Prunella Scales with archive footage of music-hall stars. This personalised nostalgic element distinguished On the Margin from other contemporary sketch shows, with Bennett's satirical swipes at Britain, integrated with his genuine love of its cultural heritage.

It was directed by Sydney Lotterby, produced by Patrick Garland and was broadcast between 9 November and 14 December 1966 on BBC 2. It was repeated twice in 1967, but the tapes were wiped in the 1970s due to the BBC policy at the time of recycling videotape in order to save costs. However, a compilation CD of audio extracts was released in 2009, and in 2014 it was announced that audio copies of the entire series had been found.[1]

The series was cited by John Cleese as an influence on Monty Python's Flying Circus.[2]

References

"Alan Bennett's lost series On The Margin is recovered". BBC News. 17 March 2014.
"The Pythons" (Cleese, Chapman, et al) (2013). The Pythons Autobiography. London: Orion Books Ltd. p. 107. ISBN 9781409153528. Alan had his own series then called On the Margin, which was absolutely brilliant, except the BBC kindly wiped it so it looks like Python came out of nowhere. Most of our precursor shows were carefully wiped: there's hardly any of Not Only But Also, which was on before Python came out; there's hardly any of On the Margin, which was really funny Alan Bennett stuff.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

External links

On the Margin at IMDb

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[1] "Alan Bennett's lost series On The Margin is recovered". BBC News. 17 March 2014.

[2] "The Pythons" (Cleese, Chapman, et al) (2013). The Pythons Autobiography. London: Orion Books Ltd. p. 107. ISBN 9781409153528. Alan had his own series then called On the Margin, which was absolutely brilliant, except the BBC kindly wiped it so it looks like Python came out of nowhere. Most of our precursor shows were carefully wiped: there's hardly any of Not Only But Also, which was on before Python came out; there's hardly any of On the Margin, which was really funny Alan Bennett stuff.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)