The Young Ones is a British sitcom written by Rik Mayall, Ben Elton, and Lise Mayer, starring Adrian Edmondson, Mayall, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan, and Alexei Sayle, and broadcast on BBC2 for two series, first shown in 1982 and 1984. The show focused on the lives of four dissimilar students and their landlord's family on different plots that often included anarchic, offbeat, surreal humour. The show often included slapstick gags, visual humour and surreal jokes sometimes acted out by puppets, with each episode also featuring a notable selection of guest stars and musical numbers from various performers.
The Young Ones helped bring alternative comedy to British television in the 1980s and made household names of its writers and performers. The show became a notable icon of 1980s British popular culture, and it received its own game and a home-media release while becoming the first non-music-related programme to appear on MTV in the United States in 1985. The show was voted number 31 in the BBC's Best Sitcom poll in 2004.
History
In the early 1980s, much of the programme's cast performed on London's comedy club circuit, gaining significant popularity at The Comedy Store—Alexei Sayle was the prominent act, drawing attention as the manic, aggressive compere; Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall worked together in the troupe 20th Century Coyote and later became the double act The Dangerous Brothers; and Nigel Planer worked in the double act "The Outer Limits" alongside Peter Richardson. All principal members later opted to make their own club as The Comedy Store became popular, and they formed The Comic Strip in the Raymond Revuebar club in Soho with French and Saunders and Arnold Brown. The new club proved immensely popular amongst London's comedy venues and brought the group to the attention of Jeremy Isaacs, head of the new Channel 4.
Richardson opted to bring the group to television in a project entitled The Comic Strip Presents... and began negotiations with the new channel to secure a deal for a series of six self-contained half-hour films, in which the group would perform as comedy actors rather than stand-up performers. Channel 4 agreed to the deal and aired the programme on the channel's opening night on 2 November 1982. In response to this, the BBC opted to recruit the group for its own comedy projects, and it began negotiations with Edmondson, Mayall, Richardson, Planer and Sayle to star in a sitcom that would operate on a similar broadcast arrangement, under the title of The Young Ones, which alludes to and subverts the song of the same name, written by Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett and performed by Cliff Richard and The Shadows, which had become a No. 1 UK hit single in 1962. The group agreed to join the project and work proceeded on the sitcom, with Mayall co-writing the scripts with his then girlfriend Lise Mayer, and Ben Elton (who had attended the University of Manchester with Mayall and Edmondson). Paul Jackson was installed as a producer, but his presence led to him clashing with Richardson, forcing the latter to abandon the project. As a result, his replacement was Christopher Ryan, the only member of the group who was not a stand-up comedian. According to Jackson, the finished project was met with complete disbelief by the BBC, but the recent arrival of Channel 4 led the broadcaster to air what had been created a week after its opening night, on 9 November.
To help make it stand out, the group opted to combine traditional sitcom style with violent slapstick, non-sequitur plot turns, and surrealism. These older styles were mixed with the working and lower-middle class attitudes of the growing 1980s alternative comedy boom, in which all the principal performers except Ryan had been involved. In addition, it was also decided that every episode, with the exception of one, would feature a live performance by a band, including Madness, Motörhead, and The Damned. This was a device used to qualify the series for a larger budget, as variety shows attracted higher fees than comedy at the time. Episodes were generally produced to be over 35 minutes long, though were edited to half-hour when later repeated on the BBC or satellite channels.
Premise The programme focuses on the lives of four undergraduate students who share a house in squalid condition (with the fictitious address of 15 Credibility Street), while studying at the fictional Scumbag College, London.
The content of the episodes could be classified as a comedy of manners, because of its take on British culture, political climate and social backgrounds during the 1980s. A particular example of this is the second series' use of "flash frames", in each episode, to mock the public's fear of subliminal messages in television and music. The Young Ones was more notable for its use of violent slapstick, which Edmondson and Mayall had been using in their double-act routines, the use of surreal elements such as puppets playing the role of talking animals or objects (in a similar manner to The Goodies), use of lengthy cutaways with no relation to the episode's plot, and frequent breaches of the fourth wall for comedic efforts, either to break a punchline to a joke or make a plot point obvious; in several occasions, Sayle used this element to break from his character and address the audience in his real-life Liverpudlian accent.
Rik Mayall once jokingly said that the household was effectively a nuclear family, with Mike as the father, Neil as the mother, Vyvyan as the rebellious son, and Rick (with a pig-tail) as the daughter.
Cast
The Young Ones had a regular cast of five: Adrian Edmondson as Vyvyan "Vyv" Basterd, a punk rock fan and medical student; psychopathic, sociopathic, sadistic, and misanthropic. Vyv was mostly violent and unruly, respecting Mike and tending to pick on his fellow students Rick and Neil, primarily focusing on antagonising the former to the point that they are virtually inseparable. Vyvyan owned both a talking Glaswegian hamster named Special Patrol Group ("SPG" for short), who is subjected to Vyvyan's extreme violence, and a yellow Ford Anglia with red flames painted along the sides and "Vyv" written across the back window. Rik Mayall as Rick, studying sociology and/or domestic sciences (depending on the episode); hypocritical, radical, attention-seeking, and a self-proclaimed anarchist. Rick is mostly critical towards the others, often insulting Neil but also occasionally Vyvyan (despite Vyvyan's violent retaliation to criticism). He proclaimed himself as a vegetarian and an avid fan of Cliff Richard, while constantly adapting himself to different political beliefs, depending on how they will benefit him in a particular situation, despite displaying little understanding of them. According to Ben Elton, Mayall's character was influenced by the "try-hard wanna-be Leftie" typically found on university campuses. Nigel Planer as Neil Pye, a Peace Studies student; a morose, pessimistic hippie with pacifist leanings. Neil often wound up having to do all the chores around the house, while the other three students barely acknowledged his presence unless they could blame him for something going wrong. Christopher Ryan as Mike the Cool Person, an unscrupulous student; cool, well-dressed, and generally respected. Mike was the straight man and nominal leader of the group. He often conducted profitable business to benefit himself to the detriment of others, but also to keep the others calm during unforeseen issues or situations. It was implied that he held on to his student status through blackmailing the university's senior staff. Alexei Sayle as various eccentric supporting characters, mostly the students' landlord Jerzei (Jeremy) Balowski and his family. Jerzei himself was a faux-Russian in that he mainly used a Russian accent to sound "more sophisticated".
Alongside the main cast, the programme also featured a variety of guest appearances, including comedians, actors, and singers, who each took on the role of a supporting character in an episode's plot or cutaway elements. Notable guests on the programme included Ben Elton, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Hale and Pace, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Mark Arden, Stephen Frost, Jools Holland, Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones, Anthony Sharp, Terry Jones, Chris Barrie, Helen Lederer, Keith Allen, Paul Merton, Paul Bradley, Pauline Melville, Tamsin Heatley, Ronnie Golden, Roger Sloman, Lee Cornes, Helen Atkinson Wood, Norman Lovett, Lenny Henry, David Rappaport, Robbie Coltrane, Tony Robinson, Andy De La Tour, and Emma Thompson.
International broadcast
In the United States, The Young Ones started airing on MTV (edited for content) on 5 June 1985. The show also ran on PBS, USA Network's Night Flight, Comedy Central in 1994, and BBC America in the early 2000s.
In New Zealand, the show premiered late at night on 23 August 1985, after TVNZ purchased the broadcast rights.
In the Netherlands, the show was aired in 1985 by public broadcaster VPRO. The show also ran on public broadcaster BNN in 2002.
In the Basque Country, public broadcaster ETB1 began airing the show in 1985 in Basque language with the name Gazteak (The Young Ones) with great success among Basque younger audiences.Gazteak, ETB, Youtube.com
In Catalonia, public broadcaster TV3 began airing the show in February 1986 on a Sunday evening slot. The show became very popular and got several re-runs in successive years. In 2016, Nigel Planer appeared in a show involving foreign travellers visiting Catalonia. One of the characteristics of the Catalan dubbing is that Vyvyan speaks with a thick Catalan rural accent, totally opposed to his urban environment in the series.
In Galicia, it was shown on regional channel TVG with great success among younger audiences.
In Sweden it was called Hemma värst and was first broadcast in October 1985 by the public broadcaster Sveriges Television in its original English language with Swedish subtitles.
Music The series' opening theme song featured the cast singing Cliff Richard and The Shadows's UK No. 1 song "The Young Ones" (1961), the title song from the film of the same name. Throughout the series there are many references to Richard, as Mayall's character is a devoted fan.
The theme over the end credits was written by Peter Brewis, who also created the incidental music on many episodes.
In 1984, after the second series, Planer (in character as Neil) reached No. 2 in the UK charts with a version of Traffic's "Hole in My Shoe". The accompanying Neil's Heavy Concept Album, a loose collection of songs and spoken comedy, included appearances by The Young Ones alumni Dawn French and Stephen Fry.
In 1986 the cast sang "Living Doll" with Cliff Richard and Hank Marvin for Comic Relief. The song, a reworking of his 1959 hit, reached the top of the UK, Australian, and New Zealand Charts.
Eleven of the twelve episodes had a musical guest performing in the house or street. By including the groups, the show qualified as variety rather than light entertainment by the BBC and was allocated a bigger budget than a sitcom. Groups that appeared included Amazulu, Ronnie Golden, Dexys Midnight Runners, Motörhead, The Damned, Nine Below Zero, Rip Rig + Panic, Ken Bishops Nice Twelve, Radical Posture, John Otway and Madness, who appeared in two episodes. The one episode that featured no musical act still fulfilled the variety criteria by including a lion tamer whose presence also directly contributed to the plot.
Some of these performances were omitted from DVD release for copyright reasons. Some musical acts were also edited out for similar reasons on some satellite reruns. On the 2007 DVD release, all the music acts are restored uncut.
The fifth housemate