The End Of The Year Show
For some five years in the early Nineties, BBC1 had had a New Year’s Eve show which was a review of the year, hosted by Clive James. In 1995 they decided to do something slightly different, so the Documentary Features department set about creating a new show, but hosted by Angus Deayton, then at the height of his popularity as host of Have I Got News For You.
The original producer, Claudia Rosencrantz left the BBC in October to become Head of Entertainment at ITV, so the BBC asked David Tyler to produce it.
The idea was that rather than go through the year month by month, we would review it by genre, and hit upon five topics - Music, Politics, TV, Sport and Sleaze. Each "section” would have a special guest to chat to Angus, a monologue, sketches, and photo captions.
“The End Of The Year Show” was set as if inside Big Ben, complete with the reversed out dial behind Angus. Transmitted as if live from 11.00pm on the night of December the 31st, one joke was that at quarter past, half past and quarter to midnight, Angus would just be about to tell a clearly libellous joke about, say, Andrew Lloyd Webber, when the quarter strikes would drown out the punchline. This took some rather careful editing to ensure that the joke happened at the precise moment in the transmission.
Finally, the New Year was played in to the sound of the Grenadier Guards marching to Auld Lang Syne, and, for reasons, which now escape us, Angus, or his stunt double anyway, ended the show by diving through the face of Big Ben into a red sports car below...
The guests were Alexei Sayle to talk about music (standing in at very short notice for a very ill Jack Dee), Richard Wilson (Angus’s co-star in One Foot In The Grave) on TV, Maureen Lipman on Sleaze, Paul O'Grady as Lily Savage on Politics, Nick Hancock on Sport and. Also guesting were the dance troupe Stomp, running riot up and down the cast-iron gantries inside the vast split-level set.
The format was deemed so successful that Angus hosted the show for the next five years.
The End Of The Year Show
First Tx: 31/12/95 BBC1 23.00-24.15
From Pride & Prejudice to Prescott & Portillo, from Cantona to Carling, from VE Day to OJ Day, let Angus take you up to Big Ben's bongs and into 1996, or 14.3, as it's known in metric units.
Hosted by | Angus Deayton |
With special guests | Maureen Lipman |
Richard Wilson | |
Nick Hancock | |
Alexei Sayle | |
as Lily Savage | Paul O’Grady |
& | Stomp |
and featuring | The 1st Battalion Scots Guards |
Paul Angelis | |
"The Scotsman" | David Stephenson |
Written by | Colin Bostock-Smith |
Mark Burton | |
John O'Farrell | |
Angus Deayton | |
Geoffrey Perkins | |
Steve Punt | |
Pete Sinclair | |
David Tyler | |
Robert Frazer Steel | |
Music Director | |
Directed by | David G Hillier |
Produced by | David Tyler |
The End Of The Year Show
"The End Of The Year Show" has never been released on DVD, probably because of all the difficulties in clearing the footage and photos.
But you can read more about Angus Deayton here
and here is Stomp's website, still going strong after twenty years or so -
When you do the New Year's Eve show for the BBC, you have to learn a lot about Big Ben and the difference between Chimes and Strikes. And whether midnight starts on the first or the last bong. Here's a good nerdy site about all that -