''End of Part One'' is a British

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

comedy

sketch show Sketch comedy comprises a series of short, amusing scenes or vignettes, called "sketches", commonly between one and ten minutes long, performed by a group of comic actors or comedians. The form developed and became popular in vaudeville, and is ...

written by

David Renwick David Peter Renwick (; born 4 September 1951) is an English author, television writer, actor, director and executive producer, best known for creation of the sitcom ''One Foot in the Grave'' and the mystery series ''Jonathan Creek''. He was awar ...

and Andrew Marshall; it was made by

London Weekend Television London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 unt ...

. It ran for two series on

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

, from 1979 to 1980 and was an attempt at a TV version of ''

The Burkiss Way ''The Burkiss Way'' is a BBC Radio 4 sketch comedy series, originally broadcast between August 1976 and November 1980. It was written by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, with additional material in seasons 1 and 2 by John Mason, Colin Bostoc ...

''. The first series concerned the lives of Norman and Vera Straightman, who had their lives interrupted by various television personalities of the day. The second series was mainly a straight succession of parodies of TV shows of the time, including ''

Larry Grayson Larry is a masculine given name in English, derived from Lawrence or Laurence. It can be a shortened form of those names. Larry may refer to the following: People Arts and entertainment *Larry D. Alexander, American artist/writer * Larry Boon ...

's Generation Game'' and '' Nationwide''.

Cast

The cast included

Sue Holderness Susan Joan Holderness (born 28 May 1949) is an English actress on both stage and screen having had appearances in '' Bless This House'' (1974), '' The New Avengers'' (1977), ''Canned Laughter'' (1979), ''The Sandbaggers'' (1980), ''The Cleopatr ...

Denise Coffey Denise Dorothy Coffey (12 December 1936 – 24 March 2022) was an English actress, director and playwright. Early life Coffey was born in Aldershot in 1936, the only child of Dorothy (''née'' Malcolm), and her husband, Denis Coffey, an Irishm ...

, Fred Harris, Dudley Stevens,

David Simeon David Simeon (born David John Townsend, 17 May 1943, Chippenham, Wiltshire) is a British actor. Career David Simeon began his acting career after being accepted into RADA, the Rose Bruford College and the Guildhall School of Music and Dra ...

, and

Tony Aitken Tony Aitken (born 20 June 1946) is an English actor, known for playing a variety of parts in popular television programmes. He attended Belmont Abbey School, Hereford, 1959–64. He was active in the amateur dramatic society, appearing in many ...

. Coffey had appeared in ''The Burkiss Way's'' first 6 episodes, but Harris was the only permanent cast member to appear in ''End of Part One''. One of the directors was future feature film director

Geoffrey Sax Geoffrey Sax (sometimes credited as Geoff Sax) is a British film and television director, who has worked on a variety of drama productions in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Life and career He began his directing career in the la ...

Episodes and scheduling

Both series were shown on Sunday afternoons. Series 1 was transmitted between 15 April and 27 May 1979 at 5.30pm with series 2 being transmitted between 12 October and 23 November 1980 at 4.00pm. Marshall and Renwick blamed the show's relative lack of success due to it being shown in a Sunday afternoon timeslot, lamenting in an interview that it was "a show no-one knows about, at a time no-one would watch it anyway." In 1981, they decided not to write another series because LWT would not move it to a more favourable timeslot.

Repeats

Although ''End of Part One'' never received a network repeat, some ITV companies did repeat either or both series and in some cases, in the later timeslot originally envisaged by the writers. Known repeat slots are: * Anglia: October – December 1981, early evenings *

Grampian Grampian ( gd, Roinn a' Mhonaidh) was one of nine former local government regions of Scotland created in 1975 by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and abolished in 1996 by the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994. The region to ...

: 30 June - 11 August 1981 at 5.15 * Scottish: 9 July – 27 August 1981, 6.30 + * LWT - July–August 1980 (series 1) and July–August 1981 (series 2), Friday nights * Southern: July –September 1981 * TSW: January–March 1982, Thursday afternoons * Tyne Tees: July–August 1981, 5.15.

Home release

The complete series was released on 5 November 2012 in a release on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

from Network. All fourteen episodes are included.

References

External links

Comedy Guide - ''End of Part One''
at

bbc.co.uk BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and BBC Sport, Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, t ...

* {{IMDb title, 237963
BFI.org
ITV sketch shows 1980s British television sketch shows 1970s British television sketch shows 1979 British television series debuts 1980 British television series endings Television series about television London Weekend Television shows English-language television shows