''Beadle's About'' is a

British television Regular television broadcasts in the United Kingdom started in 1936 as a public service which was free of advertising, which followed the first demonstration of a transmitted moving image in 1926. Currently, the United Kingdom has a collection ...

programme hosted by Jeremy Beadle, where members of the public became victims of

practical joke A practical joke, or prank, is a mischievous trick played on someone, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort.Marsh, Moira. 2015. ''Practically Joking''. Logan: Utah State University Press. ...

s behind

hidden camera A hidden camera or spy camera is a camera used to photograph or record subjects, often people, without their knowledge. The camera may be considered "hidden" because it is not visible to the subject being filmed, or is disguised as another obj ...

s. It was produced by LWT for ITV, and ran on Saturday nights from 22 November 1986 to 14 September 1996.

Format

An example of one of the practical jokes would involve someone's car or

van A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. Depending on the type of van, it can be bigger or smaller than a pickup truck and SUV, and bigger than a common car. There is some varying in the scope of the word across th ...

secretly being swapped for an identical one, and then, having a disaster befall it, such as exploding, falling into the

sea The sea, connected as the world ocean or simply the ocean, is the body of salty water that covers approximately 71% of the Earth's surface. The word sea is also used to denote second-order sections of the sea, such as the Mediterranean Sea, ...

, or being dropped from a great height, as the owner of the vehicle looked on in horror. After a few minutes, Beadle would appear in disguise (typically, as a policeman or some other figure of authority, and often wearing a fake beard on top of his natural beard), and interact with the shell-shocked and/or irate victim. He would subtly drop more and more hints and would remove his disguise and point a stick

microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and publ ...

at the person. As the public were familiar with Beadle from the earlier show ''

Game for a Laugh ''Game for a Laugh'' was a British light entertainment programme which ran for 56 editions and four specials between 26 September 1981 and 23 November 1985, made by LWT for the ITV network. Description The show revolved around a variety o ...

'', they would then immediately realise they had been had, often with the words "I don't believe it!". A follow up series was entitled 'It's Beadle!' which followed a similar format.

Memorable pranks

One of the most notable pranks was where Dorset resident Janet Elford was convinced into believing that aliens had landed in her garden. Members of the public were set up by a resident team of ''Beadle's About'' actors including: Pam Cole, Ricky Diamond, Tony McHale, Nicholas Young and Flavia Brilli.

Popularity

At its peak, the show attracted approximately 15 million viewers, making it one of ITV's most popular Saturday night programmes during that period. After the show was axed by ITV in 1996, ''Beadle's About'' was repeated on Granada Plus in the late 1990's, the show was then repeated in full on Challenge TV throughout the 2000's, although Challenge (and sister channels Ftn and

Virgin 1 Channel One was a British short-lived television channel owned and operated by Virgin Media Television and then Sky plc. The channel was launched on 1 October 2007 at 21:00 on Freeview, Virgin Media and Sky as Virgin1, replacing Ftn. The ch ...

) sometimes aired certain ''Beadle's About'' sketches (under the banner ''The Best of Beadle's About'') as programming fillers whenever the channel had allocated time to fill after programmes finished early, Beadle's About then wasn't repeated in full on national TV for over a decade afterwards, until That's TV announced in December 2021 that the programme would feature in its Christmas schedule alongside other ITV programmes like ''The Benny Hill Show'' and ''Kenny Everett's New Year Specials''.

Profanity bubble

The "Bleep!" or "Oops!" bubble used to block out offensive language was a well known feature from the show. The bubbles were simply clouds with either "Bleep!" or "Oops!" in them, the text being set in Balloon typeface. These were also used to cover up offensive hand gestures as well. Jeremy once revealed in an interview that during editing, they deliberately inserted "bleeps" where there were no profanities as this made it funnier.

Transmissions

Series

Highlights Specials

DVD releases

The first two series of ''Beadle's About'' have been released on DVD by Network.

References

External links

* *{{IMDb title, 0244897 1980s British comedy television series 1990s British comedy television series 1986 British television series debuts 1996 British television series endings Hidden camera television series ITV comedy English-language television shows London Weekend Television shows Television series by ITV Studios