''Beadle's About'' was a

British television Television broadcasts in the United Kingdom began in 1932, however, regular broadcasts would only begin four years later. Television began as a public service which was free of advertising, which followed the first demonstration of a transm ...

programme hosted and written by

Jeremy Beadle Jeremy James Anthony Gibson-Beadle MBE (12 April 1948 – 30 January 2008) was an English television and radio presenter, writer and producer. From the 1980s to the late 1990s he was a regular face on British television, and in two years ...

, where members of the public became victims of

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

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 obje ...

s. It was produced by

LWT 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 ...

for ITV, and ran on Saturday nights from 22 November 1986 to 31 October 1996.

Format

The format originated as an element of the 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 ...

'', which Beadle co-presented. Many of the practical jokes involved someone's

car A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people rather than cargo. There are around one billio ...

van A van is a type of road vehicle used for transporting goods or people. There is some variation in the scope of the word across the different English-speaking countries. The smallest vans, microvans, are used for transporting either goods or ...

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

sea A sea is a large body of salt water. There are particular seas and the sea. The sea commonly refers to the ocean, the interconnected body of seawaters that spans most of Earth. Particular seas are either marginal seas, second-order section ...

, or being dropped from a great height, as the owner of the vehicle looked on in horror. Another common prank was for unauthorised building works to be carried out close to, or within the victim's home or garden. 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 publi ...

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

'', 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 Plus was a digital channel run by Granada Sky Broadcasting. It was launched on 1 October 1996 under the original name of Granada Plus, and during its availability it underwent successive rebrands as G Plus, G+ and then simply Plus. However, it ...

in the late 1990s. The show was then repeated in full on

Challenge TV Challenge is a British free-to-air television channel owned by Sky Group's Sky UK subsidiary, themselves owned by American conglomerate Comcast. The channel is dedicated to game shows from the UK, including acquired classic and contemporary sho ...

throughout the 2000's; although Challenge (and sister channels Ftn and Virgin 1) 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. The record of the most times it was used on one stunt was 105 in 1990. Beadle even gave the person a bag of bleeps for setting the record. 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 British English-language television shows London Weekend Television shows Television series by ITV Studios