A Space and Time for Entertainment: That Was The Week That Was and Viewers’ Utopian Expectations

Abstract

Most viewers complaining about That Was The Week That Was (BBC, 1962–1963) interpreted the series as attack on British society, taking offence at its irreverent attitude towards national institutions. However, there is a small but substantial number who criticise the series for being badly produced and boring. This article will show how these negative responses to ‘TW3’ criticised its visual style and pleasures against their experience of other BBC television entertainment texts broadcast on Saturday evenings. They praise what Richard Dyer (Only Entertainment, 2nd ed.; London, 2002) has identified as the ‘utopian’ characteristics of other series, criticising TW3 as failed entertainment for not displaying qualities of energy and abundance. Instead of the utopian pleasures of light entertainment, TW3 made innovative use of its studio by highlighting technical equipment and the audience. It also relied upon performers delivering lines seated behind a desk, evoking the space and aesthetics of a news broadcast; and it was often clear that other performance spaces were restricted and small. In each case, viewers expecting the visual abundance and energetic movement of the entertainment programmes shown earlier in the evening were repeatedly frustrated. TW3’s negative reception did not just refer to offensive comedy content but also its aesthetic failure as entertainment, exploring a different side to viewers’ emotional responses to TW3. Reactions to the layout and representation of the studio suggest a proportional relationship between visual space and pleasure in some people’s expectations of entertainment in the early 1960s.