Mary Whitehouse Experience Radio
The Mary Whitehouse Experience Last Edited. The pilot was not broadcast until it was aired by mistake on BBC Radio 7 in 2003. – The Radio Times Experience. Mark Hurst (radio only). The Mary Whitehouse Experience is a British topical sketch comedy show produced by the BBC in association with Spitting Image Productions.
Mary Whitehouse
Funny, me and the missus were talking about TMWE the other day. At the height of their powers I went to go and see them live at the Fairfield Hall in Croydon with a girl I was seeing at the time, first date kind of thing, and I remember being both offended to fuck, and sniggering a few times. They worked on the TV a lot better than on stage.
Bill Dare
Saw a video of the same live show in a charity shop the other week, picked it up for a quid or whatever, took it home and it was shite. David Baddiel is a prize cunt, none of his stuff was funny, jokes about felching must have made some people laugh back then but they were only funny because he had the nerve to define the term for people. Rob Newman doing his fake angst thing was more compelling to watch but still not as hysterically funny as people seem to remember. Plus all the women fancied him, so he got more laughs. History Today still makes me laugh, mind. Newman and Baddiel actually hated each other, I have heard. I was in the audience for the last ever Mary Whitehouse Experience recording.
Front and centre - Rob Newman even complimented me on my outfit between takes, which made my year (I was 18). Mr Milky-milky sat behind me in the audience, so I was on screen a bit then, and also in a lot of crowd shots. I was wearing a velvet hat (people did in 1992) and you can see it in sillhouette throughout the show, including during the 'History Today' (that's you that is) section, which was later released on video. (i used to play it at uni and say 'look, that's my hat'). TMWE always worked best on the radio.
United Kingdom
I went to one of the TV recordings and got into a bit of a comedy cuss match with Baddiel and Newman about how it was, in fact, better on the radio, which likewise made my year (I was about 15 and ragingly hormonal). I can't understand why everyone cusses Punt and Dennis just cos they're not cool, they've written for loads of shows and their own stuff always makes me laugh. I love the Now Show, and I would also say that the parts of TMWE that have aged best are probably theirs.