Saturday Live (British TV programme)

Saturday Live (Friday Night Live in 1988) is a British television comedy and music show, initially broadcast by Channel 4 from 1985 to 1988 and briefly revived by ITV in 1996. A few one-off editions have also been screened, including a contribution to the BBC's 1993 Comic Relief telethon.

Saturday Live
GenreVariety, Stand-up comedy
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series4
No. of episodes39 (list of episodes)
Release
Original networkChannel 4 (1985-8)
ITV (1986, 96, 2007)
BBC1 (1993)
Picture format4:3
Original release12 January 1985 (1985-01-12) –
1 December 2007 (2007-12-01)
Chronology
Related showsSaturday Night Live

The series made stars of Ben Elton, Harry Enfield, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, and featured appearances (in some cases first television appearances) by Patrick Marber, Morwenna Banks, Chris Barrie, Julian Clary, Emo Philips, Tracey Ullman, Craig Ferguson, Craig Charles and many others. The show featured comic duo Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall in their act The Dangerous Brothers. The introductory theme was an original composition by Paul Hardcastle.

All episodes were transmitted live, but contained a small proportion of material recorded beforehand. Recordings of shows were edited into compilation repeats, retitled Saturday Almost Live.

The third series, Friday Night Live, renamed to reflect its scheduling move to the titular day, is the last of the programme's original iteration. Shorter and slightly more tightly-formatted show, it retained Elton as permanent host. The show's titles consisted of re-forming clay animations, highly comparable to early MTV idents.

The show was resurrected as a segment for 1993's Red Nose Day BBC telethon, hosted by Ben Elton, with appearances by Reeves and Mortimer, Eddie Izzard, Hugh Laurie, and David Baddiel and Rob Newman.

The show made a return in 1996 on ITV, regaining a Saturday slot and retitled accordingly. Hosted by Lee Hurst, it featured comedians including Harry Hill and Simon Munnery. The series lasted eight episodes before being axed.

On 1 December 2007, the programme was revived by ITV for a one-off titled Saturday Live Again, presented by Marcus Brigstocke. Comedians included Jimmy Carr, Lee Mack, Mitchell and Webb, and Jocelyn Jee Esien. The original show's regular host Ben Elton also performed. There were musical performances by Bon Jovi and Hard-Fi.

Home releases

A compilation double DVD set, Saturday Live: The Best of Series One, was released in June 2007, containing almost two-and-a-half hours of material. This consisted of the Saturday Almost Live compilations with the music performances removed. Saturday Live: The Best Of Series 2 was released on 4 February 2008 and followed the same pattern, as did the Friday Night Live release. In 2009, a fourth release, a 3-disc set collecting all the show's Fry & Laurie and Harry Enfield sketches and the best Ben Elton monologues, was released.

DVD Title Discs Year Release date
Saturday Live: The Best of Series 1 2 1985-1986 16 April 2007
Saturday Live: The Best of Series 2 2 1987 4 February 2008
The Very Best Of Friday Night Live 2 1988 2 June 2008
Saturday Live: Fry and Laurie, Harry Enfield and Ben Elton 3 1985-1988 5 October 2009

Transmissions
Main article: List of Saturday Live (British TV series) episodes

Series
SeriesStart dateEnd dateEpisodes
Pilot12 January 19851
125 January 198629 March 198610
27 February 198711 April 198710
319 February 198829 April 198810
41 June 199620 July 19968

Almost Live
SeriesStart dateEnd dateEpisodes
113 September 198618 October 19866
23 October 198721 November 19878
312 October 198830 November 19888

Specials
DateEntitle
4 January 1986The Best of Saturday Live
12 March 1993Comic Relief Special (Friday Night Live - Lives Again!)
1 December 2007Saturday Live Again

See also
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