The Saturday Night Armistice
Encyclopedia
The Saturday Night Armistice (later The Friday Night Armistice, plus the one-off The Election Night Armistice) was a British
satirical television
comedy
programme presented by Armando Iannucci
with Peter Baynham
and David Schneider
, which ran from 1995 to 1999.
The programme took an irreverent and often surreal look back at topical events, and featured studio discussions, sketches and setups. Like many 1990s British comedy series it included appearances and writing contributions by a large number of UK comedians including amongst others Arthur Mathews
, Graham Linehan
, Simon Pegg
, Andy Riley
, Kevin Cecil
, Kevin Eldon, Steve Pemberton
, Omid Djalili
, Al Murray
, Ben Moor, Mel Giedroyc
and Sue Perkins
.
The Day Today
, ideas were often taken in surreal directions by the three protagonists, for example an Orange March
demanding passage through a ladies toilet because it used to be a gents 200 years ago. Iannucci was the main presenter and sat at a desk with Schneider and Baynham sitting on an adjacent black leather sofa. On Armando's desk was a rotund cuddly toy named "Mister Tony Blair," an extreme characterisation of the then-Leader of the Opposition. In a manner similar to Sooty
, Mr Tony Blair could only be heard by Armando, opening up a wealth of opportunities for humour based on whatever zany comments the real-life Blair
may or may not have said that week.
Along with sketches, there were also a number of humorous set-ups, such as Armando tricking O. J. Simpson
into autographing a folded piece of paper stating "I DID IT" or sending a bus of Princess Diana-lookalikes to take photographs of News International
journalists leaving their office. The programme featured a title theme sung by Johnny More in the style of Frank Sinatra
.
The programme also had a number of weekly recurring items, for example "Hunt the Old Woman", where the viewers were challenged to find the old lady of the title making an unexpected cameo appearance on national television during the previous week. Her most famous appearance was at Royal Ascot where she could be spotted wearing a large hat emblazoned with the legend "I am an Old Woman," a photograph of which actually made the front page of The Times
. The prize for spotting her appearances was originally "The Saturday Night Armistice Hors d'Œuvre Tree" complete with a different selection of Hors d'œuvres each week. This reward later changed to the much coveted set of "Friday Night Armistice Dart Flights". Other features included a bus full of Princess Diana lookalikes turning up in bizarre locations, the travels of the "Mr Tony Blair" puppet and Peter's Miniaturised Area (complete with a miniaturised Mr Tony Blair), and later called "What Happened Next?", which showed a supposed CCTV
clip that followed an item of news.
In 1996, scheduling changes and low Saturday-night ratings meant the programme became The Friday Night Armistice. The team did a live 3 hour-long 1997 Election special (The Election Night Armistice, broadcast on BBC 2 at the same time as BBC 1's main election programme) and a third series in 1998 and several Christmas and New Year specials, the last one airing in January 1999. A fourth series was announced for broadcast in 1999 but was not produced.
None of the episodes have ever been made available commercially and owing to their topical nature are unlikely to gain a release on DVD. However, episodes have been distributed on the internet via various BitTorrent
download sites.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
satirical television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
programme presented by Armando Iannucci
Armando Iannucci
Armando Giovanni Iannucci is a Scottish comedian, satirist, writer, director, performer and radio producer. Born in Glasgow, he studied at Oxford University and left graduate work on a PhD about John Milton to pursue a career in comedy....
with Peter Baynham
Peter Baynham
Peter Baynham is a screenwriter and a British comedian, writer, and performer. He often collaborates with Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris and has worked with Stewart Lee and Richard Herring. He is first heard on Morris' early radio DJ slots, often going out to places...
and David Schneider
David Schneider (actor)
David Schneider is an English actor and comedian.Schneider studied modern languages at the University of Oxford, and studied for a DPhil in Yiddish Drama. During his time at university, Schneider performed a predominantly physical comedy act that contrasted with the trend towards stand-up comedy...
, which ran from 1995 to 1999.
The programme took an irreverent and often surreal look back at topical events, and featured studio discussions, sketches and setups. Like many 1990s British comedy series it included appearances and writing contributions by a large number of UK comedians including amongst others Arthur Mathews
Arthur Mathews (writer)
Arthur Mathews is an Irish comedy writer and actor who, often with writing partner Graham Linehan, has either written or contributed to a number of popular television comedies, most notably Father Ted. He is a graduate of the Dublin Institute of Technology...
, Graham Linehan
Graham Linehan
Graham Linehan is an Irish television writer, actor, comedian and director who, often in partnership with Arthur Mathews, has written or co-written a number of popular television comedies...
, Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg
Simon Pegg is an English actor, comedian, writer, film producer, and director. He is best known for having co-written and stared in various Edgar Wright features, mainly Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and the comedy series Spaced.He also portrayed Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the 2009 Star Trek film...
, Andy Riley
Andy Riley
Andy Riley is a British author, cartoonist, comics scriptwriter, and television screenwriter.Riley has written several best-selling cartoon books, The Book of Bunny Suicides , Return of the Bunny Suicides, The Bumper Book of Bunny Suicides, Dawn of the Bunny Suicides, Great Lies To Tell Small...
, Kevin Cecil
Kevin Cecil
Kevin Robert Cecil is a British screenwriter.Writing alongside Andy Riley , he has won two BAFTA awards, the first for writing the Comic Relief one-off special, Robbie the Reindeer, in 2000, and the second for Black Books in 2005...
, Kevin Eldon, Steve Pemberton
Steve Pemberton
Steve James Pemberton is an English actor, comedian, writer and performer, most famous as a member of The League of Gentlemen along with fellow performers Reece Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss and co-writer Jeremy Dyson.-Early life:...
, Omid Djalili
Omid Djalili
Omid Djalili is a British Iranian stand-up comedian, actor, television producer and writer.-Personal life:Djalili was born in Chelsea, London to Iranian Bahá'í parents and is a Bahá'í himself...
, Al Murray
Al Murray
Alastair James Hay "Al" Murray , is a British comedian best known for his stand-up persona, The Pub Landlord, a stereotypical xenophobic public house licensee. In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy...
, Ben Moor, Mel Giedroyc
Mel Giedroyc
Mel Giedroyc is an English television presenter, actress, and writer.-Mel and Sue:Giedroyc is best known for presenting comedy items alongside Sue Perkins. The two women met whilst students at Cambridge and both were members of the famous Footlights comedy club.As Mel and Sue, the duo were...
and Sue Perkins
Sue Perkins
Sue Perkins is an English comedienne, broadcaster, actress, and writer.-Education:Perkins was educated at Croham Hurst School, an independent school for girls in Croydon in South London, at the same time as the BBC Breakfast News presenter Susanna Reid...
.
Format
The show took an irreverent look back at the events in the previous week, although as with Iannucci's previous news satireSatire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
The Day Today
The Day Today
The Day Today is a surreal British parody of television current affairs programmes, broadcast in 1994, and created by the comedians Armando Iannucci and Chris Morris. It is an adaptation of the radio programme On the Hour, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1991 and 1992...
, ideas were often taken in surreal directions by the three protagonists, for example an Orange March
Orange Institution
The Orange Institution is a Protestant fraternal organisation based mainly in Northern Ireland and Scotland, though it has lodges throughout the Commonwealth and United States. The Institution was founded in 1796 near the village of Loughgall in County Armagh, Ireland...
demanding passage through a ladies toilet because it used to be a gents 200 years ago. Iannucci was the main presenter and sat at a desk with Schneider and Baynham sitting on an adjacent black leather sofa. On Armando's desk was a rotund cuddly toy named "Mister Tony Blair," an extreme characterisation of the then-Leader of the Opposition. In a manner similar to Sooty
Sooty
Sooty is a British glove puppet bear and TV character popular in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. The children's television show which bears his name has continued in various forms since the 1950s and, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the...
, Mr Tony Blair could only be heard by Armando, opening up a wealth of opportunities for humour based on whatever zany comments the real-life Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
may or may not have said that week.
Along with sketches, there were also a number of humorous set-ups, such as Armando tricking O. J. Simpson
O. J. Simpson
Orenthal James "O. J." Simpson , nicknamed "The Juice", is a retired American collegiate and professional football player, football broadcaster, and actor...
into autographing a folded piece of paper stating "I DID IT" or sending a bus of Princess Diana-lookalikes to take photographs of News International
News International
News International Ltd is the United Kingdom newspaper publishing division of News Corporation. Until June 2002, it was called News International plc....
journalists leaving their office. The programme featured a title theme sung by Johnny More in the style of Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
.
The programme also had a number of weekly recurring items, for example "Hunt the Old Woman", where the viewers were challenged to find the old lady of the title making an unexpected cameo appearance on national television during the previous week. Her most famous appearance was at Royal Ascot where she could be spotted wearing a large hat emblazoned with the legend "I am an Old Woman," a photograph of which actually made the front page of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
. The prize for spotting her appearances was originally "The Saturday Night Armistice Hors d'Œuvre Tree" complete with a different selection of Hors d'œuvres each week. This reward later changed to the much coveted set of "Friday Night Armistice Dart Flights". Other features included a bus full of Princess Diana lookalikes turning up in bizarre locations, the travels of the "Mr Tony Blair" puppet and Peter's Miniaturised Area (complete with a miniaturised Mr Tony Blair), and later called "What Happened Next?", which showed a supposed CCTV
Closed-circuit television
Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors....
clip that followed an item of news.
In 1996, scheduling changes and low Saturday-night ratings meant the programme became The Friday Night Armistice. The team did a live 3 hour-long 1997 Election special (The Election Night Armistice, broadcast on BBC 2 at the same time as BBC 1's main election programme) and a third series in 1998 and several Christmas and New Year specials, the last one airing in January 1999. A fourth series was announced for broadcast in 1999 but was not produced.
None of the episodes have ever been made available commercially and owing to their topical nature are unlikely to gain a release on DVD. However, episodes have been distributed on the internet via various BitTorrent
BitTorrent tracker
A BitTorrent tracker is a server that assists in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol. It is also, in the absence of extensions to the original protocol, the only major critical point, as clients are required to communicate with the tracker to initiate downloads...
download sites.
Episode guide
- The Saturday Night Armistice
- Episode 1, 24 June 1995
- Episode 2, 1 July 1995
- Episode 3, 8 July 1995
- Episode 4, 22 July 1995
- Episode 5, 29 July 1995
- Episode 6, 5 August 1995
- The Saturday Night Armistice Party Bucket (Christmas special of series highlights), 22 December 1995
- The Friday Night Armistice
- Episode 1, 14 June 1996
- Episode 2, 21 June 1996
- Episode 3, 28 June 1996
- Episode 4, 5 July 1996
- Episode 5, 12 July 1996
- Episode 6, 19 July 1996
- The Election Night Armistice (3 hour special for the 1997 general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 1997The United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general...
), 1 May 1997 - The Christmas Armistice (Christmas special of 1997 highlights and new material), 29 December 1997
- The Armistice Party Bucket (New Year special of more 1997 highlights and new material), 2 January 1998
- The Friday Night Armistice
- Episode 1, 9 January 1998
- Episode 2, 16 January 1998
- Episode 3, 23 January 1998
- Episode 4, 30 January 1998
- Episode 5, 6 February 1998
- Episode 6, 13 February 1998
- The Christmas Armistice (Christmas special of 1998 highlights and new material), 29 December 1998
- The New Year Armistice (New Year special of more 1998 highlights and new material), 1 January 1999