Long-Lost Pre-‘Monty Python’ Comedy Series Rediscovered

A long-lost classic of British comedy from two of the minds behind Monty Python has been found. All six episodes of The Complete and Utter History of Britain have been rediscovered, and are now available to stream. The British Comedy Guide reports that all six episodes of the 1969 series have been found in the ITV archives, where they’d been misfiled for decades.

The series was conceived as a mockumentary-style look at British history, as if television had existed centuries ago; sketches include “postgame” interviews with participants in the Battle of Hastings, Samuel Pepys hosting a talk show, and Julius Caesar‘s home movies. The show was created by, written by, and starred Terry Jones and Michael Palin; following their ultimate dissatisfaction with The Complete and Utter History, they moved on to join forces with several other young British comedy writers to produce Monty Python’s Flying Circus for the BBC, rocketing them to international fame. Prior to this year, only two episodes and small portions of the other four of The Complete and Utter History were believed to have survived; they were released on DVD in 2014 with new material from Jones and Palin as The New (Incomplete) Complete and Utter History of Britain. The show has been fully restored, and is now streaming on ITV Premium.

Why Do So Many British TV Shows Have Missing Episodes?

While the rerun was pioneered in the US by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz for I Love Lucy, the British came to the concept much later. TV shows at the time were recorded on videotape, which was extremely expensive. Thus, old programs, once broadcast, were seen as worthless, and were customarily erased so the videotapes could be reused. Many British TV shows, both famous and forgotten, suffered this fate, and decades of irreplaceable TV history was lost. Most notable of these was Doctor Who, which has numerous missing episodes from William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton‘s time as the Doctor. Several of the lost episodes have been recreated using sound recordings and animation; from time to time, lost episodes are also found in the collections of private collectors or foreign broadcasters. Monty Python’s Flying Circus, in fact, was nearly consigned to such a fate, but Jones was tipped off by a BBC employee and smuggled the tapes out, preserving them for future generations of comedy fans.

Unfortunately, Jones did not live to see the return of The Complete and Utter History. He died in 2020 after a battle with degenerative aphasia. Palin is still active; the latest in his popular series of travel documentaries, Michael Palin: Into Iraq, aired last year on Channel 5.

The Complete and Utter History of Britain is now streaming on ITV Premium. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates, and watch the trailer for the DVD release of The New (Incomplete) Complete and Utter History of Britain.