Monty Python – At Last The 1948 Show CD

Monty Python and The Goodies fans will certainly enjoy the CD version of At Last The 1948 Show. The story behind this CD is 13 episodes of At Last The 1948 Show were broadcast on BBC but the tapes were erased. The only remaining documents are four or five Swedish TV clips and audio versions. The At Last The 1948 Show CD from Cherry Red Records / EL Records contains 18 audio segments of the show and is a reissue of the vinyl record that sounds very good indeed.

Some of the sketches on the At Last The 1948 Show CD are obvious precursors to Monty Python material. Bookshop, the first track on this CD is a slightly different progenitor to the Python Bookshop bit with John Cleese as the bookshop owner who still has a copy of Ethel the Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying. Aimi MacDonald even uses the phrase “and now for something completely different” to introduce the Top of the Form bit which is a spoof of those TV shows pitting two high schools against each other in a knowledge contest.

At Last The 1948 Show CD features some very short 20 or 30 second bits and longer sketches such as the rather surreal Engine Driver Spriggs who took a cattle train to Manchester and through the Manchester Cathedral, logging some forty thousand complaints. Another surreal bit is The Four Sydney Lotterbies.  Fans of the Monty Python nudge nudge wink wink bit will recognize the rhythm of that bit in The Wonderful World of the Ant

Most of the bits on this sketch comedy CD fare quite well aurally though a few, such as Minister Who Falls To Pieces would obviously be better if you had the visuals to go with it. There are a couple of musical numbers here, The Ferret Song and The Rhubarb Tart Song, which are not bad but do not really have that Eric Idle touch.

At Last The 1948 Show CD will certainly please Monty Python, The Goodies, and British comedy fans. The only caveat is I wish someone had put a little more effort in the reproduction of the LP cover art which looks too small as a CD cover and the back of which is basically illegible. Can’t complain about the sound quality though so you pick your battles.

At Last The 1948 Show
Comedy CD
Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Marty Feldman
Tim Brooke-Taylor, Aimi MacDonald
Cherry Red Records / EL Records 2007
47 minutes

Track List:

Bookshop

Sheep Dog Trials

Brief Interrogation

The Wonderful World of the Ant

Rural Farm (Dialect)

Witch Restaurant

Top of the Form

Someone Has Stolen the News

One Man Battalion

Doctor Sketch (Crowded Waiting Room / Skinny Legs)

Minister Who Falls to Pieces

Do You Match This Description?

Engine Driver Spriggs

The Four Sydney Lotterbies

Beekeeping

The Ferret Song

Public Opinion

The Rhubarb Tart Song

 

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