Matt Lucas's It Was Alright in the 1970s gets full series on Channel 4
The nostalgia-fest will feature six episodes covering four decades, RadioTimes.com can reveal
If you enjoyed the Matt Lucas-voiced nostalgia show It Was Alright in the 1970s then you’re in luck.
Channel 4 has commissioned a full series, RadioTimes.com can reveal, covering four decades of recent British televisual history.
The full run will follow two pilot episodes which were shown last November and interviewed the stars of the 1970s as they delved into some of the funniest and most shocking TV of the century.
Lucas will narrate the new series which will take a decade-by-decade look at TV favourites and oddities, starting from the 1960s and going through to the glories of Britpop and Cool Britannia in the 1990s.
C4 promises “jaw dropping clips and jaw dropping reactions", adding "the series will explore what we can learn about life from the TV people watched in their millions before 21st century morals and attitudes took hold”.
Among those appearing will be those who made the television – including Melvyn Bragg and Blue Peter alumni Simon Groom, Sarah Greene, Peter Duncan, Valerie Singleton and Peter Purves. Chris Tarrant, Tony Blackburn and Roy Hudd will also pop up.
The series will cover Health and Safety (or the lack of it) in the 60s, 1970s Sex Education and the era’s stance on Corporal Punishment, the 80s Nuclear Threat, and Lads and Ladettes of the 90s.
It Was Alright In the… will also feature celebrities who are too young to have seen the shows the first time round, including Made in Chelsea’s Ollie Locke and TOWIE’s Lauren Pope, as they react to the TV rules of today being flouted by stars of the past.
Channel 4 Features Commissioning Editor Kate Teckman said of the series, which is made by Objective Productions: “The past really is a foreign country and so prepare for the culture shock of the television from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Who would have thought we'd find an actual clip of monkey tennis.”
Executive producer Andrew Newman added: “It’s amazing what broadcasters used to think was acceptable to put on telly, sometimes in a shocking way and occasionally in an amusing one and – in the case of Tony Blackburn, locked in a cage serenading Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree to some very angry circus lions live on Saturday night BBC1 primetime – it’s probably both.”
