Those of you who have been hiding from the rain in reference libraries will have noticed that, while Newsweek is overwhelmed by The Rutles “the world now has The Rutles... Yeah, Yeah,” Time is underwhelmed – “makes one nostalgic for The Monkees.”
This proves that TV critics are absolutely right 50 per cent of the time. Or 50 per cent are right 100 per cent of the time. Depending.
Which is right about The Rutles (BBC-2) I cannot say as I have forgotten the whole show effortlessly. However, I have a faithful four footed notebook which rescues me in such quandaries and it says here “he wore swimming trunks in the bath to stop him looking down on the unemployed.” Oh, now I remember why I forgot The Rutles.
It was a spoof on the career of the Beatles and a good mimicry of their mannerisms and music. Sometimes so good that a subliminal memory of the Beatles’ originality and effervescence made this giggle harder to take. And/or it was a parody of the commoner cliches of TV documentaries in which a reporter in a sheep skin jacket stands in the middle of the road baaing and is here, not before time, run over. I personally would have liked to see him run over earlier.
The story follows Dirk, Nasty, Stig and Barry, the pre-fab four, from a Hamburg Ratkeller to the Che Stadium, named after the Cuban guerrilla leader. Not to mention, so we won’t, Leggy Mountbatten, Martini (played by Bianca [Jagger]), Ron Decline “whose only weak spot was dishonesty,” Arthur Sultan, the Bognor board-tapper, who taught them to tamper with tea (or pot of course), Blind Lemon Pye, The Queen God Bless Her and God (than whom the Rutles were bigger). Half the fun was spotting the visiting celebrities and half spotting the allusion. Which didn’t leave a lot of fun left over.
The jokes were very often a matter of almost automatic word play which will be seen to better advantage in the book of the film. I don’t doubt that there will be a book of the film. There is already an album in the American charts and a single “I feel rich, I feel poor” is to be issued over here. Rich, by the way, is the name of the TV critic of Time. Who should sue.
There was none of the bite of Spiggy Topes of the Turds in Private Eye. Though, oddly enough, the shining success of the show was Spiggy himself or Mick Jagger as he is known to some. Jagger’s delivery was better than his lines. His memories were monotone. “The only thing I remember was them running out in the middle of this field. You couldn’t see ‘em and you couldn’t ‘ear anything” and he was only galvanised once by Eric Idle’s question “Will they ever come back ? “I ‘ope not,” said Spiggy fervently.
Which only goes to show the futility of earthly hopes because here they are again.
