Two of a kind – Morecambe & Wise
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| Featuring the Beatles guest appearance |
Released in the U.K. on 5 December 2016, an 8 disc collection of British comedians Morecambe & Wise’s “Two of a kind” series from Network Distributing, this is an opportunity to secure the full Beatles episode from 1964. It’s only available for a short time, as Apple will only let them have it for a year. Amazon (UK) link.
The boxed set contains the remaining shows from their second 1962 series, plus the complete third, fourth and fifth series from 1963-66. The format is similar throughout the shows – a mixture of sketches, stand-up plus a couple of musical guests.
The initial 1961 run and those missing from 1962 has been wiped, so this is essentially what remains from this time frame.
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| From the Beatles’ guest appearance. |
This is a region 2 DVD set, which may not be viewable outside Europe – unless you own a region free DVD player.
From The Beatles Bible: The Beatles’ celebrated appearance on The Morecambe And Wise Show was filmed at ATV’s Elstree Studio Centre in Borehamwood on December 2, 1963, although it wasn’t broadcast to the nation until April 1964.
In the morning they rehearsed their act prior to filming in the afternoon. The Beatles performed three songs to a small studio audience: “This Boy”, “All My Loving” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand”.
They were then joined by Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise for some banter and a light-hearted version of golden oldie “Moonlight Bay”.
The episode of The Morecambe And Wise Show was shown on the ITV network on Saturday 18 April 1964 at 8.25pm. It was repeated on 24 July the following year on The Best Of Morecambe And Wise.
The audio recording of “Moonlight Bay” was released on Anthology 1 in 1995.
Ed Sullivan took a liking to Morecambe and Wise, and featured them many times on his show from 1963 onwards, although they never did manage to endear the American audience. They did appear on the Ed Sullivan show which featured The Beatles’ third appearance on February 23, 1964.
For anyone interested, The Beatles were almost the only 'Beat' or 'Rock' act to be on this show. Most musical guests were of the 'crooner' or 'Show Musical' style. So don't go buying this set expecting 9 discs worth of three song live sets from the Rolling Stones, little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Who, The Kinks, etc. They're NOT on there. Still a great purchase though if you like old TV, British Comedy and of course The Beatles.
Bands like Small Faces appeared on Eric and Ernie's shows later on. But as NP says, it was mostly the Frankie Vaughan and Craig Douglas type of thing.
Another good Network DVD is The Arthur Haynes Show. This does feature The Stones doing 'You Better Move On' and 'I Wanna Be Your Man'. Which is the clip shown on the Beatles Anthology, only on the Haynes DVD it's in full.
I loved M and W. Grew up watching them. They were hilarious.