That Was the Week That Was Reception what was the reception about BBC received many complaints from organisations and establishment figures.
Why did they recieve complaints?
Why did BBC recieve complaints?
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was initially supportive, chastising the Postmaster General Reginald Bevins for threatening to "do something about it". However, the BBC received many complaints from organisations and establishment figures. Lord Aldington, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, wrote to the BBC's director-general Hugh Carleton Greene that Frost had a "hatred" of the Prime Minister, which "he finds impossible to control". The programme also attracted complaints from the Boy Scout Association, upset by an item questioning the sexuality of its founder Lord Baden-Powell, and the government of Cyprus, which claimed that a joke about Archbishop Makarios, the country's ruler, was a "gross violation of internationally accepted ethics". Historians have identified TW3 as breaking ground in comedy and broadcasting. Graham McCann said it challenged the "convention that television should not acknowledge that it is television; the show made no attempt to hide its cameras, allowed the microphone boom to intrude and often revealed other nuts and bolts of studio technology." In the 1960s, this was unusual and gave the programme an exciting, modern feel. TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time: loosely structured and open-ended, it seemed to last just as long as it wanted and needed to last, even if that meant going beyond the advertised time for the ending [...] the real controversy of course, was caused by the content." Its subject matter has also been praised. McCann says: "TW3...did its research, thought its arguments through and seemed unafraid of anything or anyone.... Every hypocrisy was highlighted and each contradiction was held up for sardonic inspection. No target was deemed out of bounds: royalty was reviewed by republicans; rival religions were subjected to no-nonsense 'consumer reports'; pompous priests were symbolically defrocked; corrupt businessmen, closet bigots and chronic plagiarists were exposed; and topical ideologies were treated to swingeing critiques." CANNOTANSWER
Lord Aldington, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, wrote to the BBC's director-general Hugh Carleton Greene that Frost had a "hatred" of the Prime Minister, which "he finds impossible to control".
That Was the Week That Was, informally TWTWTW or TW3, was a satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television in 1962 and 1963. It was devised, produced, and directed by Ned Sherrin and presented by David Frost.

The programme is considered a significant element of the satire boom in the UK in the early 1960s, as it broke ground in comedy by lampooning political figures. Its broadcast coincided with coverage of the politically charged Profumo affair, and John Profumo became a figure of derision. TW3 was broadcast from Saturday, 24 November 1962 through late December 1963. An American version under the same title aired on NBC from 1964 to 1965, also featuring Frost.

Cast and writers
Cast members included cartoonist Timothy Birdsall, political commentator Bernard Levin, and actors Lance Percival, who sang topical calypsos, many improvised to suggestions from the audience, Kenneth Cope, Roy Kinnear, Willie Rushton, Al Mancini, Robert Lang, David Kernan and Millicent Martin. The last two were also singers and the programme opened with a song – "That Was The Week That Was" – sung by Martin to Ron Grainer's theme tune and enumerating topics in the news. Frankie Howerd also guested with stand-up comedy.

Script-writers included John Albery, John Antrobus, John Betjeman, John Bird, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Peter Cook, Roald Dahl, Robin Grove-White, Richard Ingrams, Lyndon Irving, Gerald Kaufman, Frank Muir, David Nobbs, Denis Norden, Bill Oddie, Dennis Potter, Eric Sykes, Kenneth Tynan, and Keith Waterhouse.

Programme

The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ...") sung by Millicent Martin, referring to news of the week just gone. Lance Percival sang a topical calypso each week. Satirical targets, such as Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Home Secretary Henry Brooke were lampooned in sketches, debates and monologues. Some other targets included the monarchy, the British Empire, nuclear deterrence, advertising, public relations and propaganda, capital punishment, sexual and social hypocrisy, the class system, and the BBC itself. Well-remembered sketches include the 12 January 1963 "consumers' guide to religion", which discussed relative merits of faiths in the manner of a Which? magazine report led to the Church of England being described a 'best buy'.

The programme was not party political but did not treat all issues with what the producers considered to be a false level of impartiality and balance; one example of this is the issue of racism and "the evils of apartheid", following the view of BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Greene that the BBC should not be bound by its charter to be impartial on issues of racism, which Greene and the producers of TW3 viewed as "quite simply wrong". Following the 1963 murder of 35-year-old white postal worker William Lewis Moore in Alabama, who was on a protest march against segregation in the American South, TW3 Millicent Martin dressed as Uncle Sam sang a parody of "I Wanna Go Back to Mississippi" ("... where the Mississippi mud/kinda mingles with the blood/of the niggers who are hanging from the branches of the tree ...") accompanied by minstrel singers in blackface ("... we hate all the darkies and the Catholics and the Jews / Where we welcome any man / Who is white and strong and belongs to the Ku Klux Klan"), thus parodying The Black and White Minstrel Show, which was then being shown on the BBC despite accusations of racism over its use of blackface.

On Saturday, 20 October 1962 the award of Nobel prizes to John Kendrew and Max Perutz, and to Francis Crick, James D. Watson, and Maurice Wilkins was satirised in a short sketch with the prizes referred to as the Alfred Nobel Peace Pools; in this sketch Watson was called "Little J. D. Watson" and "Who'd have thought he'd ever get the Nobel Prize? Makes you think, doesn't it". The germ of the joke was that Watson was only 25 when he helped discover the structure of DNA; much younger than the others.

TW3 was broadcast on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through material as they saw fit. At the beginning of the second season in the autumn of 1963, in an attempt to assert control over the programme, the BBC scheduled repeats of The Third Man television series after the end of TW3. Frost suggested a means of sabotaging this tactic to Sherrin, and he agreed. For three weeks, Frost read out the plot of The Third Man, until the repeats were abandoned following the direct intervention of Greene.

Frost often ended a satirical attack with the remark "But seriously, he's doing a grand job". At the end of each episode, Frost usually signed off with: "That was the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That was ‘That Was The Week That Was’ …that was."

Kennedy tribute
TW3 produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire for the edition on Saturday, 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It featured a contribution from Dame Sybil Thorndike and the tribute song "In the Summer of His Years" by Herbert Kretzmer. This was screened on NBC the following day, and the soundtrack was released by Decca Records. A clip featuring Roy Kinnear was shown in the David L. Wolper documentary film Four Days in November and on the History Channel 2009 documentary JFK: 3 Shots that Changed America. BBC presenter Richard Dimbleby broadcast the president's funeral from Washington, and he said that the programme was a good expression of the sorrow felt in Britain.

Reception
Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was initially supportive of the programme, chastising Postmaster General Reginald Bevins for threatening to "do something about it". However, the BBC received many complaints from organisations and establishment figures. Lord Aldington, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party, wrote to BBC director-general Hugh Greene that Frost had a hatred of the prime minister which "he finds impossible to control". The programme also attracted complaints from the Boy Scout Association about an item questioning the sexuality of its founder Lord Baden-Powell, and from the government of Cyprus which claimed that a joke about their ruler Archbishop Makarios was a "gross violation of internationally accepted ethics".

Historians have identified TW3 as breaking ground in comedy and broadcasting. Graham McCann said that it challenged the "convention that television should not acknowledge that it is television; the show made no attempt to hide its cameras, allowed the microphone boom to intrude, and often revealed other nuts and bolts of studio technology." This was unusual in the 1960s and gave the programme a modern feel. TW3 also flouted conventions by adopting "a relaxed attitude to its running time", and "it seemed to last just as long as it wanted".

The programme was taken off the air at short notice in December 1963  with the explanation that '1964 is a General Election year'.

Legacy
TW3 was broadcast live, but it was normally recorded for legal reasons; only the pilot episode was not recorded. A compilation of material was shown on BBC Four to celebrate the 40th anniversary. The series placed 29th in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes in 2000.

Alternative versions

US versions 
An American version was on NBC from 10 November 1963 to May 1965. The pilot featured Henry Fonda and Henry Morgan, with Mike Nichols and Elaine May as guests, and supporting performers including Gene Hackman. The recurring cast included Frost, Morgan, Buck Henry, and Alan Alda, with Nancy Ames singing the opening song and Stanley Grover and Ames performing solos and duets; regular contributors included Gloria Steinem, William F. Brown, Tom Lehrer, and Calvin Trillin. The announcer was Jerry Damon. A running gag was a mock feud with Jack Paar, whose own program followed TW3 on the NBC Friday schedule; Paar repeatedly referred to TW3 as "Henry Morgan's Amateur Hour".

The American version is largely a lost program, although the pilot survives and was donated to the Library of Congress by a collector. Amateur audio recordings of most episodes also survive. After the series' cancellation, Lehrer recorded a collection of his songs used on the show on That Was The Year That Was, released by Reprise Records in September 1965.

One episode showed a smiling President Lyndon B. Johnson contemplating an easy 1964 campaign against Republican nominee Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona. The satirists sang that Goldwater could not win because he "does not know the dance of the liberal Republicans", then a substantial component of the GOP, many of whose members had supported New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller for the Republican nomination. ABC aired That Was The Week That Was as a special on 21 April 1985, hosted by David Frost and Anne Bancroft and featuring future Saturday Night Live cast members Jan Hooks and A. Whitney Brown and puppetry from Spitting Image.

Other international versions 

A Canadian show, This Hour Has Seven Days, aired from 1964 to 1966 on CBC. Although partially inspired by That Was The Week That Was, the Canadian show mixed satirical aspects with more serious journalism. It proved controversial and was cancelled after two seasons amid allegations of political interference. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, created by Newfoundland comic Mary Walsh, has been running since 1992 although the two are not related.

An Australian show, The Mavis Bramston Show, aired from 1964 to 1968 on the Seven Network. It grew out of the recent local theatrical tradition of topical satirical revue—most notably the popular revues staged at Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre in the 1950s and 1960s—but it was also strongly influenced by the British satire boom and especially TW3 and Not Only... But Also.

The New Zealand show A Week Of It ran from 1977 to 1979, hosted by Ken Ellis, and featuring comedians David McPhail, Peter Rowley and Chris McVeigh and comedian/musicians Jon Gadsby and Annie Whittle. The series lampooned news and politics and featured songs, usually by McPhail and Gadsby, who continued with their own show, McPhail and Gadsby in similar vein.

A Dutch version, Zo is het toevallig ook nog 's een keer (It Just So Happens Once Again), aired from November 1963 to 1966. It became controversial after the fourth edition, which included a parody of the Lord's Prayer ("Give us this day our daily television"). Angry viewers directed their protests especially against the most popular cast member: Mies Bouwman. After receiving several threats to her life she decided to quit the show. The show was praised as well: in 1966 it received the Gouden Televizier-ring, a prestigious audience award—though it turned out afterward that the election was rigged.

An Indian version titled The Week That Wasn't was launched and hosted by Cyrus Broacha.

Parodies
Cleveland, Ohio, local personality Ghoulardi (played by Ernie Anderson), host of WJW-TV's Shock Theater in the 1960s, ran clips of local celebrities and politicians and satirised them in a Shock Theater segment entitled That Was Weak Wasn't It?

Beginning in 2006, 1812 Productions, an all comedy theatre company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, has annually performed a stage show called This Is the Week That Is. The variety show style play is written by its small cast with a script that changes nightly over several weeks of performances, and includes improvised comedy, musical parodies, and a versatile cast of performers. The show focuses on politics and news from the preceding year, often taking on local Philadelphia stories as well. In 2019, a documentary, In the Field; Conceiving Satire: The Making of This Is The Week That Is, about the creation of the long-running show was commissioned by the American Theatre Wing and nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award for Arts Program/Special.

References

External links

That Was the Week That Was at the British Film Institute

That Was the Week That Was at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
 (UK version)
 (US version)

BBC television sketch shows
1960s British television sketch shows
British satirical television series
News parodies
Television series about television
American television series based on British television series
Peabody Award-winning television programs
Grammy Award winners
1962 British television series debuts
1963 British television series endings
Black-and-white British television shows
English-language television shows
The Police Complaints Board (PCB) was the British government organisation tasked with overseeing the system for handling complaints made against police forces in England and Wales from 1 June 1977 until it was replaced by the Police Complaints Authority on 29 April 1985.

Like its replacement, the Police Complaints Authority, its successor the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and the present Independent Office for Police Conduct, the Police Complaints Board was operationally independent of the British police.

Creation 
Until the creation of the PCB in June 1977, complaints against police officers were handled directly by the forces concerned, although the Home Secretary could refer a serious complaint to another police force for investigation under a mechanism set out in Section 49 of the Police Act 1964. The investigating force would forward a report to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), who could decide to prosecute the offending policemen.

Following a series of scandals involving the Metropolitan Police in the mid 1970s, and criticism of a perceived lack of independence in the existing process, the Police Complaints Board was created by the Police (Complaints) Act 1976.

Powers 
The new board could scrutinise a report produced by an investigating force and satisfy itself that justice had been done, or instruct the chief constable of the force against whom the complaint had been made to take disciplinary proceedings against the offending police officers.

The PCB did not cover Northern Ireland, which was the responsibility of a separate body, the Police Complaints Board for Northern Ireland also set up under the Police Act 1976. Nor did it cover Scotland, which retained the mechanism set up by the Police (Scotland) Act 1967.

Criticism and reform 
The 1981 Brixton riots, and the Scarman report on it which investigated,  amongst other things, allegations of racism against the police led to pressure to reform the PCB.

The result was that the board was abolished and replaced by the Police Complaints Authority in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. A significant change was that the PCA was given extra powers allowing it to supervise police investigations into complaints, which has been taken further in its successor, the Independent Police Complaints Commission which replaced it on 1 April 2004 and which has the ability to carry out its own independent investigations.

References 

Police oversight organizations
Ombudsmen in England
Ombudsmen in Wales
Police misconduct in the United Kingdom
Home Office (United Kingdom)
Defunct public bodies of the United Kingdom
Law enforcement in England and Wales The Judicial Complaints Reviewer is a Scottish official who is responsible for reviewing the handling of complaints against the judiciary of Scotland by the Judicial Office for Scotland. The post was established in 2011 as a result of the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008. The Reviewer is appointed by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, with the approval of the Lord President of the Court of Session. The Reviewer's services are open to those who have complained about the conduct of a member of the judiciary, and also to members of the judiciary who have been the subject of a complaint.

The first Judicial Complaints Reviewer was Moi Ali, 2011-2014 and the second was Gillian Thompson; who was appointed on 1 September 2014. The third reviewer takes up the role on 1 September 2017.

Remit and jurisdiction
Complaints about the conduct, both within and outwith the courts of Scotland, of judicial officer holders in Scotland are made to the Lord President through the Judicial Office for Scotland. However, the Judicial Office does not consider complaints about judicial decisions which are dealt with through appeals.

The office of the Judicial Complaints Reviewer was established by Section 30 of the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008 The Reviewer's role is to review how complaints regarding members of the judiciary have been handled by the Judicial Office for Scotland in accordance with the complaint rules laid down by the Lord President. As of May 2017, complaints should be handled in line with Complaints About the Judiciary (Scotland) Rules 2017. She cannot change the outcome of the investigation, overturn a decision, or initiate redress. However, where she finds a fault in the process she passes a referral to the Lord President who then makes decision.

Judicial Complaints Reviewer

Moi Ali became the first ever JCR on 1 September 2011. She established the office and pushed for greater powers, claiming that the role was "window-dressing" and the judicial watchdog had no teeth. She did not seek reappointment after the end of her three-year term, as she was dissatisfied with the powers of the role. Gillian Thompson became the second Judicial Complaints Reviewer on 1 September 2014, and she too did not serve a second term of office.

References

External links

2011 establishments in Scotland
2011 in British law
Complaints organizations
Government agencies established in 2011
Judiciary of Scotland
Ombudsmen in Scotland
Judicial misconduct