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? that Frost had a "hatred" of the Prime Minister, which "he finds impossible to control". Why did frost hate the prime minister? I don't know. what else about the reception that is interesting? also attracted complaints from the Boy Scout Association, why did boy scouts have an issue? upset by an item questioning the sexuality of its founder Lord Baden-Powell,
what sexuality was lord baden powell?
what sexuality was lord baden powell?
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
CANNOTANSWER
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
Baden-Powell is a 1989 biography of The 1st Baron Baden-Powell by Tim Jeal. Tim Jeal's work, researched over five years, was first published by Hutchinson in the UK and Yale University Press. It was reviewed by The New York Times. James Casada wrote in a review for Library Journal that it is "a balanced, definitive assessment which so far transcends previous treatments as to make them almost meaningless."

Sources
Although Jeal's earlier biography of David Livingstone had been highly critical, establishing that he had only made a single convert and had failed in many important geographical objectives, Jeal defended Lord Baden-Powell not just against accusations of racism, militarism, but of having starved the Africans at Mafeking and stolen the basic idea for the Boy Scouts. Jeal relied on material from the archives of established Scout organisations and from Baden-Powell's own writings, diaries and private correspondence.

He also interviewed Baden-Powell's daughters and traced, along with Scouting colleagues, his last serving private secretary and many members of his domestic staff still alive in the 1980s. His use of the letters written to Olave Baden-Powell by her favourite niece, Christian Davidson (who lived with the Baden-Powells after her mother's death), enabled him to write in detail about Baden-Powell's relationship with his wife and with his three children.  Jeal gives the only detailed account of Baden-Powell's marriage and his tragic relationship with his only son Peter, and his disagreements with his daughters about their marriages.

Reviews
Although Jeal's Baden-Powell "transcends previous treatments" and is exceptionally well referenced, as a "balanced, definitive assessment" it has come under criticism from academics who had earlier charged Lord Baden-Powell with militarism. Several of their books and articles on Baden-Powell had become critical and negative since the 1960s, culminating in Michael Rosenthal's The Character Factory (1986), which added to the charge of militarism one of antisemitism.  Jeal rebutted these in his chapters 'Character Factory or Helping Hand' (409-415) and 'Baden-Powell and the Dictators' (543-553). The leading scholar and critic, Ian Buruma (international Erasmus Prize Winner 2008), assessed the relative merits of Jeal's and Rosenthal's arguments in the New York Review of Books; and on the charges that the Boy Scouts had been primarily militaristic in inspiration, and Baden-Powell antisemitic in the 1930s, came down on the side of Jeal's vindications both in his original article 'Boys Will be Boys' and in his response to Rosenthal's reply. Allen Warren, a historian, and former provost of Vanbrugh College, York University, also supported Jeal's arguments in both fields in a four-page review. Paul Fussell in reviewing Jeal's book in the Times Literary Supplement wrote stressing the civic rather than the military motivation behind Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts and opining that Jeal had done 'full justice to Baden-Powell's complexity and contradictions, his military delight and his pacifism, his fondness for groups and his stress on the individual...[and his dictum that] 'the real way to get happiness is giving out happiness to other people.'

Sexuality
Particular attention in reviews has been given to Jeal's analysis of whether Lord Baden-Powell was homosexual. Nelson Block states: "While the professional history community generally considers Jeal's conclusions on this topic to be speculative, the mainstream press seems to have taken them as fact". He then notes that there has been no published scholarly critique of Jeal. But Jeal devoted the whole of Chapter Three "Men's Man" to the subject of his sexuality and quotes from Baden-Powell's own account of his dreams and also considered many other intimate papers before reaching his conclusion that Baden-Powell had been a repressed rather than an active homosexual.

Content
The book comprises 18 introductory pages, and 670 editorial pages. It has 19 chapters, covering Lord Baden-Powell's life from birth and home, to his Indian and African periods, the work he did on Scouting for boys, and his marriage. The text is encyclopedically referenced with over 1,000 notes.

Editions

References

1989 non-fiction books
British biographies
Hutchinson (publisher) books Arthur Robert Peter Baden-Powell, 2nd Baron Baden-Powell  (30 October 1913 – 9 December 1962), known as Peter, was the son of Lieutenant-General Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, and Olave St. Clair Soames.  He served with the British South Africa Police in Southern Rhodesia, and then in the Southern Rhodesian Civil Service until the end of the Second World War, when he returned to Britain, and became a director of companies, and a Special Constable with the City of London Police.

Background
Peter was the nephew of Agnes Baden-Powell, Baden Baden-Powell, and Warington Baden-Powell, and the grandson of the Rev. Baden Powell.  Peter was named Arthur after his mother's brother, Robert after his father, and Peter after Peter Pan, a character in a play by James Barrie, of whom Peter's father, the first Lord Baden-Powell, was a great fan.  Likewise, Peter Baden-Powell named his daughter Wendy after another character in the play.

Education and early career
Peter Baden-Powell was educated at Charterhouse School, Godalming, Surrey, England, like his father, and at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, Berkshire, though he did not complete the course.  He served in the British South Africa Police between 1934 and 1937, when he married, but this was forbidden by his terms of service, so he transferred to the Native Affairs Department, Southern Rhodesia between 1937 and 1945.

Family
On 3 January 1936, Peter Baden-Powell married Carine Crause Boardman (1913 – 14 May 1993). She was a nurse. The couple had two sons and a daughter:-

 Robert Crause, born 15 October 1936, the 3rd Baron Baden-Powell, who married Patience Helene Mary Batty (1936–2010) in 1963.  He died childless 28 December 2019.
 David Michael, born December 1940, the 4th Baron Baden-Powell, who married Joan Phillips Berryman, and lives in Melbourne, Australia. They have three sons.  
 The Honourable Wendy Dorothy, born 16 September 1944, unmarried, and lives in Melbourne, Australia

Later career
In 1948 he was elected a member of the Mercers' Company. Upon the death of his father on 8 January 1941, he succeeded to the title of 2nd Baron Baden-Powell, of Gilwell, Essex. He was invested as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (R.S.A.).

Peter was deeply involved in Scouting. He was, until his death, Guildmaster of The B–P Guild of Old Scouts. During a visit in Austria in 1957 he was awarded one of the highest honours of Austrian Scouting the ; that same year he also received the highest distinction of the Scout Association of Japan, the Golden Pheasant Award.

In May 1952 he visited Poole in Dorset on the invitation of Lord Llewellyn, Baron of Upton, who was at the time a Scout Master at 1st Hamworthy Scout Troop, a Troop which had been started by some of the Boys who had camped on Brownsea Island with B-P in 1907. Peter Baden-Powell opened the new Group Scout Hall which had been built following fundraising organised by Lord Llewellyn.

Peter was also a Special Constable in the City of London Police Force.

At the 50th Anniversary World Scout Jamboree at Sutton Coldfield in 1957, in a pageant showing the history of Scouting, Peter played the part of his father.

Death
Peter Baden-Powell camped at the Gilwell Re-union in September 1962; it was very wet and cold.  Peter caught a cold, that turned to pneumonia, and then to pleurisy, from which Peter died in St. Thomas's Hospital, London, on 9 December 1962, aged only 49.

Arms

Ancestry

References

1913 births
1963 deaths
Barons Baden-Powell
People educated at Charterhouse School
People from Ewhurst, East Sussex
People associated with Scouting
British South Africa Police officers
Peter
British special constables