An Evening With... The Rutles

THE RUTLES WILL BE APPEARING On UK LEG OF
(AS YET, Un-BOOKED) 2014 WORLD TOUR

BRAND ON THE RUN!

It all began 35 years ago when Eric Idle of Monty Python persuaded Neil Innes, of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, to join him in a comedy series for BBC 2 called Rutland Weekend Television – all about a spoof TV station, the smallest in Britain, churning out really cheap programmes on a shoestring. Low budget? More like No Budget!

Innes suggested to Idle that they could do a send-up of A Hard Day’s Night, the Beatles first movie. “It’s in Black and White, it’s speeded up, and we could wear wigs and tight trousers and run around a field somewhere…” “Great!” Exclaimed Idle. “I’ve got a sketch about a man making a documentary who’s so boring, the camera runs away from him…”

And so the name “Rutles” was born. But no one could have expected what happened next. A year later, such was the enormous pressure on the Beatles to get back together again, the one-off clip was shown in the USA – on NBC’s flagship satire programme: “Saturday Night Live”.

!!BY POPULAR DEMAND!!

It was a sensation. Thousands of people wrote in. Mailbags were bulging. So were the trousers! Everyone got the joke. Lorne Michaels, the producer, believed the whole Beatles story could now be told – as “The Rutles”. NBC agreed and gave him the money.

Eric Idle quickly came up with the title: “All You Need Is Cash – the story of the Pre-Fab Four”. Bill Murray, John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd got involved – so did George Harrison, who brought in Mick Jagger and Paul Simon.

“Last time was just the last time. This time it really is the last time.”

Innes recalls: “I can clearly remember it all. I was sitting to one side, on a window sill in an executive office, high up in the Rockefeller Centre in New York, listening to all this when suddenly everyone started looking at me. Lorne asked if I could write 20 more Rutles songs by next Thursday lunchtime. I said I would try!”