7.2 /10 1 Votes
6.3/10 TV Country of origin United Kingdom No. of series 2 Final episode date 26 December 1967 Network BBC One | 8/10 IMDb Genre Comedy Original language(s) English First episode date 10 March 1966 Presented by David Frost Number of seasons 2 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Written by Graham Chapman
Marty Feldman
John Law Starring Ronnie Corbett
Ronnie Barker
John Cleese
Sheila Steafel
Nicky Henson
Julie Felix
Tom Lehrer Cast John Cleese, Ronnie Corbett, David Frost, Ronnie Barker, Tom Lehrer Similar The Two Ronnies, At Last the 1948 Show, That Was the Week That Was, Do Not Adjust Your Set, The Two Ronnies Sketchbook | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The frost report news
The Frost Report was a satirical television show hosted by David Frost. It ran for 28 episodes on the BBC from 10 March 1966 to 26 December 1967. It introduced John Cleese, Ronnie Barker, and Ronnie Corbett to television, and launched the careers of other writers and performers.
Contents
- The frost report news
- The frost report is back dvd out now
- Cast and writers
- Archive status
- Similar shows
- Lord Privy Seal
- References
The frost report is back dvd out now
Cast and writers
The main cast were Frost, Corbett, Cleese, Barker, Sheila Steafel, and Nicky Henson. Musical interludes were provided by Julie Felix, while Tom Lehrer also performed songs in a few episodes.
Writers and performers on The Frost Report later worked on many other television shows. They included Bill Oddie and Tim Brooke-Taylor (of Goodies), Barry Cryer, Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Dick Vosburgh, Spike Mullins (who would write Corbett's Two Ronnies monologues), Antony Jay (Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister), and future Python members Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin. It was while working on The Frost Report that the future Pythons developed their writing style. The established comedy writer Marty Feldman, as well as the Frank Muir and Denis Norden partnership, were also contributors to the programme.
A special compilation from series 1, titled "Frost over England" (featuring the classic Cleese/Barker/Corbett class sketch, which parodied the British class system) won the Rose d'Or at the 1967 Montreux festival. A special one-off reunion was broadcast on Easter Monday (24 March) 2008. It ran for ninety minutes and was followed by "Frost over England".
Archive status
Almost half of the episodes produced (15 out of 28) are missing from the BBC archives. The 1966 series is complete in the archive; the lost episodes represent nearly all of series 2 and the "Frost over Christmas" special, although home recorded audio tapes are known to exist for all of these.
Similar shows
David Frost hosted similar comedy shows with similar casts. These included Frost on Sunday in 1968 with the two Ronnies, Josephine Tewson, and Sam Costa. Frost on Saturday in 1968. There was a reunion show The Frost Report is Back in 2008.
"Lord Privy Seal"
A sketch in The Frost Report is responsible for the term "Lord Privy Seal", in the British television industry, to mean the practice of matching too literal imagery with every element of the accompanying spoken script. In the sketch, the practice was taken to an extreme by backing a "news report" about the Lord Privy Seal (a senior Cabinet official) with images, in quick succession, of a lord, a privy, and a seal balancing a ball on its nose. Richard Dawkins mentioned the practice in a film review.