Monty Python fans take note: one-season series The Complete and Utter History of Britain, which was created and written by Michael Palin and Terry Jones and aired in early 1969 right before the iconic British sketch troupe formed, has been unearthed by network ITV. The six-episode series was thought to be lost, with only two episodes surviving for the last 54 years.
“It was found by the ITV Archive team as part of a huge project to fully identify every archive asset ITV holds,” the channel said in a statement to British Comedy Guide. “The series had been sitting in the ITV vaults though mis-catalogued for decades, but through the identification programme we were able to make this remarkable find. We flagged it to our colleagues in streaming, had the film cleaned and restored from the 16-mm telerecordings and then finally made available to our viewers for the first time since the original broadcasts.”
Here’s the synopsis: “After a quick film survey of everyday life at the Dawn of History, the Narrator begins to guide through the ages. Covered in this episode is the patenting of the first chair and Caesar’s Home Movies of the Invasion of Britain.”
You can watch all six episodes of The Complete and Utter History of Britain on ITV Premium. Watch a few clips below.
In other Python news, Spamalot! is coming back to Broadway.
