Secrets (play)

Secrets is a one-hour 1973 BBC Television play by Michael Palin and Terry Jones, starring Warren Mitchell as the owner of a chocolate factory. The play was part of a series called Black and Blue, which featured black and blue (saucy) comedy.

Preservation and DVD release

The original videotape of the play is believed to have been wiped by the BBC. The only known surviving version is a VHS copy of a half-inch reel-to-reel domestic videotape recording made by producer Mark Shivas from the mastertape at the BBC and transferred onto VHS in the 1980s. In 2004 this was cleaned up as much as possible and included as an extra on the Region 2 DVD of Palin and Jones's series Ripping Yarns. The recording is clearly not in a fit state to broadcast - the picture is fuzzy and grainy, frequently flickers and rolls and at one point freezes completely for several seconds - but was evidently considered of sufficient interest to merit inclusion on the DVD. The fact that the BBC did not consider a play by two Monty Python stars worth preserving may be due to its general attitude toward programme archiving at the time, or possibly because of the play's subject matter.

Related Topics:
Videotape - Wiped - VHS - Domestic videotape - Mark Shivas - BBC - 1980s - 2004 - DVD - Ripping Yarns - Monty Python

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