Origins and Broadcast Details
Do Not Adjust Your Set was a British children's comedy sketch show produced by Rediffusion London for ITV. The series aired from 1967 to 1969, running for 28 episodes across two series. It was created by the comedy troupe that included future Monty Python members, and it was one of the first television programs to feature a predominantly young cast performing absurdist and surreal humor aimed at younger audiences while also attracting adult viewers with its satirical edge.
The show was filmed at the Hackney Empire and other London studios, with episodes typically running 25 minutes. It featured a rotating cast of young performers who would often break the fourth wall, directly addressing the camera to tell viewers not to adjust their sets as a playful meta-commentary on the medium itself. The series was produced during a period of rapid change in British television, as ITV stations competed for younger demographics with innovative formats that moved away from traditional educational programming.
Key Cast Members and Their Careers
Future Monty Python Connections
Do Not Adjust Your Set is most famous for featuring future Monty Python members Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin, who were all part of the Cambridge Footlights and Oxford revue circuits before joining the show. Graham Chapman, though not a regular cast member of the series, was closely connected to the troupe and collaborated with them on subsequent projects. The shared history of these performers on the show laid the groundwork for their later collaboration on Monty Python's Flying Circus, which premiered on BBC1 in 1969.
Beyond the Python connection, the series launched the careers of several other notable performers, including Denise Coffey, who went on to work extensively in British radio and television, and the comedy duo of David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst, who would later become household names in shows like Only Fools and Horses. The show also featured early writing contributions from Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, the writing partnership behind Steptoe and Son, and it served as a training ground for a generation of British comedy talent who would go on to shape the industry for decades.
Legacy and Cultural Impact
Influence on British Comedy
The surreal, anarchic style of Do Not Adjust Your Set directly influenced the format and tone of Monty Python's Flying Circus, with many sketches and performance styles carried over from the earlier show. The program is widely cited by comedy historians as a key transitional work between traditional British sitcoms and the more experimental, stream-of-consciousness comedy that defined the 1970s and beyond. Its use of direct address, non-sequitur humor, and meta-commentary on television itself became hallmarks of the Python style and were adopted by countless subsequent sketch shows.
Archival interest in the show has grown in recent years, with surviving episodes and clips being made available through the British Film Institute and the ITV Archive. The show's influence is recognized in retrospectives on British television history, and it is frequently referenced in academic studies of comedy and broadcasting. Fans and researchers can access detailed information about the series through the BFI's dedicated television archive pages and through the comprehensive resources maintained by the Monty Python biographical databases that document the early careers of its members.
Forbes has covered the lasting impact of the show's alumni on global comedy. The BFI television archive holds materials related to the series, and the BBC