An extract from Fun At One looking at when Kenny Everett went just a bit too far...
![]( "Kenny Everett on Radio 1.")
As it turned out, though, Everett was soon left with no option other than to try and find other work. The BBC had long been concerned by his habit of making flippant comments about the news bulletins, most notoriously an incident in which he had accidentally prefaced a news report about an aeroplane crash with a joke about an aeroplane, and on Saturday 18th July 1970 he pushed the Corporation’s patience too far.
Following a news report about Mary Peyton, the wife of then Transport Minister John Peyton, passing her advanced driving test, Everett casually remarked that she had “probably crammed a fiver into the examiner’s hand”. Two days later, Managing Director of BBC Radio Ian Trethowan took the decision to sack him from the station. Although Everett’s show for 25th July was still listed in the Radio Times, the show did not go out and recent Radio 1 recruit Noel Edmonds was installed in the vacant timeslot. For his part, John Peyton later claimed that if Everett had made a public apology, he would have asked the BBC to reinstate him, but it seems that such an option was never under consideration. Many who worked in BBC Radio pleaded for Trethowan to change his mind, and the Radio Times was inundated with letters of protest, many of them from people who stressed that they fell well outside the station’s target audience but still enjoyed his shows. Trethowan, however, was unmoved on the issue, and insisted that he could not be reinstated.
More significantly, the BBC maintained that Everett had not been dismissed over the off-the-cuff remark itself, but rather as the result of a long-running concern over his habit of making disparaging remarks about his employers in interviews. For some time, the BBC had been growing increasingly uncomfortable with his criticism of its adherence to Musicians’ Union rules that severely restricted the amount of commercially available pop music that could be played per hour, providing an excuse to fill out the airtime by playing light orchestral cover versions of pop hits. In Everett’s defence he was only articulating what the average listener was no doubt thinking to themselves, but the BBC did not take kindly to criticism – especially from within its own ranks – and when the Musician’s Union started to complain it was clear that his behaviour could be tolerated no longer. The remark about Mary Peyton had been a convenient last straw, and Kenny Everett became the first – and by no means the last – Radio 1 presenter to fall victim to internal politics.
Fun At One, the story of comedy at BBC Radio 1, is available as a paperback here or as an eBook here.
![]( "Kenny Everett in Radio Times")
![]( "Kenny Everett in Radio Times")
As it turned out, though, Everett was soon left with no option other than to try and find other work. The BBC had long been concerned by his habit of making flippant comments about the news bulletins, most notoriously an incident in which he had accidentally prefaced a news report about an aeroplane crash with a joke about an aeroplane, and on Saturday 18th July 1970 he pushed the Corporation’s patience too far.
Following a news report about Mary Peyton, the wife of then Transport Minister John Peyton, passing her advanced driving test, Everett casually remarked that she had “probably crammed a fiver into the examiner’s hand”. Two days later, Managing Director of BBC Radio Ian Trethowan took the decision to sack him from the station. Although Everett’s show for 25th July was still listed in the Radio Times, the show did not go out and recent Radio 1 recruit Noel Edmonds was installed in the vacant timeslot. For his part, John Peyton later claimed that if Everett had made a public apology, he would have asked the BBC to reinstate him, but it seems that such an option was never under consideration. Many who worked in BBC Radio pleaded for Trethowan to change his mind, and the Radio Times was inundated with letters of protest, many of them from people who stressed that they fell well outside the station’s target audience but still enjoyed his shows. Trethowan, however, was unmoved on the issue, and insisted that he could not be reinstated.
More significantly, the BBC maintained that Everett had not been dismissed over the off-the-cuff remark itself, but rather as the result of a long-running concern over his habit of making disparaging remarks about his employers in interviews. For some time, the BBC had been growing increasingly uncomfortable with his criticism of its adherence to Musicians’ Union rules that severely restricted the amount of commercially available pop music that could be played per hour, providing an excuse to fill out the airtime by playing light orchestral cover versions of pop hits. In Everett’s defence he was only articulating what the average listener was no doubt thinking to themselves, but the BBC did not take kindly to criticism – especially from within its own ranks – and when the Musician’s Union started to complain it was clear that his behaviour could be tolerated no longer. The remark about Mary Peyton had been a convenient last straw, and Kenny Everett became the first – and by no means the last – Radio 1 presenter to fall victim to internal politics.
Fun At One, the story of comedy at BBC Radio 1, is available as a paperback here or as an eBook here.
