Editing That Was the Week That Was (section)

==Programme==
[[File:RT1963.jpg|thumb|1963 ''[[Radio Times]]'' cover promotes the return of the programme for a second series.]]
The programme opened with a song ("That was the week that was, It's over, let it go ...") sung by [[Millicent Martin]], backed by the resident [[Dave Lee (jazz musician)|Dave Lee]] house band, including guitarist [[Cedric West]]. The opening song featured new lyrics each week referring to the news of the week just gone. [[Lance Percival]] sang a topical calypso each week. Satirical targets, such as Prime Minister [[Harold Macmillan]] and [[Home Secretary]] [[Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor|Henry Brooke]] were lampooned in sketches, debates and monologues. Some other targets included the [[British Monarchy|monarchy]], the [[British Empire]], [[nuclear deterrence]], advertising, [[public relations]] and propaganda, capital punishment,{{sfn|Hegarty|2016|page=55}} sexual and social hypocrisy, the [[class system]], and the [[BBC]] itself.{{citation needed|date=October 2018}} Well-remembered sketches include the 12 January 1963 "consumers' guide to religion", which discussed relative merits of faiths in the manner of a ''[[Which?]]'' magazine report and led to the [[Church of England]] being described a 'best buy'.<ref name="Briggs1995">{{cite book|last=Briggs|first=Asa|title=The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: Competition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0pRGjVGtUvwC&pg=PA361|year=1995|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-215964-9|page=361}}</ref>

The programme was not party political but did not treat all issues with what the producers considered to be a false level of impartiality and balance; one example of this is the issue of racism and "the evils of [[Apartheid in South Africa|apartheid]]",{{sfn|Hegarty|2016|page=55}} following the view of BBC Director-General Sir [[Hugh Greene]] that the BBC should not be bound by its charter to be impartial on issues of racism, which Greene and the producers of ''TW3'' viewed as "quite simply wrong".<ref name="StrinatiWagg2004">{{cite book|last1=Strinati|first1=Dominic|last2=Wagg|first2=Stephen|title=Come on Down?: Popular Media Culture in Post-War Britain|url={{Google books|T0lPwK1Q4koC|plainurl=y}}|year=2004|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-92368-7|page=267}}</ref> Following the 1963 murder of 35-year-old white postal worker [[William Lewis Moore]] in Alabama, who was on a protest march against segregation in the [[American South]], ''TW3''{{'s}} Millicent Martin dressed as [[Uncle Sam]] sang a parody of "I Wanna Go Back to Mississippi" ("... where the Mississippi mud/kinda mingles with the blood/of the [[nigger]]s who are hanging from the branches of the tree ...") accompanied by [[Minstrel show|minstrel]] singers in [[blackface]] ("... we hate all the [[List of ethnic slurs#D|darkies]] and the [[Catholics]] and the Jews / Where we welcome any man / Who is white and strong and belongs to the [[Ku Klux Klan]]"), thus parodying ''[[The Black and White Minstrel Show]]'', which was then being shown on the [[BBC]] despite accusations of racism over its use of blackface.<ref name="StrinatiWagg2004" />{{sfn|Hegarty|2016|page=65}}

On Saturday, 20 October 1962 the award of Nobel prizes to [[John Kendrew]] and [[Max Perutz]], and to [[Francis Crick]], [[James Watson|James D. Watson]], and [[Maurice Wilkins]] was satirised in a short sketch with the prizes referred to as the Alfred Nobel Peace Pools; in this sketch Watson was called "Little J. D. Watson" and "Who'd have thought he'd ever get the Nobel Prize? Makes you think, doesn't it". The germ of the joke was that Watson was only 25 when he helped discover the structure of DNA; much younger than the others.

''TW3'' was broadcast on Saturday night and attracted an audience of 12 million. It often under- or overran as cast and crew worked through material as they saw fit. At the beginning of the second season in the autumn of 1963, in an attempt to assert control over the programme, the BBC scheduled repeats of ''[[The Third Man (TV series)|The Third Man]]'' television series after the end of ''TW3''. Frost suggested a means of sabotaging this tactic to Sherrin, and he agreed. For three weeks, at the end of each episode Frost read out a brief summary of the plot of the episode of ''The Third Man'' that was due to follow the show, spoiling its twists, until the repeats were abandoned following the direct intervention of Greene.<!-- Not knighted until 1964. --><ref>Humphrey Carpenter ''That Was Satire That Was'', London: Victor Gollancz, 2000, pp. 270–71</ref>

Frost often ended a satirical attack with the remark "But seriously, he's doing a grand job".<ref>Stuart Jeffries, "This'll kill you", ''The Guardian'', 16 January 1999, p. B5.</ref> At the end of each episode, Frost usually signed off with: "That ''was'' the week, that was." At the end of the final programme he announced: "That ''was'' ''‘That Was The Week That Was’'' …that was."

===Kennedy tribute===
''TW3'' produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire for the edition on Saturday, 23 November 1963, the day after the [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy|assassination of President John F. Kennedy]]. It featured a contribution from Dame [[Sybil Thorndike]] and Millicent Martin performing the tribute song "[[In the Summer of His Years (song)|In the Summer of His Years]]" by [[Herbert Kretzmer]]. This was screened on [[NBC]] the following day, and the soundtrack was released by [[Decca Records]]. A clip featuring [[Roy Kinnear]] was shown in the [[David L. Wolper]] documentary film ''[[Four Days in November]]'' and on the History Channel 2009 documentary ''JFK: 3 Shots that Changed America''. BBC presenter [[Richard Dimbleby]] broadcast the [[State funeral of John F. Kennedy|president's funeral]] from Washington, and he said that the programme was a good expression of the sorrow felt in Britain.<ref>{{cite news|title=A British Program Honoring Kennedy Shown Over NBC|date=25 November 1963|newspaper=The New York Times|page=10|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1963/11/25/archives/a-british-program-honoring-kennedy-shown-over-nbc.html}}</ref>