Out of Tune was a Children's BBC sitcom about a village choir that ran for three series between 1996 and 1998. To be blunt, in spite of featuring a distinctive title sequence and theme tune, a regular role for Nick Maloney as the vicar, and the screen debut of James Corden, plus early appearances for the likes of Charlie Brooks and Jane Danson, it does not appear to have left a huge cultural footprint; its IMDb listings are clearly incomplete, little else about it can be found on the internet, and less than a third of its episodes -- nearly all from the first series -- are available on YouTube. A bit of a shame for a show with the ambition to end its first series with the visual of a car precariously balanced on a church steeple on a children's television budget.
What does survive in full, though, are the programme's original billings in the Radio Times, courtesy of BBC Genome. So let's have a look at the ones for the first series, shall we?
1. TX 14/02/96: First in a seven-part children's comedy about a village choir. A new arrival threatens to shatter the harmony of the Little Wickton Choir.
2. TX 21/02/96: Second in a seven-part children's comedy about a village choir. Problems arise when the piano disappears.
3. TX 28/02/96: Third in a seven-part children's comedy. Street is deperate to impress Chas.
4. TX 06/03/96: Fourth in a seven-part children's comedy. The choir decides to go on a 24-hour fast for charity.
5. TX 13/03/96: Fifth in the seven-part children's comedy about a group of young teenagers who join their village choir. Street is suffering from toothache.
6. TX 20/03/96: Sixth in the seven-part children's comedy series. The choir prepares for an important conker match.
7. TX 27/03/96: Children's comedy series. The parish magazine hires a mysterious new agony aunt. Written by Rory Clark and Robert Taylor. Next episode next Tuesday.
Uh. Haven't you been pretty clear this is a seven-part children's comedy series, Radio Times? Why are you billing another episode next week on the listing for episode seven?
8. TX 02/04/96: Continuing the comedy series. Chas's driving test is looming, but will the choir from hell help her?
Because there was indeed another episode the week after, on a different day (with Rugrats taking up the Wednesday slot). A minor mistake, perhaps... if they had only been wrong by one episode. But it appears they weren't. They were out by ten.
Yes, the Radio Times lists a new episode of Out of Tune airing every Tuesday from 09/04/96 until 04/06/96. Curiously, however, no synopsis for these episodes is available; the RT billing simply states some variation on "The comedy series continues with stories of the choir from hell," with the final episode noticeably going for "concluding" the comedy series.
Remember I said most of the episodes on YouTube were from the first series? Well, it does appear that the first series did indeed run for seventeen episodes, and a full seven of the instalments the Radio Times spent the first six weeks of the run insisting didn't exist are available there, with the original continuity and copyright dates, and the presence of cast members who don't appear to have been in the latter two series, confirming they are indeed from 1996.
Two theories present themselves here:
1. The first series was originally intended to run for seven episodes, and the order was significantly increased quite late in the day, which might be corroborated by the change of day from episode 8 onwards, and the synopses in the Radio Times changing to generic ones.
2. The run was always intended to be seventeen episodes long, and the Radio Times were just wrong.
But whichever way you cut it... isn't a seventeen-episode order for a new and untried half-hour series quite an unusually large one? If the order was increased, why -- did it get an immediate positive reaction from somewhere? Is it possible someone at the Radio Times saw '17 episodes' and assumed that was a typo, and they meant 7? That might account for them not realising the error until they reach what they thought was the 'final' episode.
Anyway, Out of Tune was next seen when it began a repeat run of the first series on 2 April 1997. Let's see what the Radio Times had to say about that...
Blahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The week after, on 9 April, we get:
Second of a seven-part comedy. Street tries to impress Chas.
Back up a moment there. That matches the synopsis of the third episode shown. The repeat run appears to have skipped over the second episode. What happens as the weeks go by?
4. Fourth of a ten-part comedy. The Little Wickton choir prepare for an important conker match. (episode 6 in the premiere run)
5. Fifth of a ten-part comedy. A new agony aunt starts work at the parish magazine and Street can't wait to put her advice to the test. (originally episode 7)
6. Sixth of a 12-part comedy series about a chaotic village choir. (presumably the original episode 9 or later?)
We get another 6 episodes in the repeat run, all with the same generic synopsis, but this seems easier to work out: The BBC wanted to repeat the first series as a teaser for the new series starting in the Autumn, but a 17-episode run was too big a commitment to rerun in its entirety, and they skipped over a couple of episodes. As to why the number of episodes in the run repeatedly changed before settling on 12, the original reiteration of 'seven episodes' might be a mistake carried over from the original broadcasts, but the increase from 10 to 12 could simply be down to deciding to extend the repeat run midway through.
A new 13-part sitcom about a bad choir in the fictional town of Little Wickton. Rev Worthington and Tony prepare for the start of the fishing season, unaware that a new choir member is making waves.
And this time the Radio Times is entirely consistent: nowhere indicates the second series was ever anything other than thirteen episodes long. The second series wraps up in December 1997, and a third and final 10-episode series begins just four months later in April 1998. The second and third series get one repeat run each, and when the latter wraps up in August 2000 that seems, barring some repeat runs in the early days of the CBBC Channel which the Genome doesn't have archived, the end of the matter.
Update! I am immensely grateful to long-time friend of the blog John J. Hoare, who has had a look at the paperwork pertaining to the first series of Out of Tune.
John explains thusly: The paperwork for the first episode gives production dates for the series of "January - May 1996". The seventeenth and final episode of Series 1 had its studio date in late May. Therefore, it seems most likely that it was always intended to be 17 episodes, and some miscommunication resulted in the Radio Times thinking it was 7 -- possibly even my theory that they thought that must be a typo.
One thing I didn't mention in the above is that Out of Tune has a laugh track -- but I'm not sure if it's canned laughter or a genuine studio audience (or possibly even an audience having the completed episodes played to them at a later date). John notes that the final episode's Programme as Completed paperwork includes a mention of TC8 at BBC Television Centre -- the same studio where many sitcoms, talk shows and quizzes with live audiences, ranging from Fawlty Towers to Parkinson, were filmed, and widely considered the very best studio in the country for comedy programmes. As John says, this makes it tempting to assume it is a live audience, but there's nothing in the paperwork to definitively say either way.
If it is a real audience, though, maybe someone, somewhere who was in it might happen across this blog post? I can but dream.
Further Update! Well, that seems fairly conclusive.
So this was the origin of James Corden...
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