BBC releases fascinating 1969 documentary - watch here

The BBC has released a rare 1969 documentary in which Marty Feldman examines the nature of comedy.

Now available on YouTube, the 42-minute film features interviews with fellow comics such as Eric Morecambe, Peter Sellers, Dudley Moore, Sandy Powell and writers Johnny Speight, Denis Norden and his own long-term collaborator Barry Took.

It was made following the success of Feldman’s Bafta-winning BBC sketch show but before he found Hollywood success in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein.

In it, he speaks about his motivations for doing comedy, in an analysis that will feel familiar to modern comedy fans but that was rarely aired at the time.

After explaining how he started his showbiz career in Dreamland in Margate as a ‘Red Indian fakir act', he tells viewers:  ‘Making people laugh was just something you did because you wanted the approval it brought you. Maybe because you just enjoyed it. 

‘Now, about 25 years later, I still feel the same. I'm a comic because I enjoy it. But with the pressure of having to be funny all the time, I find that I enjoy it less and less. 

‘Comedy performing, for me anyway, is a kind of neurosis which I exploit. You plagiarise your inadequacies, your hangups, and you make comic capital out of them. After all, it's not normal to parade yourself in front of other people and invite them to laugh at you.

‘All the comics I've met felt themselves to be somehow social freaks, at odds with their environment because of their background or maybe the way they looked.’

The film was first broadcast on June 7, 1969, under the title No, But Seriously… as part of the occasional documentary series One Pair Of Eyes – an ironic title given Feldman was known for his distinctive bulging eyes. 

The series of personal films was commissioned by David Attenborough, who was BBC Two's director of programmes at the time.

Watch it in full here:

Published: 14 Nov 2025