What is the deal with that stock film of old ladies applauding?
The clip appears in a lot of Circus shows and is taken from the BBC library. It is a clip of a women’s institute meeting, and was selected just for its absurdity, to show the ladies applauding at a sketch their real-life counterparts probably wouldn’t have had anything to do with. Q: Who are Reginald Maudling, Mary Whitehouse, and Reginald Bosinquat? A: Reginald Maudling was the English Tory home secretary under MacMillan, Home, and Heath, prominent during the sixties and seventies. He died not long after he was featured on Python. Mary Whitehouse was leader of a prominent citizen’s group for better television, and therefore obviously the sworn enemy of the Pythons, during the sixties and seventies. Reginald Bosinquat was a newscaster on the News at Ten, also during the sixties and seventies. Q: What is a pooftah? A: A poof, poofter or pooftah is slang for a (male) homosexual. Q: How do I tell a series one episode from a series two episode, and so forth? A: Here goes. SERIES ONE: Begin
