Anglia TV press releases
Away With Words
NEIL INNES GETS AWAY WITH WORDS Away with
Words Tuesday 15th September 1998 at 7.30pm on Anglia
Presenter Neil Innes has fun exploring the origins of well-known words; and phrases in AWAY WITH WORDS, (Tuesday, September 15th 1998 at 7.30pm). The new 13-part series follows him on his travels from Yarmouth to Ely, Southend, Newmarket, Luton, Southwold, Duxford, Ipswich, Norwich, Corby, Bletchley, Cambridge and Colchester. But it won't be a map so much as a dictionary that he will have as a guide as he looks for the unlikely sources of all sorts of everyday names and sayings, and talks to some of the people who can throw light on them. Programme one sees him joining the circus at Great Yarmouth's Hippodrome, where he makes the acquaintance of a friendly pachyderm (elephant), and finds out why we refer to chaotic situations as a "three-ring circus". A ride in a traditional gypsy caravan with a Romany family throws up some surprising language links with India, and offers an explanation for why prison is sometimes referred to as "stir". Also in the opening programme he lets the cat out of the bag down on the farm, enjoys a fairground ride, and grapples with some curiously-named tools when he takes to the waterways with a Norfolk marsh-man. He even starts talking "double Dutch" with the mayor of King's Lynn, who helps to explain how East Anglia's historic trade links with Holland left a legacy in the language. As a writer, humorist and musician, Neil Innes has always been fascinated by words. A founder member of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, he worked with the Monty Python team and joined Eric Idle on Rutland Weekend Television, creating The Ruttles, a parody of The Beatles. He has also made three series of The Innes Book of Records and is the writer behind the children's ITV series The Raggy Dolls. "I started off as a painter, as an art student, that's when I met all the other Bonzos. That's when I became interested in writing songs and interested in words I suppose," he says. "The only danger of this programme probably is that I'll turn into the pub bore and that when anyone says anything I'll say ‘…oh, did you know it came from this ... ?’ But I love the stories connected with different phrases. These things intrigue me." "In general what we discovered doing this series is that the English language doesn't really belong to the English at all," he says. "It's come from all over the place - Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, French, German, Danish, Old Norse" "It is a fact that the English language is growing all the time. There are more people in China learning to speak English than there are people in America who actually speak it. As our mother tongue we might be the ones who take it for granted the most." As well as presenting the series, Neil Innes wrote and sings the title song for AWAY WITH WORDS. |
| AWAY WITH WORDS, presenter Neil Innes falls foul of the Roundheads (while dressed as a Cavalier), gets nosy about Cromwell, tries to get ahead with a wig, and discovers a taste for eel pie, as he sets about probing the history which lies hidden in everyday words and phrases. (Anglia, Tuesday 22nd September at 7.30pm) The second programme in the series plunges him into the midst of Civil War hostilities, where he swiftly discovers the origins of phrases like "keep your powder dry" and "a flash in the pan". It all starts to get a bit personal when he explores the expression "bald as a coot", but thankfully there is only a model of Oliver Cromwell around when Neil starts to nose out the nick-names bestowed upon a man whose most prominent facial feature was described as a carbuncle. Cromwell was under no illusions about his looks, of course, having famously ordered his portrait painter not to flatter him but to "remark all the roughness, pimples, warts and everything you see." This programme takes Neil to Ely in Cambridgeshire where he goes eel catching and visits Cromwell's house. And to Colchester in Essex, where, members of the English Civil War Society are only too happy to demonstrate how the language acquired the expression "up to the hilt" with Neil as the victim! Find out too why we "pay through the nose", who ate "humble pie", and how we come to have different words for meat (beef, mutton, pork) and the animals which produce it (cow, sheep, pig). |
COCKLES AND COCKNEYS AWAY WITH
WORDS - Southend Tuesday 29th September 1998 at 7.30pm on
Anglia
 Neil Innes has fun
beside the seaside, exploring words and sayings which take him from
cockle-fishing to Cockney rhyming slang. Southend, and neighbouring Leigh-on-Sea
in Essex, prove the perfect places to enjoy a range of traditional seaside
delights from making candy floss and playing bingo, to having his fortune
told and joining the fancy footwork at the Cliff Bandstand where he finds
out how dances like the rumba, fox-trot and waltz got their names. Southend
has always been popular with visitors from London's East End, and Neil finds
himself rubbing shoulders with royalty when he meets some colourful Pearly
kings and queens, and delves into the origins of Cockney rhyming slang. It
all promises to be a feast for the mince pies, which will warm the cockles
of your heart, while Innes shows he is happy as a sandboy …
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| AWAY WITH WORDS presenter Neil Innes is off to Newmarket to dabble in the sport of kings and find out what the richness of the language owes to the riches of the racetrack. A surprising number of everyday words and expressions derive from horses, gambling and money, as Neil reveals. He also has fun tracing the royal connections which helped put Newmarket on the map. From the history of racing, to the photo finish, it's odds-on that Neil will find plenty to talk about, hopefully without losing his shirt! Tuesday 13th October 1998 at 7.30pm on Anglia |
Neil Innes gets to grips with more of the English language in a programme which ranges from real tennis to Romeo and Juliet. Juliet's big poser 'What's in a name?" provides the perfect excuse for Neil to climb into costume and discover the enormous debt our everyday speech still owes to William Shakespeare. While a visit to a real tennis court serves to uncover the origins of some of the sport's idiosyncrasies (like the scoring). And where better than Cambridge, to find out why students "graduate", who makes a "chum", and how to stay out of someone's "bad books'. A trip to the tailor's reveals, among other things, where the term "the full Monty" originated. And, punting down the river, there's time to contemplate how Cambridge itself came by its name. |
CURRY, CRICKET AND A CHAT ABOUT HATS
Away With Words Sunday, 25th October 1998 at 5:15pm on
Anglia
He doesn't eat his hat, but presenter Neil Innes does tuck into a curry when AWAY WITH WORDS takes a closer look at what the English language owes to foreign cultures and far-away places like the sub-continent of India. Heading for Luton and Bedford, Neil finds himself on a journey which takes him from a Hindu temple to a hat factory, and ends with him rubbing shoulders with Royalty. There is an introduction to the oldest surviving written language of all when Neil visits Luton's Hindu Mandir Temple, and goes on to discover that everyday words like juggernaut, pundit and ginger all share their origins in ancient Sanskrit. A taste of the language which continues to link Britain and India comes with words like bungalow, veranda, pyjama, shampoo and, of course, curry - which Neil is more than happy to explore in more depth at Luton's Alankar restaurant. A practise session with the Luton Indian Cricket Club Colts team bowls some cricketing terminology Neil's way, and leads, by way of a hat-trick, to the factory of W.W.Wright & Son and the industry Luton is famed for. Modelling a range of colourful headgear, Neil manages to explain why magicians pull a rabbit from a hat; where milliners got their name; and how the expression "mad as a hatter" arose. Then it is off along the River Ouse to Bedford, where Neil chats with local people awaiting a visit from the Prince of Wales, and seizes the opportunity to share few words with HRH himself, as he opens the newly-named Butterfly Bridge. Sunday, 1st November 1998  It is all grist to the mill for
presenter Neil Innes, when he manages to coinbine beer-tasting,
golf, music and Morris dancing in this week's AWAY WITH WORDS.
Neil's latest fun quest for words and their origins, begins in the seaside
town of Southwold, where beach-hut names soon give way to pub names, a visit
to Adnam's Brewery, and the language of ale. Neil also swings into action
on the fairway (and in the rough) as he gets to grips with some of the peculiar
names involved in the game of golf. Ringing the changes, Neil meets some
bell-ringers at a nearby church tower. And there is more music-making (and
beer-drinking) in the Suffolk town of Woodbridge, where he meets violin maker
Russell Stowe, enjoys a performance by Martlesham Brass Band, and watches
the East Suffolk Morris Men in action. By which time Neil should be able
to work out whether he is fit as a fiddle and can blow his own trumpet. Or
whether he needs to be taken down a peg or two! He also discovers how the
expression "cock-up" came to mean making a mistake.
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Sunday, 15th November 1998 at 5.15pm on Anglia
AWAY WITH WORDS presenter Neil Innes takes to the skies as he follows the English language to America - and back - in this week's edition of the fun programme about words and their origins. Beginning with a look at some of the Imperial War Museum's collection of fighter planes at Duxford near Cambridge, Neil visits two wartime airfields, and an American air force base, to explore the ways in which common words and phrases have criss-crossed the Atlantic - by sea on the Mayflower; by air with the American forces and on celluloid with the movies. Continuing with the theme of flight, Neil meets some birds of prey at Audley End near Saffron Walden in Essex. He adopts early pioneer mode to describe where the term "talking turkey" came from. And he gets some contemporary instruction in the typically American sports of basketball and ten pin bowling a the USAF base at Mildenhall in Suffolk. Then it is off to the movies, with Neil setting out in style in the car John Goodman used in the film "The Borrowers" to visit Britain's famous Elstree Studios, where he explores the props store and has a close encounter with "Rock Man" and "Judge Dread". The programme follows the Hollywood connection to Tibenham in Norfolk where film star and wartime US air force commander, Major General James Stewart was based. And Neil goes up in a glider for a final bird's eye view of some of the word alternatives which help prove the wry observation. attributed to George Bernard Shaw, that England and America are two countries divided by a common language. Sunday, 22nd November 1998 at 5.15pm on Anglia |
BRAVE NEW WORDS AND BED-TIME READING Smuggling, seafaring and superstition are all on the agenda when AWAY WITH WORDS presenter Neil Innes finds himself trawling for the origins of more everyday phrases - and lands in deep trouble with the law. Exploring the language of customs and excise along a Suffolk, coastline which is no stranger to smuggling activities, Neil soon finds the long arm of the law reaching out to nab him. Then it is off to the dungeons with him ... in Norwich Castle. There is a garden encounter with Norwich witch, Naomi, before Neil heads back over the county border for a good night's sleepwalking in Woodbridge! Quitting his bedroom at the Suffolk town's Bull Hotel, a pyjama clad Neil is soon breaking all the rules to illustrate some everyday superstitions. Finally, Away with Words sets sail on board the Excelsior, a traditional Lowestoft trawler, built in 1921, where Neil is soon busy learning the ropes, and discovering why sailors were required to "show a leg". Away With Words Sunday 13th December at 4.15pm on Anglia  AWAY WITH WORDS
gets into dictionaries, codes and computers as presenter Neil
Innes boldly goes into cyberspace in pursuit of the development
of the English language. The fun series, which probes the unlikely
origins of everyday words and phrases pays a call to the Cyber Café
in Milton Keynes to see where words fit in to the web-wide world of modern
technology. Neil also visits Bletchley Park where top-secret wartime
code-breakers struggled to crack the German Enigma machine, and sees why
the world's first electronic valve computer was named Colossus. Before the
programme is over, he gets to drive a tank, and a very smart car. But it's
not all car names and techno-speak. At nearby Stony Stratford, Neil is soon
on the trail of the original Cock and Bull story. This small
Buckinghamshire town once boasted more than sixty coaching inns, catering
for the many travellers who stopped here on the road between London and the
North. Two of the best-known local hostelries were the Cock and the Bull,
and the suggestion is that as the best gossip passed between them, the stories
became increasingly embellished and somewhat removed from reality. Snuggling
down with some less than stimulating bedtime reading at the Cock Hotel, Neil
also treads in the footsteps of the celebrated Dr Johnson, who stayed here
while he was working on his famous dictionary.
Sunday 20th December at 4.50pm on Anglia |
 Enlisting the unlikely help of
a large St Bernard dog, a group of Roman soldiers, and some Anglo Saxon
villagers, presenter Neil Innes sets out to answer the question. "Who are
the English?" in this, the last of the series probing curious corners of
the English language. (Away with Words, Sunday December 20th at 4.50 pm).
And as he continues his fun journey round the region probing the origins
of everyday words and phrases, he is forced to wonder if the reason English
has become such a global language is because it came from all over the world
in the first place! Joining him on this final voyage of discovery is Henry
a three-year-old St Bernard with an appointment at a grooming parlour in
Bury St Edmunds. Not to mention the Roman soldiers he encounters in a pub
in Essex. Or a village full of Anglo Saxon men, women and children at West
Stow in Suffolk, Into this surreal line-up Neil also manages to introduce
a wedding, an extract from Cilbert and Sullivan, and a visit to a cocktail
bar, On the way from Ancient Britain to modern times he finds some intriguing
clues to why we have the Romans to thank for pubs, trivia, honeymoons, socks
and sandals, among other things. While it is virtually impossible to speak
a sentence without an Anglo Saxon word in it today.
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