All Seasons

Season 1

  • S01E01 Death

    • September 21, 1981
    • BBC Two

    What the well-dressed undertaker is wearing this autumn. How to look chic in a shroud. Extracts from A Worm's-Eye View of Britain and Debrett's Funeral Etiquette ... Plus the ten people you said you'd most like to cremate whilst still alive. A Kick Up the Eighties puts the boot into kicking the bucket.

  • S01E02 Work

    • September 28, 1981
    • BBC Two

    Work - another British invention which has been taken over by the Japanese. This week A Kick Up the Eighties gives you something to talk about in the dole queue.

  • S01E03 The Media

    • October 5, 1981
    • BBC Two

    A group of young people, who depend on television for their livelihood, take a sympathetic and, at times, admiring look at their hardworking and often misunderstood employers. Including a special tribute to the Director-General's wife's cooking.

  • S01E04 Advice

    • October 12, 1981
    • BBC Two

    If we took all the professional advice that's thrown at us, would we wind up wearing the same clothes, sitting in identical cars on our way to the same restaurant, stuck in a country lane on an AA recommended short cut?

  • S01E05 Relationships (which used to be called Sex)

    • October 19, 1981
    • BBC Two

    This week A Kick Up the Eighties helps you to fill in those long winter evenings.

  • S01E06 Leisure

    • October 26, 1981
    • BBC Two

    Why not sit down in your favourite armchair, put your feet up and go to sleep - it's much better for you than watching television.

Season 2

  • S02E01 Sex Again

    • January 3, 1984
    • BBC Two

    A dramatised re-enactment of the Second World War. Filmed entirely in and around the Arndale Shopping Centre, Leeds. 1: Hitler annexes Dewhurst Butchers and W.H. Smith's. Chamberlain tells him to stay out of Tesco's. Hitler's 8th Panzer trolleys invade Tesco's. Chamberlain declares war and sends in task force across the car park and into Burton's Outfitters. Japan mounts a surprise attack and bombs Woolworth's.

  • S02E02 Depression

    • January 10, 1984
    • BBC Two

    The only TV quiz game that's obviously fixed. This week Mr and Mrs Dunce from Jarrow are going to nearly win a new car, but they are going to blow it on the last question.

  • S02E03 Nasty Little Sticky Things...

    • January 17, 1984
    • BBC Two

    Why do successive governments refuse to discuss the strange signals coming from Jupiter? Backache - are beansprouts the answer? Marilyn Monroe - alive and well and working in Woolworth's? A Kick Up the Eighties completely ignores these questions and instead pokes its nose into other things. Filmed entirely on location in a nudist camp.

  • S02E04 The Supernatural

    • January 24, 1984
    • BBC Two

    The show the government tried to ban. This week the experts show you how to: Avoid paying any tax. By-pass your electricity meter. Forge perfect bank-notes. Grow a new head of hair. And it's all legal!

  • SPECIAL 0x3 A Kick Up the Bells

    • December 31, 1987

    A compilation of bits of A Kick Up The Eighties & Laugh I Nearly Paid My Licence Fee. Features a spoof of "Breakfast Time" with Coltrane as Russell Grant & Miriam Margolyes as Claire Rayner, the "Deck of Cards" sketch in the style of Ian Paisley and of course, Kevin Turvey.

Additional Specials

  • SPECIAL 0x1 Kevin Turvey Investigates

    • October 27, 1981
    • BBC Two

    If one man this decade can be hailed as the jewel among journalists, it must surely be the great 'Kick up the eighties' correspondent - charismatic Kevin Turvey, ace investigative reporter with percepttive powers so limited he backs, quite unwittingly, into genius! Sporting an anorak that has left a subtle synthetic stain stamped permanently on 80s fashion and combing the back of his mind to bring us exclusives on such soul-searching subjects as death, sex, and the supernatural, Kevin Turvey makes contact with an indolent armchair Britain. However, if all you couch potatoes really want to know the answers to these compelling mysteries you'd better look elsewhere, for Kevin is a dab-hand at digression and has more important issues to discuss... like why Mrs Thatcher wears barbed-wire underwear and why 'taking it easy' involves downing a pint of Pernod. So do up your trousers, settle down and listen to the man who became a Tesco's prostitute - handbag and all - just to let us know he's still in the dark about the dirty deed...

  • SPECIAL 0x2 Kevin Turvey: The Man Behind the Green Door

    • September 13, 1982
    • BBC Two

    A week in the life of Redditch investigative reporter Kevin Turvey. As you would expect, not a lot happens!

  • SPECIAL 0x4 A Kick Up The Archive

    • December 31, 1998
    • BBC Two

    A comedy compilation from A Kick Up the Eighties, Laugh? I Nearly Paid My Licence Fee! and Naked Video.