Classic TV comedy Drop the Dead Donkey on stage in Salford for first time

The stars of 'Drop the Dead Donkey' Jeff Rawle and Stephen Tompkinson spoke to Granada Reports' Claire Hannah

More than 30 years since the launch of the trailblazing TV series, Drop The Dead Donkey, the Globelink News team are back, and live on stage for the very first time.

Drop the Dead Donkey, a satirical look at TV news, was first shown on Channel 4 between 1990 and 1998, and was set in the offices of a fictional TV news company.

Unusually for a sitcom, the programme was topical, and written and filmed in the week it was broadcast, so it could react to contemporary news events to give it a greater sense of realism.

The inspiration for the stage set came from a research visit to ITN Credit: ITV Granada

The stage production stars the original cast members including Stephen Tompkinson and Jeff Rawle, who spoke to ITV Granada Reports ahead of one of their performances at The Lowry, in Salford.

Jeff plays George Dent, the station's editor, who is a nervous wreck and hypochondriac.

He said he is enjoying being back after more than three decades, joking: "None of us can quite believe it, we are feeling it our bones on a daily basis, but it is fantastic to be back.

"Our show this week is not the same as the show last week in Sheffield, because the news keeps changing, and our very clever writers change the scripts to reflect that."

Stephen, who plays the field reporter Damien - a character famous for being quite happy to stage incidents for the camera - said the reaction to the stage show has so far been incredible.

"You get lovely little entrance rounds of applause as they recognise each character, which is joyous," he said.

"You can also tell they have been short on topical humour, and the 'is it alright to laugh at this?' and then once it starts it really starts to cascade and it's a lovely interactive feel."

The TV programme ran for eight years, attracted an audience of 4.5 million and won many awards including a BAFTA, two international Emmy awards, and a number of British Comedy Awards.

It remains as topical as ever, with the news studio getting an update for the stage show, which was inspired by a research site visit to ITN's office.

But Jeff said they weren't sure how it would translate to the stage. "We didn't know, but I think everyone was massively relieved when we read it through.

"It has been written in an authentic way so it is believable how the characters have been brought together again."

Stephen Tompkinson (Damien) and Jeff Rawle (George) say it's good to be back Credit: ITV Granada

Drop the Dead Donkey is at The Lowry until Saturday 17 February as part of a nationwide tour.

It will be back in the North West at the Liverpool Playhouse from 14 - 18 May 2024

Things you never knew about Drop the Dead Donkey

Co-creators Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin reveal some little-known facts about the show.

  • Dead Belgians Don't Count was the original title they chose for the show, but Channel 4 pointed out – not unreasonably – that such a title might adversely affect sales to Belgium. One option that was considered was ‘Dead Kuwaitis Don’t Count’, but that was rejected, which was lucky because, as the first episodes arrived on air, Saddam Hussein launched his invasion of Kuwait.

  • Henry Davenport would be out of work in the modern era. He was a reprobate. No modern broadcaster would fail to suspend someone whose photo was constantly splashed over the tabloids, leaving a nightclub, drunk and with an age-inappropriate woman on his arm.

  • The show featured many animals, including alligators, cockroaches, Harris Hawks, a panther (that Damien tried to pass off as the Beast of Bodmin), wallabies, a Pekinese dog (Sally’s doomed pet), Siamese fighting fish, a rabbit, some lobsters, and a cat that casually wandered into shot.

  • The show was confused with reality on social media. A sequence where Damien was reporting on the burning of seized cannabis and got high as a kite found its way onto the Internet and was mistaken for a real reporter really getting stoned. The accompanying caption read ‘Look at this idiot!’ which is ironic, given that the caption was put there by an idiot.

The original cast from the TV show are in the stage production

  • Late rewrites were an occupational hazard for the cast. Often they were given new topical dialogue to learn just a few hours before the recording. We were always vulnerable to late-breaking stories. One episode had to be hastily re-written after the death of Robert Maxwell.

  • Some actors suffered for their art. When Stephen Tompkinson was buried up to his neck in the ground his forehead was hot because he had malaria. Similarly, when Robert Duncan (Gus), was tied naked to a lamppost, they had no idea that a crowded night-bus was about to drive past.

  • Politicians rarely complained about the show. In 1990, they received an angry fax from an obscure Tory MP informing them that his would be one of ‘thousands of complaints’ that we would receive concerning a ‘vile joke’ made about the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. When they checked Channel 4’s overnight log the programme had triggered three telephone calls, one to commend the joke about Mrs Thatcher and the other two enquiring where you could buy the dress that Sally Smedley had worn in Part Two.

  • Many giants of TV appeared as themselves in the show. There were guest cameos from news veterans including Jon Snow, Kirsty Wark, and Michael Buerk and politicians including Teddy Taylor MP, Ken Livingstone, and Neil Kinnock.

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