A pub landlord with strong views on the French, a panel of professionally irritated men and two doctors hiding on a cruise ship are all arriving on Freeview this September, as Rewind TV gives the month over to classic British comedy.
The headline act is Harry Hill’s TV Burp, back on UK television for the first time in more than a decade.
Alongside it come Al Murray‘s cult pub sitcom Time Gentlemen Please, the BBC’s original moan-along Grumpy Old Men, and Doctor at Sea, the next instalment in the long-running Doctor franchise.
There’s a neat bit of history connecting the two headliners: Murray’s Pub Landlord character was born in 1994, when Murray was supporting Harry Hill and a missing compère needed covering at short notice. Three decades later, they’re sharing a schedule.
It’s also a complete change of mood after August’s marathon run of cult horror – from killer leprechauns to warm pints in one month flat.
“Bringing back programmes viewers simply haven’t had the chance to enjoy for years is what Rewind TV is all about,” says co-founder Jonathan Moore. “We’re especially delighted to welcome Harry Hill’s TV Burp back to UK television after more than a decade, alongside much-loved favourites including Time Gentlemen Please, Grumpy Old Men and Doctor at Sea.”
Where to Find Rewind TV
Since launching on Sky in May 2024 and expanding to Freeview that September, Rewind TV has established itself as a reliable home for classic British programming that might otherwise remain locked away in archives.
Following its arrival on Freesat in June, it now reaches every major over-the-air free TV platform in the country.
You can find it on:
- Freeview Channel 81
- Sky Channel 182 (satellite only)
- Freely Channel 141 (aerial-connected version only)
- Freesat Channel 164
Streaming remains the gap. There’s still no app, no catch-up and no true streamed channel. If you miss an episode, you miss it.
Time Gentlemen Please
Time Gentlemen Please starts September 3 at 9:30pm, and it’s the first time the cult sitcom has been on television in years.
Al Murray stars as the Guv’nor, landlord of the Prince Arthur – a forgotten London boozer where the beer is warm, the wisdom is dubious and the opinions on foreigners are best not repeated. The character is Murray’s stage persona The Pub Landlord, transplanted into a sitcom with his xenophobia fully intact.
The regulars are played by a strong hand of British comedy names: Julia Sawalha (Absolutely Fabulous), Phil Daniels (Quadrophenia), James Lance and Pauline McLynn, who most viewers will know as Mrs Doyle in Father Ted.
The series was written mainly by Murray with Richard Herring, with contributions from Herring’s longtime double-act partner Stewart Lee. It ran for two series and 37 episodes on Sky One between 2000 and 2002.
Murray won the Perrier Award for the Pub Landlord routine in 1999, the year before the sitcom launched, and the character has carried his live shows ever since. This is where he got a whole pub to himself.
Grumpy Old Men
Grumpy Old Men starts September 6 at 9:30pm, bringing back the BBC series that turned middle-aged complaining into a broadcasting format.
The premise: famous men of a certain age look into the camera and explain what’s wrong with everything. Mobile phones, traffic, noisy neighbours, modern manners. All of it gets the treatment.
The talking heads include Rick Wakeman, John Peel, Will Self, Arthur Smith and Germaine Greer, with narration from Geoffrey Palmer, whose voice had already spent decades perfecting weary resignation in Butterflies and As Time Goes By.
Casting doesn’t get much more on the nose.
It ran on BBC Two from 2003 to 2006, across three series and a pair of Christmas specials, and became one of the channel’s biggest factual entertainment hits of the decade.
It also proved contagious: Grumpy Old Women followed in 2005, and the format spread from there. This is where the whole thing started.
Harry Hill’s TV Burp
Harry Hill’s TV Burp starts September 7 at 7:00pm, with each episode repeated the following day at 1:00pm. For most viewers, this is the month’s main event.
For eleven years, Harry Hill ended the television week by taking it apart. The format was simple and completely unreasonable: Hill and his writers watched the week’s TV (soaps, dramas, reality shows, daytime filler) and mined it for absurdities, stitched together with surreal sketches and the occasional fight.
It ran on ITV from 2001 to 2012 and won three BAFTAs along the way, plus a shelf of British Comedy Awards.
“It took us two or three series to get TV Burp right,” Hill has said since. “No one was keeping an eye on us, so somehow we managed to get away with that.”
The show has been absent from UK screens for over a decade, and its return gives a new audience the chance to discover what appointment television looked like when the appointment was about all the other television.
One caveat worth knowing: TV Burp is a show about the TV of its week, so expect a time capsule. The X Factor jokes have aged into history lessons. That’s half the charm.
Doctor at Sea
Doctor at Sea starts September 11 at 10:00am and 8:00pm, continuing Rewind TV’s run through the Doctor franchise after Doctor at Large aired in June.
This time the action leaves St Swithin’s hospital entirely: Robin Nedwell‘s Dr Duncan Waring and Geoffrey Davies‘ Dr Dick Stuart-Clark sign on as medical officers aboard a Mediterranean cruise ship, on the theory that it will be a cushy number. It is not.
Ernest Clark is also on board, in a series based – like the rest of the franchise – on Richard Gordon‘s Doctor books.
Made by London Weekend Television in 1974, it ran for a single series of 13 episodes. The writing credits are worth a glance too: they include George Layton, Jonathan Lynn, later the co-creator of Yes Minister, and a young Phil Redmond, who went on to create Grange Hill and Brookside.
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