KNOCKDOWN - Not The Nine O'Clock News

A television series that made big stars of Rowen Atkinson, Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones and Pamela Stephenson and gave the occasional stuntman a job.

This episode from 1979/80 was one such occasion. NICK WILKINSON performs a spectacular car knockdown just to get a laugh - enjoy

watch the knockdown here:

https://youtu.be/L9GaEfvQLzA?si=ChZaGfItEzmcUiVk

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to this week's look at action and stunts on film and television. Walking in front of a moving vehicle, knowing you're going to get run over, is a tough one to get your head round, but stunt professionals do it every day. The reason so many pedestrians are injured or killed on a daily basis is because they are run over by the vehicle. The stunt professional performs a knockdown, two very different things. Yes, the stunt artist can get injured too, but they're taking many precautions before walking out into the road. We've covered this before, but just to recap, the car will be travelling between ten and twenty miles an hour at an absolute push, really. The driver has been in talks with the stunt performer about how they want the knockdown to go. The windscreen wiper might be removed from the car to prevent injury to the stunt performer who will also wear pads underneath their costume to protect back, shoulders, knees, etc. And most important of all, the stunt performer who is being knocked down must rehearse getting onto the bonnet, the hood of the vehicle prior to the take. You can't just wait for the car to hit you, like the pedestrian on the street. You must jump up and clear the front of the car so your knees or thighs aren't the first area of contact. Now I firmly believe that if this was taught in schools, deaths by car hits would be greatly reduced. Jump up, clear the front of the car with your knees and try and roll onto the bonnet and depending on the speed of the vehicle, try and come to stop in the windscreen itself. Now, the stunt performer must find out how the director would like the shot to look. Are they required to go the length of the vehicle or come off one side? The other thing that's important is whether the scene is a dramatic scene or a comedic one. Because a man being hit by a car is a very dangerous thing to see, and it's being filmed for a comedy or a TV show, the payoff must provide a big laugh. Now, in the nineteen eighties, the BBC ran a television show called Not the Nine O'Clock News, which ran on BBC two at first at nine o'clock. The evening news on BBC one was at nine o'clock, hence the title of the show. This show would have sketches performed by the actors, but each week every episode would be littered with visual gags. An example a man walking down the road spots the camera filming him on the other side of the road, keeps looking at it, and doesn't look in the direction he's walking, then suddenly bumps into a telegraph pole. That sort of thing. One particular show had a man walking down the road and stopping at a set of traffic lights, waiting to cross the road. The lights change to green, allowing the man to start crossing the road. As he gets about halfway across, a car drives through the crossing, knocking the man over. The next shot is of the traffic lights going back to red, but instead of a red man at the signal, it shows the stick man being hit by a car. So our stunt man has worked very hard just to get a visual gag and a big laugh. All in the line of duty, you understand. The stunt man being knocked down was UK stuntman Nick Wilkinson, a veteran of Bond films, endless horse movies, and a fine actor. Driving the car is stuntman Gareth Milne. Now between them they discuss how to get the shot done. Because of the nature of the gag, you can't do it all day. It's punishing on the body, and the performer will, if they're lucky, walk away with a few bumps and bruises. Now on the first take, Nick walks out into the street, spots the car in his peripheral vision, and tries to time his jump onto the bonnet, but the timing may have been off by just a split second, as he isn't able to get up as far as he'd like, and is hit quite hard as he's leaning into the moving vehicle. The forward motion of the vehicle and Nick's movement onto the vehicle throws his legs up into the air, hardly touching the windscreen at all, and sends him the length of the car landing heavily behind it in the road. Director shouts cut, but Nick is still lying there in the road. Now everyone expects a thumbs up from the performer to go, yep, I'm okay. And when you get nothing, it's very worrying. And they were right to worry as Nick had chipped his shoulder quite badly on the first take. The director took Nick and Gareth to one side and asked them to go through what had happened. It was clear Nick had to respot his timing and get clear of the front of that car. Now this will give him much more control in his movement. The director also asked if they could do it again, but this time trying not to go the full length of the car. Well Nick agrees, and after about twenty minutes of him being strapped up, he's ready to go once again. For context, Nick must walk towards camera, get to the traffic lights on his right, and stop and waiting to cross the road. Now the car will be approaching from his right as he's crossing. He begins to cross the road and spots the car. This time he gets his step right and gets to jump and turn slightly as he gets up onto the bonnet. The forward momentum of the car pushes him backwards to the edge of the bonnet closest to the driver's side of the car, and then his legs come over his head, pitching him off over the driver's wing mirror and out of sight of the camera. On the video, the audience are watching it in the studio. They gasp as Nick is hit by the car. The camera then cuts to two women walking down the road who turn to see what's happened. Then the cut to the traffic lights as it changes for the comedic payoff with the stick man getting run down. Four hours work on a London street back in nineteen eighty, but still as exciting a car knockdown as you'll ever see. Now on Friday, we'll walk ourselves through the gag and see if we can put ourselves in the head of Nick Wilkinson being knocked down and Gareth Milne behind the wheel. So until next time, it's bye for now.