The Secret Policeman’s Biggest Ball (1989)

• 74%
• 1989
• Comedy
• Music
• Mike Holgate
• John Bird
• Rory Bremner
• Kathy Burke

The 1989 show returned to the roots of the series with an emphasis on comedy and eschewing the music that, by the 1987 show, had come to be an equal component of the Balls. The cast was a blend of the 1960s and '70s generation of performers (John Cleese, Michael Palin, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) with '80s newcomers such as Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, Lenny Henry, Rory Bremner, Ben Elton, Robbie Coltrane and Adrian Edmondson (The Young Ones). The show took place over four nights in late August through early September 1989 at London's Cambridge Theatre and was directed -- in a demonstration of cross-generational entente -- by John Cleese and Absolutely Fabulous cocreator/star Jennifer Saunders. The show was the last Ball to feature any of the original performers.