Beadle's About begins on ITV

NOV 22 1986

Jeremy Beadle's hidden-camera show launched on ITV, building elaborate practical jokes around members of the public: cars swapped and apparently destroyed, unauthorised building work appearing beside people's homes, and in one Dorset stunt a woman named Janet Elford convinced that aliens had landed in her garden. At its peak it drew around 15 million viewers. It ran until 1996 and made Beadle one of the most recognised and most disliked faces on British television.