Peter Crouch: Save Our Summer arrived on 6 June 2020 as the BBC’s answer to a cancelled sporting calendar, dumping the Euro 2020 playbook in favour of eight weeks of socially distanced chaos in a BBC studio. Former England striker Peter Crouch, presenter Maya Jama and Taskmaster bandleader Alex Horne fronted the show, with Horne’s house band supplying the theme and the musical punchlines.
Each episode parodied the summer we’d lost: VAR became “very accurate rhythm” as Crouch conducted a orchestra while keepie-upping; musicians from Nadine Shah to Liam Gallagher swapped festival stages for a suburban garden set; and the closing number saluted lockdown heroes like bin-men and supermarket staff. Guests, beamed in or spaced two metres apart, included Jürgen Klopp, Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish and a surprisingly game Gareth Southgate, all coaxed into daft sketches that rarely mentioned actual football.
The series ran until 25 July 2020, drew respectable Saturday-night numbers and was quietly recommissioned a year later as Crouchy’s Year-Late Euros: Live, finally slotting into the Euro 2020 slot it had been designed for. The original eight episodes remain a time capsule of British broadcasting improvising its way through a pandemic summer.
Production Details
BBC One / 1 Season / 8 Episodes / 2020
Main Cast
