Frost? Pranks and Politics
IT, 92, Nov 20-3 Dec 1970, p.3

JERRY RUBIN, arch-exponent of media manipulation, arrived in Britain in November 5th with fellow Yippies Stew Alpert & Brian Flanagan. He was here for talks with the British underground press & various active revolutionary groups with the object of forming a closer relationship between Yippie and the British groups.

The first target was the Saturday night recording of the Frost Show - the prime example of plastic, personality-cult, narcotic TV. Jerry had 14 tickets, which were distributed among the luminaries of the British underground at a pre-show meeting to discuss tactics.

Among the props - water pistols, toy guns, smoke flares etc. - Richard Neville, Stan Demidjuk, Mick Farren, Paul Lewis, Steve Mann, Caroline Coon, Felix Dennis, John Kirk, Cliff Evans, Alan Marcuson, General Waste-more-land, Bruce Birchall, Andi, John Mattews, Tom Fawthrop, Boss & dozens more planned the strategy of getting people without tickets into the studio.

The plan worked: most everybody managed to get in &, as the papers had it, Frost was destroyed & the public outraged. The dialogue was absurd - Frost asking for logical expositions of the alternative culture, while the freaks smoked dope and cavorted.

The freakout was terminated with a commercial break at which time Frost and Robert Ardrey hurried to a ready prepared studio and began the second half of the show while floor-manager Geoffrey hustled the freaks out of the studio.
When police arrived in the car park, the previously well-arranged situation developed into a shambles as some of the underground superstars abadoned their transport and disappeared into the night. The breakdown in organisation could have proved disastrous but for the pigs being distracted while Jerry, Stew and Brian split. Uniformed police and detectives searched the people left in the car park.

By midnight Frost had regained his composure enough to issue a statement to the effect that the evening's events were all part and parcel of live television.

Jerry reckoned it was the best use of media he'd ever been involved in, & confusion was spread further by British yippie allegations that it was a Frost publicity stunt. Evidence points to the fact that London Weekend expected something to happen - the spare studio was together and the guy who babbled on about the Cenotaph was wearing make-up. But they certainly didn't expect this. Newspaper coverage was ridiculous - front page of all the dailies - & the whole caper achieved its aims.

On Tuesday, Jerry & friends like IT, OZ, Friends, T VX and the Claimants Union met the press at the ICA to mumble about the formation of British Yippie. Again it freaked out the press who expected to talk to Rubin alone.

Wednesday Jerry split for Belfast, & after stating his solidarity with the Irish revolutionaries, openly defied a home office ban on his staying more than 7 days. On Friday some hours after his visa ran out, he was arrested by Special Branch detectives under the Aliens Act 1953, flown back to Britain and deported.

A postscript was provided the following Saturday when, in an open debate between Frost and his audience, Germaine Greer took pains to explain how 'they' were not really dangerous.

It was learned during the week that Special Branch men had requested a special re-run of Frost Show tapes.