The former resident comic at the ('we never closed') Windmill Theatre in London, Alfred Marks was given his own series soon after ITV started up - typically for the time, it ran with regular irregularity.

Some music was included in Alfred Marks Time but the shows chiefly comprised sketches, including send-ups of popular movies and TV programmes. These were effected within the framework of a fictitious TV station, Channel 24, perhaps the most memorable parody being of the ITV courtroom drama Boyd QC in which Dulcie Gray (the actress wife of Michael Denison, who played Boyd) came along to help out. Marks' own wife, Paddie O'Neil, appeared alongside her husband, and each programme (until the later editions) was introduced, in best barking fashion, by the uniformed former Regimental Sergeant-Major Ronald Brittain.


Three of the series were produced for ITV by the impresario Jack Hylton, and some of these were tele-recorded on Marks' home patch: the East End of London, on stage at the Hackney Empire. Hylton's involvement also saw writers Dick Vosburgh and Brad Ashton adapting sketches originally used in the USA by Sid Caesar, to which he had bought the UK rights. The 37 programmes also featured occasional guest appearances, by the likes of Spike Milligan, Sydney Tafler, Max Wall, Irene Handl and other leading comic contemporaries.