The Forgotten World of British Children's TV - Vol. 5

November 24, 2018, 1:03 pm

≫ Next: British TV Comedies You Can't Remember - Vol. 1

≪ Previous: The Forgotten World of British Children's TV - Vol. 4

$

0

0

You may have thought my odyssey through the murky world of British children's TV would be taking a break for the weekend, but there's no better time to sit back and reminisce about those shows you can barely remember. Or, depending on your age, you probably haven't even heard of. However, every day's a school day and all that jazz, so let's take a look at the latest batch of shows that I think are worthy of peering through the mists of time at.

Elephant’s Eggs in a Rhubarb Tree – ITV – 1971

Music, poetry and downright nonsense are the order of the day in Elephant’s Eggs in a Rhubarb Tree, a children’s show which promises to bring the writings of T.S. Eliot, Spike Milligan, Michael Palin and Hilaire Belloc to the attention of the young audience. Presented by Richard Beckinsale, the rather rotund Paul Whitsun-Jones, all six foot three of David Rowlands, the piano playing John Gould and, finally, the main singer Ann Beach, Elephant’s Eggs in a Rhubarb Tree is even more barmy than its constituent parts sound. Expect limericks about a young man from Bengal falling foul of a dog in a hall, Richard embarking on a spot of hippo hunting and the curious sight of David in swimwear and flippers perched atop an elephant emblazoned piano being played by John.

Compiled by Ian Davidson (The Two Ronnies, French Fields, Sorry!), six episodes of Elephant’s Eggs in a Rhubarb Tree were produced by Thames Television with Pamela Lonsdale (the creator of Rainbow) acting as the series’ producer with Robert Reed directing. The 25-minute episodes were aired on ITV in a 5.10pm slot on Mondays. Elephant's Eggs in a Rhubarb Tree was never repeated and all six episodes of the series are currently listed as missing from the archives.

Paperplay – ITV – 1974 to 1980

Presented by Susan Stranks of Magpie fame, Paperplay takes paper, little dabs of glue, pens and various household objects to create mini paper masterpieces. Aided by yellow, squeaking spider puppet Itsy and the orange, rasping arachnid Bitsy, Stranks digs deep down into her creative spirit to create hot air balloons, conjure up a family out of pencils, cotton reels and cotton wool as well as showing viewers how to construct a skating rink. Set against a black background, to help hide the black clad puppeteer Norman Beardsley, Paperplay is also home to a number of other occasional puppets such as Cardew the caterpillar, Boris the ladybird and Katie the bird.

Taking budgetary restrictions and making a show that effectively makes them the centrepiece, Paperplay provides plenty of paper based fun for children to get involved with. While Paperplay certainly can't be classed as a riveting watch, there’s enough variety and creativity on offer to temporarily pique the interest of an errant, young mind. The 15-minute episodes of Paperplay were produced by Thames Television for ITV and ran as part of the lunchtime ITV schedule over the course of eight series. Paperplay was the brainchild of Susan Stranks who presented the entire series with Vic Hughes (Spooky, Chocky, The Tomorrow People) producing the first series and Charles Warren (Wonders in Letterland, Button Moon, C.A.B.) taking over the rest of the run. Repeats of Paperplay aired until mid-1981.

The Witches and the Grinnygog – ITV – 1983

During the dismantling of the church of St Cuthbert, a stone idol which dates back to pre-Christian times is found hidden amongst the stones. Known as a Grinnygog, it has remained hidden there since the 17th century when it’s three guardians – a trio of white witches – were the focus of an angry witch hunt. Following the disturbance to the Grinnygog’s surroundings, these three white witches awaken from their rest in the marshes. Finding the church dismantled and gone, the three witches – Miss Bendybones (Patricia Hayes), Mrs Ems (Sheila Grant) and Edie Possett (Anna Wing) – go in search of their Grinnygog.

The sudden appearance in the village of the three witches, however, doesn’t go completely unnoticed and five childen begin to pay a keen interest.  The three Firkettle children – Jimmy (Paul Curtis), Dave (Adam Woodyatt) and Essie (Zoe Loftin) – are particularly intrigued, especially given that it was their mother (Jane Wood) who discovered the Grinnygog. The Firkettles are joined in their curiosity by the Sogood siblings Colin (Giles Harper) and Nan (Heidi Mayo) who, along with the Firkettles, are in the process of setting up a parish museum. Matters become even stranger with the arrival of African witchdoctor Twebele Alabaster (Olu Jacobs) who appears to be an authority on Grinnygogs. And then there’s the small matter of a nervous, ghostly child who keeps appearing in the village.

Starting off with a rather creepy theme tune, The Witches and the Grinnygog isn't half as scary as you would think. Instead, it's a gentle supernatural drama which finds the romantic idylls of a British village seeping from its every pore. And, in amongst the rather wooden child acting, we get to see the young Adam Woodyatt strutting around and clearly destined for bigger things. The Witches and the Grinnygog was a 1983 TVS production based upon the 1981 novel of the same name by Dorothy Edwards. Transmitted in a 4.45pm slot as part of Children’s ITV, six 25-minute episodes were adapted for television by Roy Russell and directed by Diarmuid Lawrence. The Witches and the Grinnygog did not receive a terrestrial repeat, but was shown on The Children’s Channel in the 1990s and also aired on Nickelodeon in the United States during the mid-1980s.

Roland’s Rat Race – BBC1 – 1988 to 1989

Hosted by race marshal (aka question master) Roland Rat, Roland’s Rat Race is a head to head quiz show which pits two regional teams against each other. Each team is allocated to either Kevin the Gerbil or Little Reggie and, in the second series, the scores are kept by Stan (Roy Sampson) until Roland fires him and brings in Nicholas Parsons for the semi-finals onwards. Teams are made up of three members with each one bringing a specific area of knowledge to the table: one is a know all, another is a pop fan and the final member is a rat fan.

When team members are called up to go head to head in the various rounds (or laps) they take their place in racing cars and have to buzz in on questions such as “What is an albatross?”. The aim of the game is to score as many miles (points) as possible in order to progress through the initial heats and into the knockout rounds. Series two also brings in a round which involves the teams having to watch an excerpt of Roland’s spoof Sherlock Holmes serial ‘Dial R for Rat’ and answering questions on what they’ve just seen. The final round dispenses with the racing cars and, instead, features all the team members in a quickfire quiz round designed to ramp up the mileage.

The penultimate series that Roland Rat made for the BBC, Roland’s Rat Race is an uneventful, yet harmless quiz show which provided Roland with plenty of chances to deliver his trademark wisecracks. As ever, Roland was operated by David Claridge who also co-wrote the episodes. Two series of Roland’s Rat Race were produced with the first series containing 16 episodes and the second series having a reduced run of just eight episodes. Both series went out on Saturday mornings at 8.40am with neither of them receiving a repeat airing. Roland’s final series for the BBC, following this one, was directly inspired by the ‘Dial R for Rat’ sections and went out as Tales of the Rodent Sherlock Holmes in 1990.

Stoppit and Tidyup – BBC1 – 1988

In the land of Do As You’re Told, there lives the short, red ball of fluff Stoppit and his good friend Tidyup who is much taller with a purple rotund body, long head and a necktie to complete his look. Within the world of Do As You’re Told, which is packed full of rubbish, giant gherkins and fauna, Stoppit and Tidyup are joined by a motley crew of characters named after the kinds of instructions frequently barked at children by parents: BeeHave and BeeQuiet, Don’t Do That, I Said No and Eat Your Greens. As all the characters are only able to communicate in an unintelligible jibber-jabber, Terry Wogan is on hand to provide narration. Narratives awaiting our characters include Tidyup catching Naughtypox, I Said No and Not Now stealing everyone’s gherkins and Go To Bed desperately searching for a quiet place to sleep.

Stoppit and Tidyup is a gloriously surreal children’s animation which would bamboozle any non-native watching it for the first time. Packed full of Rubenesque bees and dirty little critters, Stoppit and Tidyup truly lets its imagination and designs off its creative leash with a series of unconventional and abstract adventures. Stoppit and Tidyup was created by Charles Mills and Terry Brain who had previously created The Trap Door, ITV’s legendary tale of monstrous goings-ons. Mills and Brain also wrote the 13 5-minute episodes alongside Steve Box who would later work extensively for Aardman Animations. Episodes originally aired as part of the Children’s BBC schedule and were broadcast at 3.50pm on Monday afternoons. Repeats of the series continued up until 1995.

That's it for now, but the good news is that I'm heading to the BFI Viewing Rooms to watch several highly obscure shows to help boost the oddity quota of future editions of The Forgotten World of British Children's TV.

---

British TV Comedies You Can't Remember - Vol. 1

November 26, 2018, 10:46 am

≫ Next: The Forgotten World of British Children's TV - Vol. 6

≪ Previous: The Forgotten World of British Children's TV - Vol. 5

$

0

0

Having not covered enough curiously forgotten comedies in the last year, I've decided to start up a regular series of articles that will take bitesize looks at little known British TV comedies. After all, we clearly get the point that Only Fools and Horses, Blackadder, The Office and Red Dwarf are fantastic, in fact it's almost impossible to avoid them unless you haven't turned on a television set in the last 30 years. Naturally, I'm more than happy to sit through endless repeats of these genius creations, but I'm equally as interested in their comedy peers who failed to make the grade. And it's these shows which will be making up the bulk of British TV Comedies You Can't Remember.

Oh Happy Band! - BBC1 - 1980

Down in the Northern village of Nettlebridge, Harry (Harry Worth) is the conductor of the local brass band where he has to contend with his aging bandmates' rheumatism and the authoritative demands of the tea-ladies who man the village hall. A more pressing concern, however, is the proposed building of a local airport which threatens to change the face of Nettlebridge. Mounting a campaign to save Nettlebridge, Harry and his ensemble form the Anti Airport Committee in order to put a stop the building of the airport.

Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft certainly know a thing or two about writing sitcoms, so it should come as no surprise that Oh Happy Band! is packed full of fantastic dialogue and recognisable characters. There's a Dad's Army vibe about the series what with it featuring an aging band of muddlesome chaps taking on the enemy, but it never really clicks as the characters aren't quite strong enough.

However, whilst it's not an amazing sitcom there are plenty of laughs and it's a decent enough watch for the sitcom connoisseur. Six 30-minute episodes of Oh Happy Band! were written by Lloyd and Croft with the episodes being transmitted on BBC2 at 8.30pm on Wednesdays. Croft also found himself backing up his writing credit by sitting in the director's chair for the series. The musical sections were provided by the Aldershot Brass Ensemble.

L for Lester - BBC2 - 1982

Lester Small (Brian Murphy) runs a driving school in a small West Country town and, unfortunately for said town and its residents, he's as accident prone as his learner drivers. Perpetually plagued by the inability of his student Mrs Davies (Hilda Braid) who is involved in at least two explosions whilst driving with Lester, teaching three point turns isn't straightforward for Lester.

Luckily, Mr Davies (Richard Vernon) is the local bank manager and is more than happy to continue bankrolling Lester's business. The reasons for this are twofold: it not only saves Mr Davies the hassle of teaching his wife to drive, but Lester's disastrous antics also keep local businesses such as panel beaters and 'get well soon' card manufacturers afloat. At home, meanwhile, Lester has to contend with the seemingly constant presence of milkman Bert (Colin Spaull) who is frequently popping round to visit Lester's wife Sally (Amanda Barrie).

L for Lester is far from memorable, but it's an amiable enough sitcom and Brian Murphy (who is essentially playing Brian Murphy) brings a touch of comic class to the proceedings. The narratives contained within are standard sitcom fare with a bit of farce thrown in to boot, but the laughs are perhaps a little too gentle and can often be seen coming a mile off. Still, it's worth watching a couple of episodes if you're looking for a no-hassle trad-sitcom. The series was written by Dudley Long and consisted of six 30-minute episodes which went out on BBC2 in a 9pm timeslot.

Dream Stuffing - Channel 4 - 1984

Jude (Rachel Weaver) and Mo (Amanda Symonds) live in the grimy surroundings of 76 Riverside Terrace, a poky high rise flat with expansive views of London. And, for these two twenty-something girls, life is never easy. Clad in a never ending procession of outfits which seem to swing wildly between punk and new romantic, Jude is a thorn in the side of the DHSS and permanently unemployed. Constantly being dragged into Jude's schemes is the more conservatively dressed Mo. Starting off in the employment of Seymours Ocular Aids, Mo soon finds herself queuing up at the DHSS as she struggles to either receive her giro or find gainful employment.

Life is never easy for the characters with the launderette owned by Mo's mother May (Maria Charles) seeming to come off worst, six of her washing machines are stolen in one episode while Mo and Jude taking temporary charge in another episode and run it into the ground. Away from the launderette, their fortunes don’t fare much better with Jude’s ridiculous scheme to convince the DHSS that she’s pregnant being a case in point. There’s also time for relationships, but again, the girls stumble here with Jude dating a complete drip and Mo finding out that her man is seeing their gay neighbour Richard  (Ray Burdis) on the side.

The epitome of early Channel 4 programming, Dream Stuffing takes a wry look at life in the seemingly endless dole queue of Thatcher's Britain and boasts some fine comic performances. The scripts, however, are a mixed bag and often fizzle out due to their slow narratives. Dream Stuffing only aired for one series, but managed to put in an extended run of 10 episodes which went out at 9pm on Friday evenings on Channel 4. Hammering out the scripts for Dream Stuffing were Paul Hines and Su Wilkins while their words were brought to life by director John Kaye Cooper. Kirsty McColl provided the theme tune.

Dead at 30 - Channel 4 - 1992

Tim (Mark Williams) has a number of problems with the busy flat that he lives in. The first is an invasion of ants that he seems unable to stem, no matter how many of the little buggers he flattens with a mallet. Secondly, he shares his flat with a disparate bunch of individuals. Lou (Lou Curram) has a little black book full of an endless stream of men's numbers that runs concurrently with an equally long list of failed relationships. Nick (Jesse Birdsall) is a childlike adult with a penchant for the flashy lights of video games and a fashion sense which is equally garish. Compton (Paterson Joseph), meanwhile, markets himself as a hard working professional, but easily falls under the spell of Nick's video games within seconds.

Flat share comedies were rather ubiquitous in the 1990s and, compared to series such as Game On and Men Behaving Badly, it's not unfair to say that Dead at 30 fails to match these. However, whilst the characters in Dead at 30 feel a little loose and caricatured, it's only a pilot episode and, given the writers involved, you do begin to wonder if it could have blossomed into something a little more special. Those writers, of course, were the comedy geniuses known as Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson. Within two years, The Fast Show would land and become one of the major comedies of the 1990s, so Whitehouse and Higson didn't do too bad. Dead at 30 was part of the Bunch of Five comedy pilot series which also included pilots for Frank Skinner's Blue Heaven and Vic and Bob's The Weekenders.

That's it for the first edition of British TV Comedies You Can't Remember, but, as ever, your suggestions for future inclusions are more than welcome. And, if you think the shows featured above should be even more highly regarded then let me know in the comments below!

The Forgotten World of British Children's TV - Vol. 6

December 1, 2018, 5:14 am

≫ Next: British TV Comedies You Can't Remember - Vol. 2

≪ Previous: British TV Comedies You Can't Remember - Vol. 1

$

0

0

December is finally here, so it's time to get the season of Advent off to a start with another batch of forgotten British children's TV shows. I headed off to the BFI yesterday to watch several shows that I simply couldn't track down anywhere else and the first of these shows features in today's article. And, to help celebrate the start of the year's most festive month, I've even gone and included a Christmas special in today's offerings. I'm practically Father Christmas.

Little Blue – ITV – 1977 to 1980

Following a rather curious accident where he broke a fountain pen in his bath and became permanently dyed blue, Little Blue is an elephant for whom fitting in is always going to be difficult. Living in Meadow Cottages with his mother Mrs Jellybun, Little Blue attends the local school with his human friends Kipper Guppy and Agatha where they are taught by the kindly Mrs Gittings who struggles to pronounce her R’s properly. Whilst busy ignoring the light ribbing provided by fellow pupil Geoffrey West, Little Blue investigates a robbery at Maythorne Manor, takes a holiday to Switzerland and even finds time to fly to the moon in a cardboard box in order to improve his creative writing.

Created by husband and wife duo Harold and Ivy Purcell, Little Blue was an animated series produced by Yorkshire Television that found itself lighting up, albeit very gently, the lunchtime ITV schedule. Three series of Little Blue were broadcast with the 10-minute episodes being  rather splendidly animated by Digby Turpin and produced by long term Yorkshire Television producer Joy Whitby. The first series of Little Blue was narrated by Harold Purcell but, following his death in 1977, the narration duties were taken over by John Kidd. Harold Purcell’s sudden passing also meant that Ivy Purcell was joined on writing duties for the final two series by Simon Purcell. A series of books based on the series were released by Springwood Books in 1980.

The Roger the Dog Show - BBC - 1983

Ward Allen and his puppet dog Roger are the hosts of the ventriloquist spectacular entitled The Roger the Dog Show. It's not purely Ward and Roger on presenting duties though as they're also helped by fellow ventriloquist Ken Wood and his puppets Robertson the Pig and Jim the Chimp.

Prizing gags higher than anything else in the known universe, Ward, Roger et al strive to deliver punchlines through a mixture of studio banter and sketches such as Roger being served food in a French cafe and denying that he's a foreigner as he is, in fact, English. Bringing a variety feel to the proceedings is the inclusion of The Chucklehounds who feature in short, interstitials where their silent, clownish pratfalls are played out against a variety of soundtracks.

There's an air of a family theatre show to The Roger the Dog Show and it comes as no surprise that Ward Allen and Ken Wood had both spent extensive stints in the world of family theatre before The Roger the Dog Show. Unfortunately, it's an act which loses the convivial atmosphere of the theatre when translated to television and this proves to be a major stumbling block. Ward Allen and Ken Wood are both talented ventriloquists and can command an audience, but the material required for TV needs to very strong to capture such a huge audience at home. The gags featured throughout The Roger the Dog Show are incredibly corny and, sometimes, as far removed from hilarity as you can imagine. Even the Chucklehounds routines fall flat and if anyone knows how to entertain children it's the Chuckle Brothers.

Five episodes of The Roger the Dog Show were transmitted in 1983 on Tuesdays at 4.35pm as part of the late afternoon children's slot on BBC1. The series was produced by Martin Hughes who would later go on to produce The Chucklehounds, Chucklevision and On the Waterfront. There were no repeat airings of The Roger the Dog Show and Ward Allen and Ken Wood soon returned to the theatre circuit with only a smattering of television credits to follow for either performer.

Data Run – ITV – 1983 to 1984

Hosted by Edwina Laurie (yes, Lulu’s sister) and her computer colleague Edwin, Data Run is a show which mixes current affairs (for children at least) with competitions, pop stars and sportspeople. A typical Saturday morning’s content can, therefore, include a quick trip round the 1984 Toy Fair, a look at the wildlife of Whipsnade Zoo, the results of the ‘If I Were Prime Minister’ competition, the curious sight of schoolchildren interviewing Morrissey and Marr whilst Sharron Davies is on hand to discuss swimming.

Blessed with a wonderful synth theme tune provided by Yazoo, Data Run ensured that Saturday mornings (on ITV at least) started with a plethora of absorbing features for children who had got up early. There’s not really anything to differentiate it from its peers (and it would later be overshadowed by the Wide Awake Club in the same slot), but the content is strong enough and Edwina Laurie makes for a likable presenter. Appearing as the final part of TV-am’s Saturday morning schedule, Data Run episodes aired at 8.40am and were 45 minutes long.

Roland’s Yuletide Binge – BBC1 – 1985

Following his high profile move from ITV, Roland Rat is looking forward to presenting his first TV show for the BBC. However, he’s overslept and wakes up just as his live spectacular is about to start. Hitching a ride on a milkfloat – the Ratmobile is blocked in – Roland and Kevin the Gerbil make their way to Television Centre. After taking the scenic route through London, Roland and Kevin arrive at Television Centre and make a start on finding the studio they’re supposed to be in. Along the way they meet a number of stars such as Jan Leeming, Frankie Howerd, Beryl Reid, The Queen and the new head of light entertainment Darcey de Farcey (James Saxon).

Roland’s Yuletide Binge finds Roland Rat at the peak of his powers and provides him with a perfect debut on the BBC. Roland’s furry attitude is at full throttle throughout this Christmas special and the special guests are practically falling over themselves for hilarious tête-à-têtes. A one-off 25 minute special, Roland’s Yuletide Binge aired on the morning of Christmas Day 1985 on BBC1. Roland, as ever, was operated by his creator David Claridge who also co-wrote the Christmas special alongside Richard Curtis (yes, he of Blackadder, The Vicar of Dibley and Four Weddings and a Funeral). Directing the rodent spectacular was Tony Newman who also directed The Keith Harris Show, Blankety Blank and Crackerjack.

The Ratties – ITV – 1988

Behind a skirting board, within a picturesque, pink cottage live a collection of rats known as the Ratties. Tatty is scared of crossing the road, so tries to overcome this fear by operating a road drill. Baby Batty is a precocious marvel who can complete The Times crossword in less than 10 seconds. The Fatty Brothers are mischievous tykes who take great pleasure in putting Uncle Matty through a series of terrifying ordeals. Finally, Aunt Hatty, when she’s not busy cleaning, dreams of becoming of becoming as glamorous as a queen. Spike Milligan narrates their manic, animated adventures which take place in alpine retreats, the Wild West and, of course, behind the skirting board.

With Spike Milligan's imagination biting at the leash, The Ratties is a rollercoaster ride of wisecracks (some at the expense of Harry Secombe) and contains plenty of smirks for not just children, but any adults watching. Episodes can, however, become increasingly manic to the point where they lose almost all meaning, so only one or two episodes at a time are recommended. While Spike Milligan narrated The Ratties, with a high proportion of this narration ad-libbed, the idea was conceived by his daughter Laura Milligan and developed with Mike Wallis. 26 5-minute episodes were produced by Ratties Ltd for Central Television with the episodes being broadcast as part of Children’s ITV in a daily 4.10pm slot between Monday and Thursday. The series was repeated up until 1993.

And, with that, it's time to close The Forgotten World of British Children's TV once more and retun the to the modern world. However, to provide a further respite from the 21st century, feel free to leave a comment regarding any of the above shows or any suggestions for future editions.

British TV Comedies You Can't Remember - Vol. 2

December 2, 2018, 2:06 am

≫ Next: The Forgotten World of British Children's TV - Vol. 7

≪ Previous: The Forgotten World of British Children's TV - Vol. 6

$

0

0

Welcome to the latest edition of British TV Comedies You Can't Remember where my nefarious aim is to get you scratching your head at the lack of recognition on offer. Maybe these comedies are forgotten for good reason, perhaps they're tied up in complex rights issues or, most worryingly, maybe most people can move on with their lives and leave the past behind. As you know by now, I can't leave the past behind as I think it's a crying shame that so much British culture should be left languishing in the dusty recesses of our memories, no matter how dreadful it may be. Anyway, let's get started...

Poor Little Rich Girls - ITV - 1984

Coming from wealthy stock, cousins Kate Codd (Maria Aitken) and Daisy Troop (Jill Bennett) have experienced less luck when it comes to the currency of romance. Kate has had two previous marriages that have both ended in divorce and she now finds herself 'slumming' it in a basement flat in Manchester with her pet snake Sidney. Luckily for Kate, the theatre loving handyman Dave Roberts (Richard Walker) lives nearby and is happy to undertake various jobs around the flat for her. Daisy, meanwhile, has entered into the institution of marriage three times and, rather unluckily, has been widowed thrice with her latest husband Gerald being trampled to death by a giraffe.

Despite not having seen each other for many years, Kate invites Daisy to move into her flat while she finds her feet following Gerald's demise. Both Kate and Daisy are used to being kept women and they dream of meeting another husband to restore this status quo, Kate after all is rather horrified at the prospect of getting a job and Daisy bemoans her loss of first class airline travel. Kate regularly has to contend with her most recent husband Larry (Lewis Flander) still being present in her life, Daisy moves a peculiar set of furniture into the flat from the Far East that prompts a series of visits from stran visitors and Kate's mother Lady Harriet (Joan Hickson) takes a trip to the theatre with a European prince.

Poor Little Rich Girls is well acted, but the narratives themselves are a little sitcom-by-numbers and the characters' plights are hardly drenched in relatable empathy. Curiously, despite clearly being a trad sitcom and the characters even appearing to pause for laughs, there's no laughter track. The series was written by Charles Laurence who cashes in with some nice gags and dialogue about upmarket relationships. The actual idea behind Poor Little Rich Girls, however, was apparently devised by Aitken and Bennett who were personal friends. The seven 25-minute episodes were produced by Granada and aired on Thursday evenings on ITV at 9pm.

Little Armadillos - Channel 4 - 1984

Wayne (Steve Steen) and Donny Armadillo (Jim Sweeney) run The Seal Club, a seedy nightclub down by the docks that often requires the installation of dummies to cultivate a sense of popularity. Despite the lack of punters through the doors, The Seal Club manages to drum up plenty of business in the form of surreal chaos.

Fashionista pop star turned performer of the dark arts Steve Devious (Daniel Peacock) celebrates his birthday at the club, but turns up with a vengeance seeking warlock hot on his heels. A washed up soap star from the 1960s finds himself propping up the bar in his new role as a backstreet abortionist who performs a disastrous nose job on the "elastic hip songster" Zipmole Watkins (Daniel Peakcock). And there's also time for Wayne and Donny to attempt an armed robbery at the Bank of Borneo.

In amongst the main plotlines, there's also time for numerous spoofs and parodies of contemporary television such as TV-am and It'll Be Alright on the Night. These interstitial sections often pop up on the television set in The Seal Club, but sometimes they help frame the main narrative such as the two security guards (Stephen Frost and Mark Arden) watching the Armadillo brothers' armed robbery on CCTV. Little Armadillos is also keen to keep the variety flowing by introducing musical numbers provided by doo-wop girl group The Flatlettes.

Gloriously anarchic, with a healthy dose of surrealism mainlined into its veins, Little Armadillos is curiously forgotten in the annals of British comedy despite featuring Helen Lederer, Phil Nice, Stephen Frost and Mark Arden alongside Steen and Sweeney. Little Armadillos isn't quite as unhinged as The Young Ones, but it shares its DNA for being sidesplittingly funny thanks to its sheer variety of comedy be it spoofs of Gandhi, visual gags featuring bailiff Arthur in a quick succession of disguises or even good old fashioned violence being dished out towards Wayne by Donny.

Little Armadillos was written by Pete Richens and Colin Gibson with Richard Fiddy and Mark Wallington pitching in with additional material. The six 25-minute episodes were produced and directed by Bob Spiers who had previously worked on such legendary comedy shows as Dad's Army, The Goodies and Are You Being Served? Little Armadillos aired on Thursday evenings in a late time slot of 11.20pm. The series received no repeats and, in conjunction with its late scheduling, explains why it's one of the lesser known comedic gems lurking out there.

Dogfood Dan and the Carmarthen Cowboy - BBC2 - 1988

Better known as the Carmarthen Cowboy, Aubrey Owen (Peter Blake) is a long distance lorry driver who works for Doggy Dins and delivers dog food from Carmarthen to Hull. He's also rather keen on becoming a Mastermind contestant and claims to be irresistible to women. Dogfood Dan, meanwhile, was born Dan Milton and delivers dog food from Hull to Carmarthen on behalf of Bona Fido. His main hobby appears to be supping ale with his mates and he's a self professed amateur when it comes to charming women. Meeting up once a week in a trucker's cafe, Aubrey and Dan muse over trucking, dog food and women.

And it's their pursuit of casual, hassle free relationships which will soon become the centrepiece of their weekly chats. Whilst staying overnight in Hull, Aubrey passes himself off as a visiting Labour MP and woos Helen (Elizabeth Mickery) who confesses that, much like Aubrey, she is married. And, whilst he's working in Carmarthen, Dan claims to be a transporter of 'abnormal loads' while romancing Myfanwy (Arbel Jones), who, much like Dan, is also married. Aubrey and Dan regularly discuss their new found loves (and exaggerate the extent of their relationships) during their roadside chats, but little do they know that they're conducting affairs with each other's wife.

Episodes of Dogfood Dan and the Carmarthen Cowboy take on a rather formulaic structure, but thankfully they don't descend into a mundane slog. And this is all thanks to David Nobbs' witty and engaging scripts which cleverly look at the inner workings of relationships. The concept, of course, couldn't have been sustained much further, but Dogfood Dan is an entertaining watch which never outstays its welcome and is bolstered by a cast which do it justice.

Dogfood Dan started off life as a one-off production in the ITV Playhouse series back in 1982 which was written by David Nobbs, but featured a completely different cast. Eventually airing as a six episode series, Dogfood Dan went out on BBC2 in a 9pm slot on Thursdays and was not granted any repeat airings..The series was produced and directed by Alan J.W. Bell who is best known for directing Last of the Summer Wine and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

A Touch of Spice - BBC1 - 1989

Commis chef Victoria (Julia Watson) and nutritionist-turned-waitress Dawn (Natalie Ogle) not only work together at fine dining eatery Quasimodo's, but also share a flat. Unfortunately, they also share a tendency to catch the attention of Fred Ponsonby, a chef with wandering hands. With life at Quasimodo's pushing them both to their breaking points, Victoria and Dawn decide that it's time to strike out on their own with a catering company that they christen A Touch of Spice. However, the two girls soon find that running A Touch of Spice is far from straightforward. And that's not even taking into account the fact that they have a resident mouse named Godzilla in their kitchen.

Each catering job that A Touch of Spice take on seems to become more disastrous the closer they get to serving the starters. Victoria's banking boyfriend Clive (Martin Jacobs) brings them their first client when he needs a lunch at short notice for one of his most important clients, but it turns out this is the vegetarian owner of Quasimodo's. A rather wealthy couple - who are friend's with Victoria's spendaholic mother Helen (Virginia Stride) - request A Touch of Spice's services for a dinner party where Dawn potentially kills the couple's dog. And, whilst catering for a local Darby and Joan club, Dawn decides to gamble what little remains of A Touch of Spice's ailing finances on a hot racing tip from her uncle.

The concept behind A Touch of Spice is a little limited and perhaps the characters aren't quite intricate enough to fully engage the audience, but it's far from poor. Julia Watson and Natalie Ogle are both lively leads and each script manages to generate several laughs. One series was probably enough, but if you want a quick half hour of middle class laughs then A Touch of Spice can serve this up with ease. The series was written by Francis Greig with its six 30-minute episodes broadcast on BBC1 on Thursday evenings at 8.30pm. A Touch of Class was not commissioned for a second series and even a repeat airing for the series failed to materialise.

That's another edition of British TV Comedies You Can't Remember completed, so as ever, please comment below and let me know if you remember these or if you think they sound a load of old pony. Thanks for the myriad suggestions contributed for future editions. I'll try and get round to investigating them soon.

The Forgotten World of British Children's TV - Vol. 7

December 9, 2018, 8:30 am

≫ Next: British TV Comedies You Can't Remember - Vol. 3

≪ Previous: British TV Comedies You Can't Remember - Vol. 2

$

0

0

And, out of the depths of time, did many dusty, forgotten memories slowly begin to re-inhabit this cold, dreary land of reduced attention spans and endless Channel 5 docudramas. These memories, of a simpler time, have been excavated and hand polished by myself for your reading pleasure, so please give a warm welcome to the latest volume of The Forgotten World of British Children's TV.

Ring-a-Ding - BBC1 - 1973

Songs, games and stories are the order of the day in Ring-a-Ding which features Derek Griffiths in a typically sparse mid-70s studio at Television Centre, albeit one with a rather busy background of giant, colourful building blocks. Kicking off matters with a theme tune packed to the brim with bell sounds, whistling and a glorious, rhyming melody, Ring-a-Ding finds Griffiths taking on a clearly limited budget. Wrestling with the limitations imposed on him, Griffiths tells stories with little more than his hands playing various parts, digs out his guitar to sing a song before the budget stretching treat of a story with basic animations, such as The Ugly Duckling, is given centre stage.

Derek Griffiths is a legend of British children's TV and his extensive CV is testament to this lofty position. And, as ever, he's on fantastic form in Ring-a-Ding with his exceptionally personable and cheerful personality lifting a show which is clearly children's-tv-by-numbers-and-on-a-shoestring-budget. There are certainly more iconic children's TV shows, but Ring-a-Ding more than qualifies as a hidden gem of the pre-schooler genre. 13 10-minute episodes of Ring-a-Ding were produced by Peter Charlton and Cynthia Felgate, with the episodes airing as part of the Watch with Mother lunchtime slot. Episodes continued to be repeated up until 1977 on BBC1.

The Laughing Policeman - ITV - 1974 to 1976

The first series of The Laughing Policeman finds PC254 (Deryck Guyler) holding court outside R. Peels Television and Repairs shop where he dispenses wisdom on the importance of using zebra crossings, recalls the finer details of a Micky Mouse watch he had as a youngster and regales viewers with a brief rhyme about the events of his day. In between all this engaging patter, PC254 refers viewers to a television set in the TV repair shop where an assortment of colourful puppet cats, crows and foxes sing songs such as Yummy Yummy Yummy, Daughter of Darkness and One of Those Songs.

There's a change of location for the second series as PC254 now finds himself out on the beat in a residential area. Stopping by a house, where there just happens to be an old fashioned bioscope for viewing pop videos, it's business as usual for PC254 but this time he's assisted by young Adam who is perfectly placed to be warned about various dangers such as playing near train tracks.

The Laughing Policeman is a curious obscurity from deep within the history of children's TV. Deryck Guyler, of course, is superb in his role as PC254 and delivers an engaging charm as if anything else was a crime of the highest severity. And Guyler had plenty of experience in playing members of the constabulary having taken on several similar roles in the past, his casting as PC Corky Turnbull in Sykes being his most famous. However, whilst the sections featuring PC254 (and later Adam) have a gentle charm they feel completely unrelated to the bolted on music videos which feature disturbingly garish puppets. It's an odd combination and never manages to blend the show together as a whole.

Two series of 13 15-minute episodes of The Laughing Policeman were produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV, episodes aired in the lunchtime children's slot. The first series was written by Denis Gifford with Gerry Andrews taking over the script duties for the second series. The puppets featured throughout the series was provided by Roger Stevenson's jokingly titled Bow Street Puppets. The Laughing Policeman failed to receive any repeats and has been unseen on British screens since its initial broadcast.

Alias the Jester – ITV – 1985 to 1986

Travelling through space and time, Alias (Richard Briers) finds a huge spanner being thrown in the works when his spaceship becomes trapped in the Earth’s magnetic field and begins to malfunction. With his ship crashing down to Earth, Alias finds himself (and his green, dog-like pet Boswell) stranded in Houghton Bottoms, a medieval kingdom ruled by King Arthur (Brian Trueman) and Queen Edith.

Alias soon makes friends with the befuddled magician Meredith (Brian Wilde) who is trying to summon a Red Knight and is overjoyed when Alias appears out of nowhere. Alias, however, has a pair of feathers upon his head that allows him to fly and Meredith worries that this will draw attention to his extra-terrestrial origins, so disguises them with a jester’s hat. Episodes find Alias, Meredith and Boswell taking on the slimy monster known as the Black Najjer, attempting to rescue Princess Amaranth from the Beast and dealing with an airship full of Vikings.

A lesser known instalment from those masters of animation at Cosgrove Hall, Alias the Jester isn’t as hilarious as Count Duckula and lacks the intense charm of Wind in the Willows, but, frankly, very little television matches this. Instead, Alias the Jester is a harmless affair than contains just enough entertainment and, thanks to the superb voice work on offer, never outstays its welcome. Written by Brian Trueman, Alias the Jester consisted of 13 10-minute episodes which were produced by Cosgrove Hall for Thames Television. The original run of the series came as part of the Children’s ITV schedule with episodes airing in a 5pm slot. Episodes were repeated up until 1987.

Panic Station – ITV – 1987 to 1988

Piers Blister (Richard Coombs) is the bumbling Minister for Science who, when he isn’t under the domineering eye of his mother Lady Blister (Francis Wright), has a secret lab deep beneath the ministry in an abandoned tube station where a crack team investigate various scientific practices. Human hosts Terri (Liz Campion), Lavinia Jayne (Daphne Waring) and Lester (Michael Buffong) work alongside the genius puppet Professor Shackleton (Kevin Bradshaw) and the investigative puppets Frog (Kevin Bradshaw) and Rat (Francis Wright). Feeding back their findings to Piers, the team tackle concepts such as polarised light, internal combustion and lung capacity with a series of experiments and trips out to the Science Museum.

Panic Station falls somewhat below the radar when it comes to late afternoon educational shows, but it’s highly entertaining with its balanced mixture of comedy and education. And it’s probably one of the few children’s TV shows to casually discuss Socratic irony, which is always a boon. 21 episodes, each running to 25 minutes, were produced by Television South across two series with the episodes written by Lucy Raby (No. 73, Motormouth) and Michael Barfield (Saturday Superstore, Spitting Image, Dennis the Menace and Gnasher Show). The puppets, which bear an uncanny resemblance to the Spitting Image puppets, were created by Chris Maughan. Panic Station was part of the Children’s ITV schedule and episodes went out at 4.50pm.

Tales of Aesop – BBC1 – 1990

Tales of Aesop, not surprisingly, is based upon the tales of the ancient Greek storyteller Aesop. However, whilst his original fables were set in the world of ancient Greece, Tales of Aesop transports his perennial morals and teachings into the modern world. And it’s a modern world populated by wooden hand puppets of various animals including Geraldine Donkey, Cedric Tortoise, Joshua Goat, Hubert Hare, Ferdie Fox and Boris the Lion. In between mowing lawns, going camping and dancing at the local carnival, these anthropomorphic chaps and chappettes find themselves acting out some of Aesop’s most famous tales such as The Hare and the Tortoise, The Town Mouse and The Country Mouse and Cry Wolf. All of these fables are narrated by Tom Baker.

There’s no such thing as bad Tom Baker, so Tales of Aesop gets off to a good start with his rich, trademark tones guiding the action. The puppets involved in these retellings have a simple, but cute allure and the sets they’re brought to life in are nicely detailed. And you can’t really go wrong with Aesop’s fables when it comes to dispensing life advice. There’s not really anything new in Tales of Aesop, but it’s a pleasant enough watch for young children. 13 five-minute episodes of Tales of Aesop were produced by Matrix Productions with the series going out on BBC2 in the Friday 1.20pm slot. Episodes of Tales of Aesop were regularly repeated in the early morning and lunchtime slots up until March 2000.

Look out for future editions of The Forgotten World of British Children's TV and, if you've got any questions, feel free to get in touch through the comments below. And, as ever, suggestions for future editions are gladly welcomed.

British TV Comedies You Can't Remember - Vol. 3

December 17, 2018, 12:26 pm

≫ Next: The Forgotten World of British Children's TV - Vol. 8

≪ Previous: The Forgotten World of British Children's TV - Vol. 7

$

0

0

In the pursuit of obscure, forgotten and downright bizzare British comedies, I've spent the last week or so laughing and scratching my head at some real gems hidden in the dusty corners of British television's past. In this edition of British TV Comedies You Can't Remember, we've got sitcom greats in their final TV series, a Doctor Who at the peak of his early 80s powers and a standup that you're unlikely to see starring in his own TV show anytime soon...

Grundy - ITV - 1980

Sanctimonious newsagent Leonard Grundy (Harry H Corbett) has finally had his marriage dissolved in the high court, but it would appear that his troubles are only just beginning. With his wife leaving him for bed salesman Burt Loomis, Grundy almost immediately finds himself caught up in a friendship with the sultry and flirty Beryl Loomis (Lynda Baron) who has recently been divorced from, you guessed it, bed salesman Burt Loomis. Although it's a relationship which is purely platonic - music to Grundy's respectable and upstanding ears - the situation between Grundy's daughter Sharon (Julie Dawn Cole) and Beryl's son Murray (David Janson) is much more physical.

In his final transmitted TV role, Corbett is on great form as is his opposite lead Lynda Baron. Comic actors of the highest order, both Corbett and Baron pull out every trick from the extensive repertoire of tricks to summon up fantastic performances. Letting the side down, though, are the scripts which are a little too heavy on two handers where any action served up is of a meagre portion, so episodes feel slow and leaden. Naturally, Corbett's untimely death - he suffered a coronary after recording the first episode meant that Grundy was limited to one series of six episodes which aired on ITV in 1980 on ITV. Written by Ken Hoare (Begger My Neighbour, Turnbull's Finest Half Hour), the episodes managed to achieve viewing figures of between 9 to 12 million over the course of the run.

Holding the Fort - ITV - 1980 to 1982

Russell Milburn (Peter Davison) is an executive at his local brewery, but he's facing somewhat of a quandary. With the brewery planning to relocate to Workington, Russell has been presented with the chance of a promotion if he follows the brewery. However, Russell's wife Penny (Patricia Hodges) is reluctant to move and Russell's only immediate alternative is to join countless millions on the dole. Help is on hand though due to a spot of role reversal as Penny decides to rejoin the army in her rank as Captain whilst Russell stays at home to look after their baby daughter Emma. In amongst all the dirty nappies, cleaning and cooking, Russell captures the Thatcherite dream of enterprise and sets up his own basement brewery to knock out his well regarded ale.

Aided by the freewheeling, layabout Fitz (Matthew Kelly), Russell juggles parenthood and brewing with an elan that is only tested by the romantic interests of his neighbour's underage daughter, the council's meticulous bureaucracy in approving his brewery and Fitz's blossoming romance with a policewoman. Penny, meanwhile, thrives upon her return to a military environment, despite the middle class idiocy of her colleague Captain Hector Quilley (Christopher Godwin), a man for whom the concept of women in the military is somewhat of a novelty.

The first commissioned series by those stalwarts of British comedy, Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, Holding the Fort is a fantastic example of fine lead performances combining with scripts full of gags and relatable quips on the absurdity of life - a speciality of Marks and Gran. While it's not quite in the same league as Birds of a Feather or Goodnight Sweetheart, Holding the Fort more than holds its own and is an enjoyable watch for any fan of British comedy. Quite why it's never received a commercial release is a mystery. Comprising 20 episodes spread across three series, Holding the Fort aired on Friday evenings at 8.30pm on ITV for the first two series with the final series going out on Sundays at 7.15pm.

The Pall Bearer's Revue - BBC2 - 1992

Jerry Sadowitz presents this curious smorgasbord of standup comedy, magic, sketches and social comment. And it's pushed to extremes that television audiences of 1992 are unaccustomed to. Aided by his glamourous and disapproving assistant Dreenagh Darrell, Sadowitz unleashes an aggressive and uncompromising performance that includes failed tricks Tommy Cooper would weep over and highly impressive card tricks (often performed in 'The Roy Walton Moment' set) that Paul Daniels would turn green with envy over. Sketches include The Intellectual Comedians which takes ITV's The Comedians and feeds it through an alternative comedy filter and there's also time for a bizarre denouement to the series where US special agents are sent to kill Sadowitz for offending too many people with his double irony.

Regularly feted by a huge number of comedians, Sadowitz's TV appearances have been limited during the course of his career and The Pall Bearer's Revue demonstrates why television is rather apprehensive about his output. For a show broadcast in 1992, the level of swearing and the aggressive standpoint is mindboggling. However, it's also ridiculously funny and generates plenty of laughs through its mockery of television production, jokes sharper than an enraged crocodile's bite and the overall sense of anarchic freedom. In fact, it feels outrageously ahead of its time and predates acts such as Frankie Boyle (minus the magic of course) by a good fifteen years.

Completely written by Sadowitz, The Pall Bearer's Revue received a huge number of complaints upon its broadcast and has not been repeated since. Five episodes were produced for BBC2 with episodes airing in a 10pm slot on Monday evenings.

The Weekenders - Channel 4 - 1992

Jim (Vic Reeves) and Bob (Bob Mortimer) are a pair of pals who are about to embark on an absurd adventure which pushes the avant-garde envelope to ridiculous extremes. Despite the allure of Jim's father's 'heel bar', the appeal of unusual footwear practices gives way to an excursion to an outside meat festival where Jim and Bob happen upon an unusual sausage for sale by a leather clad meat salesman (Phil Oakey). Purchasing the meat, Jim and Bob soon find themselves becoming figures of major interest to an alien race (complete with goatees and mohicans) who need the unusual sausage to feed their queen.

Part of Channel 4's series of comedy pilots entitled Bunch of Five, The Weekenders is almost uncategorisable due to its leftfield, oddball leanings that are as unsolvable as a Rubik's cube in the dark. However, there's a playfulness to the way that Reeves and Mortimer hurtle through this bizarre universe and they have to be applauded for making it work. One of their stranger pieces of television, The Weekenders was probably best as a one-off excursion into unknown corners of comedy, but remains an intriguing footnote in their evolution as surreal masters. The Weekenders aired at 10.30pm on Channel 4 in 1992 and was later repeated on defunct digital channel UK Play.

Remember any of these? Holding on to some titbits of trivia relating to them? Or maybe you own all six episodes of Grundy and are happy to donate them to the Curious British Telly YouTube channel? Whatever your fancy, please get in touch via the comments below. Or send an email.

The Forgotten World of British Children's TV - Vol. 8

December 23, 2018, 5:26 am

≫ Next: A Quick Look at Threads on Blu-Ray

≪ Previous: British TV Comedies You Can't Remember - Vol. 3

$

0

0

Memories are fickle creatures and this is especially true for children. Being bombarded with so much information is difficult to store and process, so this is why so many memories appear to be completely blanked out or remembered hideously incorrectly. And when it comes to children's television this can be a frustrating quandary. Certain shows are barely remembered and the odd fragments we can retrieve are fuzzy at best. So, to rectify this state of affairs, I've started tracking down some fiendishly obscure British children's TV shows to help spark a more accurate recall. And that's why it's time to welcome in another edition of The Forgotten World of British Children's TV.

The Canal Children – BBC1 – 1976

In the early days of Queen Victoria’s reign, the canal remains a vital and lucrative part of Britain’s transport system. Well-to-do Betsy Russell (Maxine Gordon) is the last person you would imagine to be found hanging around the canals of Warwick and Birmingham, but she soon falls under their exciting spell when she meets the canal urchins Tom Brill (Andrew O’Connor) and Dan Trugg (Peter Berry).  With the canal barge ‘The Water Rat’ at their disposal, our young trio head off on adventures that take in cargo theft, enigmatic Baptist ministers and even help Betsy’s grandfather Colonel Russell (Eric Porter) with his wager that the canals are superior to the railways.

A vague memory for even the most ardent watcher of children’s TV in the 1970s, The Canal Children is a piece of period drama that, with typical BBC aplomb, boasts some fantastic visuals that capture the era perfectly. There’s also plenty of mystery and subterfuge married to the decent acting on offer, but you have to wonder whether the children watching at home were quite so enamoured with the relatively slow world of canals. The Canal Children was written by Brian Wright and directing the canal based adventures was John Prowse (Grange Hill, King Cinder, The Changes). Consisting of six 25-minute episodes, The Canal Children aired in the Wednesday teatime slot of 5.10pm on BBC1. One repeat broadcast for the series came in 1978.

Pullover - ITV - 1982

There’s nothing worse than being a child and having to go to bed. Sure, you may be tired, but the thought that fun is about to end is a tough pill to swallow. Thankfully, for the child (Danny Kodicek) in Pullover, his mother has attempted to reduce his ire by taking his pullover and making a few changes to produce Pullover - a cute little animal who is part bear, part something else and yellow all over. Creeping down from the bedpost, Pullover tends to find something intriguing in the child's bedroom which leads to an adventure - be it a balloon which transports Pullover up into the clouds or a toy penguin which takes him to the Antarctic.

Pullover is packed full of mildly surreal and sleepy charm with a brand of puppetry that is infused with a fascinating and magical charm. The first production from Pullover Productions (who later made Fox Tales), Pullover was a 1982 show created by puppeteers Rosta Cerny and Susan Kodicek. Masters of the black light theatre method, Cerny and Kodicek made extensive use of this technique to bring Pullover to life. The lively music score, meanwhile, was composed by Eugen Illin. Broadcast on ITV by Central in the lunchtime slot, the show was backed by ITC entertainment and made at Kadek Vision - a long defunct company based at Shepperton Studios. Only one series was produced with a total of 13 10-minute episodes being transmitted.

Letty – ITV – 1984

Letty Boot (Victoria O’Keefe) is a wheelchair bound disabled girl who lives in Meadowbank Children’s Home alongside her friends Brian (James Forsyth), Trevor (Marc Barfoot) and Cath (Deborah Smith). Following a spate of thefts at Meadowbank – including the theft of a goldfish – Letty decides to set up the Letty Bootlace Detective Agency and is soon investigating dangerous horse thieves and criminals running an illegal immigrant ring. Taking the law into her own hands, of course, soon rouses the attention of Inspector Jones (Glynn Edwards) and the pair struggle to see eye to eye at times, but gradually a level of respect builds between the two.

Letty ran for a single series, with no repeat airings, in 1984 and was a TVS production for ITV. Six 30-minute episodes aired in the 4.20pm slot on Wednesdays as part of the Children’s ITV schedule. The series was written by Avril Rowlands who had previously written God’s Wonderful Children for BBC1. Directing Letty was Jonathan Wright-Miller whose directing credits already included Crossroads and Blake’s 7 and would later go on to secure credits for directing Eastenders and Fair City. As Victoria O’Keefe was not disabled in real life, she spent time with three young disabled men at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield to glean a little more about her character.

Travellers by Night – ITV – 1985

Travellers by Night begins with circus children Belle (Lisa Coleman) and Charlie (Jake Coppard) being sent to live with their aunt whilst their parents head to the USA to find work. This need for new employment has arisen as their current circus is closing down and Murphy (J.G. Devlin) the elephant trainer has fallen ill and is unable to care for his large-eared charges any more. Unfortunately this also means that there will be no one left to look after an Indian elephant named Rani and, accordingly, she is due to be put down.

Belle and Charlie, however, refuse to allow their dear, old friend Rani to meet such an undignified end and hatch a plan to take her to a Safari park where she will be cared for and looked after. Foregoing their aunt’s accommodation, Belle and Charlie seize Rani and head off into the depths of the English countryside where they attempt to remain inconspicuous with an Indian elephant in tow. The police and the tabloids are soon on their trail and yet more trouble awaits Belle, Charlie in the form of Flick (Neil Morrissey) and his gang of fellow ne’er do wells who are lurking along our protagonist’s path.

Based on Vivien Alcock’s 1983 novel of the same name, Travellers by Night was adapted for ITV by Alan England who had previously adapted Break in the Sun for the BBC. Travellers by Night was a TVS production consisting of six 25-minute episodes which were transmitted in a 4.30pm Sunday slot. The series was produced and directed by Tony Virgo who had previous credits directing Doctor Who and Emmerdale with future gigs including EastEnders and All Creatures Great and Small.  Rani, of course, was a very real elephant and came direct from Gerry Cottle’s Circus.

Gumtree - Channel 4 - 1988

Built over a hundred years ago by Mr Rosemary Olivetti Ratchett, Gumtree House is now home to just one person: Professor Pierre McDonald. Having spent the last 10 years living in a laundry basket on the second floor, it's fair to say the the Professor is an eccentric chap if ever there was one. However, over the course of the series, many strange and unusual characters come to find themselves living in and visiting Gumtree House. A dog is encouraged - with chocolate buttons - to sand down the house's painted surfaces with little more than its tongue, Oscar Ratchett searches for treasure in the basement, Samuel spends a week in bed as a mystery something is lurking under his bed while Mr Curtain becomes highly suspicious of what the neighbours are building in the garden.

Gumtree is very much a cousin of the Tony Robinson starring Tales from Fat Tulip's Garden and, therefore, it comes as no surprise to discover that one of the Gumtree writers - Debbie Gates - was also behind Fat Tulip. And, as you would imagine, it's very much business as usual with Ben Keaton - also on writing duties - taking on all the narration duties and voicing all the characters as he works his way round Gumtree House. It works, too, and is far from a Fat Tulip knock off with plenty of absurd happenings and curious characters bubbling to the surface. In total, six episodes of Gumtree aired at 11am as part of Channel 4's Sunday morning schedule in 1988. The series was produced by Bizarre Productions with Jeremy McCracken directing the episodes.

Comments on these shows, and any others you can pull from the depths of your memory, are most welcome below!

A Quick Look at Threads on Blu-Ray

January 1, 2019, 9:15 am

≫ Next: Rik Mayall Lights up Jackanory in 1986

≪ Previous: The Forgotten World of British Children's TV - Vol. 8

$

0

0

In terms of British TV, it's unlikely that anything will ever be produced with the same emotional punch and raw, unforgiving honesty of Threads. And we should be grateful for that. Since it first aired in 1985, Threads has consistently terrified every single viewer that's happened to stumble across it. Positioned as a documentary following the dismal fortunes of a Britain caught up in a nuclear attack, Threads confronts all the social, economic and political horrors awaiting in a post-apocalyptic landscape and holds them up to the viewers' trembling eyes with a relentless vigour.

For decades, Threads was only available on VHS bootlegs and then a series of bare-bones DVD releases which failed to do justice to the story behind the shocking visuals. Thankfully, a remastered DVD was finally released by Simply Media in 2018. Packed full of more features and commentaries than you could shake a dead rat at, it covered every aspect of the production from special effects down to the casting process. And, several months later, Simply Media have released an upgraded Blu-Ray edition to try and bring an added level of sharpness to all those charred corpses and nuclear sheep.

You can find my thoughts on the themes and narratives contained within Threadsover at my review of the remastered DVD here, so I won't bore you by going over that again (in short: It's unparalleled brilliance and I love it). Instead, I thought I'd take a quick look at the Blu-Ray edition and see what it brings to the table.

The HD capabilities of Blu-Ray are clearly there to enhance and bring more detail than ever to pictures, so how does Threads fare? Well, Threads was filmed on film rather than video, so it's in a good position to benefit from the restoration. It was, of course, filmed on 16mm film which imparted a gritty level of grain and fuzz to the original presentation, so this is still present and makes a flawless picture virtually impossible. Add to this, as the disclaimer at the start of Blu-ray states, the age and condition of the original prints has affected the picture quality to some degree. However, given all that, there's now a sharpness to the picture that hasn't been seen previously.

Only one additional extra has been added since the DVD's release (but that release is frankly rammed with extras) and that is the premiere of the director approved widescreen version. Rather than bringing previously unseen elements to the picture, though, this widescreen effect is generated by cropping the original image. Therefore, you get to really see Ruth munch down on the innards of a radioactive sheep with a closeness that is almost unbearable. Personally, the widescreen cut didn't really do much for me as it added little to the experience, but if you can't stand black bars on your TV set then it's a worthy solution.

The Blu-Ray edition of Threads is undeniably a step-up from the DVD release due to the enhanced picture and, for the many Threads obsessives out there, it's going to look fantastic on your shelves. And, by using the code CURIOUS10 over at Simply Media, all Curious British Telly readers can receive a 10% discount!

---

Rik Mayall Lights up Jackanory in 1986

January 8, 2019, 1:23 pm

≫ Next: The Cult of Digging Through Old Video Tapes

≪ Previous: A Quick Look at Threads on Blu-Ray

$

0

0

Rik Mayall was an explosion of kinetic energy which manifested itself in a unique style of comedy that alienated those who feared life and delighted everyone else. Roald Dahl, meanwhile, was a writer of children's books who managed to conjure up worlds which were highly relatable yet, at the same time, coloured fantastically with surreal and grotesque narratives. And, in January 1986, these two worlds collided when Mayall delivered a one man performance of Roald Dahl's 1981 novel George's Marvellous Medicine for BBC1's Jackanory.

I'll be honest, I never paid much attention to Jackanory as I was growing up and can barely remember watching it. Always a little too sedate and staid to my young eyes, Jackanory was overshadowed - for me - by the short-lived Tales from Fat Tulip's Garden over on ITV. Nonetheless, Mayall's first stint on Jackanory (he appeared again in 1993 for The Fwog Pwince, The Twuth) was one which stood out. There was a manic brilliance underlining Mayall's reading of Dahl's narrative which refused to be diminished by the passage of time and, all these decades later, my memories were still fond if a little vague. However, there was still plenty to recall, so I dipped into the episodes once more.

The most entertaining aspect, of course, is seeing Mayall at the peak of his mid-80s powers. Dressed uncannily similarly to Rik from The Young Ones (albeit with better hair and a devilishly handsome smattering of light stubble), Mayall serves up everything you could want. All those classic Mayall expressions, mannerisms and voices are thrusted to the fore with such vigour that, as ever, you suspect his ears are about to start billowing smoke before his head explodes. But, to everyone's benefit, it remains firmly attached. Seamlessly switching from wild, fearful eyes that are threatening to pop out with a fearful velocity to a smile that threatens to charm both sexes into bed, Mayall is magnificent. As we all know.

He's got great source material to work from, too, and despite George's Marvellous Medicine not being Dahl's most celebrated work, it plays to all of Mayall's strengths. The disgusting and evil grandmother allows Mayall to ooze a filthy, evil strand of his brilliance while George's industrious naivety gives Mayall the chance to tap into the mindset of the young viewers at home. Mayall's surroundings in the 'house' are relatively sparse and this allows him to really pop out of the screen, but even if this had been a grandiose BBC period drama set he would have remained the visual centrepiece. Even during the quiet moments, and there are relatively few, the whole programme is infused with a gleeful charm.

Clearly, I'm a fan (and you should be too), but a legend has arisen that this edition of Jackanory received numerous complaints due to the story and the performance. However, aside from a rather vague mention of complaints in the depths of the BBC website, there's very little evidence that any sort of furore ever occurred. And if there had been it's unlikely the BBC would have repeated it twice in six years. Perhaps there's a chance that the more trepidatious parents at home objected to Mayall's assertion - during the 1988 repeat - that children should save any poison for their teachers, but even with 1980s sensibilities at play it's just a bit of cartoon silliness.

And, five years on from Mayall's untimely death, we need cartoon silliness more than ever in this current landscape of uncertainty. Thankfully, the past is at hand and George's Marvellous Medicine is available on YouTube to remind us what life should really be about. And, whilst you're there, make sure you check out Grim Tales which features Mayall on equally superb storytelling form.

The Cult of Digging Through Old Video Tapes

January 16, 2019, 12:24 pm

≫ Next: Unnatural Causes: Lost Property

≪ Previous: Rik Mayall Lights up Jackanory in 1986

$

0

0

I've been searching through piles of old video tapes and uploading them to YouTube for about three years now. The objective of scouring this redundant technology is very simple: I want to find old footage of British TV which is long forgotten. For the majority of the population, however, this quest barely raises the pulse rate. It's the epitome of a niche interest, but I'm not alone in this curious pursuit of the past. In fact, YouTube is packed full of people dusting down miles of magnetic tape and sharing the contents with the world.

I currently use this Panasonic SVHS player coupled with a DVD recorder to capture footage from old tapes

Who are these people, though, and what are the methods behind their madness? I'm clearly one of them, so that puts me in a fantastic position to begin orating to the world about the beauty of a 1982 TDK video tape. However, it would be ridiculous to suggest that my singular and idiosyncratic viewpoint is indicative of this hobby/pastime/dangerous obsession. So, I decided it would be a good idea to rope in a couple of fellow tape diggers to see what makes them tick and the various ups and downs they've experienced.

Tapey goodness

First up was Greg Molloy who runs the KillianM2 channel on YouTube which collects together a mixture of Irish television alongside plenty of British television. And, due to Irish channel RTE taking down a significant amount of his content last year, Greg briefly brought a glimmer of publicity to the world of ancient video tapes. Next on my list of tapeographers to chat to was Neil Miles, a man whose self-titled YouTube channel frequently turns up slices of television I've been waiting a good 30 years to rewatch. Where, though, did we all start?

Personally, I came to this oddity of a hobby thanks to a book I was writing on forgotten children's TV. Struggling to track down copies of these programmes was severely testing my enthusiasm and I was hours away from throwing a nasty hissy fit. And then, with all the brilliance and ecstasy of a last minute goal in the cup final, one of my Twitter followers suddenly remarked that they had several of these programmes nestled on some aging tapes. Borrowing these tapes, I not only managed to get my book written, but I was also able to bathe in a nostalgic glow of long lost memories. And it got me thinking, wouldn't it be fantastic to start sharing these unbeatable shots of nostalgia?

Greg's mammoth storage space

After all, whilst the majority of these shows are safely preserved with the original broadcasters, the relatively low interest in them means that the chances of repeats or commercial releases are virtually zero. Small pockets of the population do, however, want to rewatch them. So, through a series of methods I'll talk about in a bit, I started to pick up more and more tapes. Greg and Neil followed slightly different paths, but we all share a common goal of wanting to get this old footage out there:

Greg:
I originally just wanted to digitise a few of my own football tapes around 2006 to share with friends and on fan message boards/Facebook. Once I had the YouTube channel up and running, I just decided to start uploading other stuff from my own tapes. And it was clear people were enjoying the content. In the early days of YouTube I was a bit naive in relation to what I could get away with from the copyright end of things. I was picking up a few 'copyright strikes' but soon got to grips with what I could and couldn't post without putting the channel in danger of being taken down.

Neil:
I’d always been interested in TV presentation and adverts from a very young age. When I first started using the internet I found sites such as MHP & TVArk that had pictures and clips of idents and shows from other regions that I would never have been able to see when I was younger. Later on, YouTube came along and you started to see lots of old clips uploaded there, so I very much appreciated other people’s efforts in sourcing and capturing them. It was a natural progression from there to sourcing my own clips.

Getting hold of these tapes isn't necessarily easy and therein lies the pursuit aspect. Growing up, I was far from an ardent recorder and about 99% of my family's tapes went down the tip in the mid-00s. It wasn't the end of the world, though, as I'd have been rather limited sticking to mine and my family's tapes which consisted of railway documentaries, WCW wrestling and Doctor Who. Anyway, it turns out that, thanks to the twisting, turning uncertainty of other people's tapes, going after their collections is a lot more exciting and varied.

Ebay is most people's first port of call and I've dug into my coffers several times to exchange hard-earned cash for a box of tapes shrouded in uncertainty. And one of the main obstacles of archive tape digging is the 'pot luck' element. You never know exactly what will be on the tapes. And half the time the people selling them can't remember either. That's why one of my first purchases from Ebay - 50 tapes for £30 - felt like a waste of time and money. Out of 450 or so hours of footage, I found a paltry 40 minutes of vaguely interesting content. And 30 minutes of that was taken up by one programme.

A typical scene at Neil's house

Sites such as Gumtree and Preloved, though, often have much cheaper offerings and even free pickups in many cases. These have, for me, proved much more fruitful. One purchase of around 60 tapes for £10 yielded footage going back to 1983 and a few hour's worth of decent content. That's the kind of find that really grabs my attention. The further back you go, the stranger and more distant the archaic presentations become and the more chance there is of finding something thought lost to the mists of time.

You're still likely to run into disastrous collections though. One box of tapes I got via Gumtree looked highly impressive with around 120 tapes from the early to mid 80s lurking inside. Searching through them revealed, rather unfortunately, that they were full of late 80s archaeology documentaries and early 90s holiday programmes. With bad picture quality throughout. To say that sifting through these was a dreary grind would be a massive understatement. Thankfully they cost me nothing more than a few pounds in petrol.

Luckily, running this blog and my Twitter account gives me access to a large community of like-minded people who understand the importance of preserving television. This shared devotion means that I've been the recipient of several amazing donations. Donations that have quite literally made my jaw drop. These dusty boxes of even dustier tapes have yielded recordings going all the way back to 1980 and include not just programmes, but also idents, in-vision continuity and regional news. As you'd expect, Greg and Neil operate in a similar manner:

Greg:
Like most collectors I'm always on the lookout for tapes on all the 'selling sites' online. I always used to keep an eye on charity shops and car boot sales, but they've become more difficult places to find tapes - charity shops often refuse to take video tapes nowadays. Because of Twitter and the YouTube channel itself, I have recently started to get offers of tapes from followers. This is great, and some of those followers act as eyes and ears for me and alert me to tapes available in various places.

Neil:
Most of my finds come from eBay. I've also had some success putting requests of Freegle - a freecycling service - and sometimes I've been lucky enough to turn up collections just by chatting with people about old tapes.

As I said earlier, it's a very niche hobby and not for everyone. Family and friends aren't exactly blown away by it and it's true that it doesn't hold a candle to nude abseiling with an equally nude Roy Hattersley hitching a piggyback. And, occasionally when I go to pick up tapes from random punts on Ebay, I get the impression that people think I'm some VHS throwback who rejects modern technology and defiantly continues to record TV onto video. It's a trifling indignation, though, and most people are generally interested in what I'm up to, an experience shared by Greg and Neil:

Greg:
Often, when I collect tapes from people who just want rid of them to declutter their house, they look at me as if I have two heads and can't understand why I would possibly want them. Other times, though, I get people who offer me tapes that are aware of the YouTube channel and are totally fascinated by what I do. So, a mixture of reactions, but mostly positive by people who understand the cultural importance of what can be found on old tapes.

Neil:
It's certainly true that some people think it's a bit weird. But often I've found that people get a bit of a nostalgic glow. This mostly happens when they start remembering some of their favourite things from childhood and I've already uploaded them to YouTube.

What exactly do we find on these tapes? Well, yes, we do find porn. It's a mixture of adult cinematography from the 1980s and 90s, so the changing attitudes to body hair make for interesting viewing, but we're not really here for that sort of titillation. Instead we concentrate on British (and Irish) TV.

The obligatory porn tape

The whole breadth of television presentation is covered, so it's impossible to list each and every aspect of this. Some of my favourite finds have been pre-Premier League football coverage, continuity links from children's TV, this particularly low-rent presentation of the weather by Anglia and a marvellous drama featuring Pat Phoenix's final performance. These are highly subjective choices, of course, so what gets Greg and Neil perspiring when they search through their tapes?

Greg:
Because I'm an Irish youtube channel, It's rare and lost Irish TV that interests me most. RTE had a ruthless wiping policy right up to the mid nineties, so there's no shortage of lost TV to search for. So, when anything from the early 80s turns up it's almost certainly 'lost or wiped'. It's major world and sporting events covered by RTE I most enjoy finding, I've managed to track down analyses of World Cups that no longer exists in the RTE archives.

I've also managed to find other long lost music performances from shows like Anything Goes (Irish Swap Shop/Superstore). The full 14 hours of RTE coverage of Self Aid 1986 (Concert/telethon for unemployed) was a big find too. The Irish version of Superstars was something I had been looking for many years as little of it survives, I recently found two full episodes from 1985, possibly the only known full episodes.

Neil:
Some very strange local ads - one was for a place called Smithy’s Kaff which was very enthusiastic about you going there but wouldn’t tell you where it is. Others were a series of ads for Barrett’s Liqourmart shown on Channel 4 in the London area in the first couple of months it was on air which pretty much defy description!

And there are also the 'holy grail' finds that we hope against hope will be hiding on each and every tape we reverently pop into our tape machines. Rarely do these little gems burst into life on our screens, but when they do it's the video tape equivalent of a Christian finding the image of Jesus Christ burnt onto the bottom of a crumpet.

Another great box of ancient tapes

For me, I'm always on the lookout for rare pieces of comedy such as sketch show Pushing up Daisiesand the LWT-only standup show Pyjamarama. Any children's TV from before 1987 is ornately gilded with a nostalgia I can't resist and coverage of British football always gets me excited. I've also become increasingly interested in the early days of cable TV in Britain during the mid-1980s; it's tough to find due to its limited takeup, but I have managed to find some of the oldest known - and missing - Sky Channel footage from 1985. Greg and Neil, again due to subjectivity, have very different bits of footage they dream of finding:

Greg:
It's Irish content I hope to find and the older the better. Because I only work-off VHS and Betamax tapes, realistically I'm not expecting to find anything pre-1980. We don't really have any 'Dr Who' style iconic shows that have a big fan base of people hungry to find episodes, so with me it's just the era of the very early 80's Irish TV that I really hope to find regardless of the actual content. It would be nice to find early music shows on RTE like 'Non Stop Pop' from 1982. It was Ireland's first answer to Top of the Pops, with live bands and videos. I've never found anything from it, so If I was to pick one as a 'holy grail find' I'd say that.

Neil:
I’d like to find some clips of the three ITV regions that lost their franchises at the end of 1981 - ATV, Southern & Westward - so far all I’ve managed is about 7 seconds of a Southern continuity announcement. Other than that there’s Jools Holland’s infamous Tube promo from 1987 where he swore at unsuspecting CITV viewers. Plus there’s the time that Coast to Coast came to my school that I’ve never seen which would be amazing to find.

However, it's not all fun and games when it comes to sifting through old video tapes. One of the most frustrating elements is the mental fatigue that accompanies lengthy sessions of wading through fuzzy footage of Police Camera Action and the neverending onslaught of Bond films. There's also the archive tape nightmare of mould on the reels, this builds up when tapes haven't been stored in stable temperatures or dry environments. They can be cleaned, but it's a fiddly affair and the payoff is rarely worth it unless you know there's something very special on the tapes.

Some particularly old VHS tapes I picked up

Perhaps the biggest kick in the tape spools, though, are the missed opportunities which frequently rear their ugly head. Sometimes you'll stumble across an amazing piece of footage - such as a regional oddity - but after a few seconds it breaks down into static and then transitions into yet another recording of Live Aid. There's nothing wrong with Live Aid, but it's freely available elsewhere and has little curiosity value. It's not always Live Aid, either, sometimes it's Diamonds are Forever. Or The Spy Who Loved Me. Or Digby the Biggest Dog in the World. Greg and Neil have also come across numerous frustrations in their time:

Greg:
For me it's maintaining the machines, in particular the Betamax. It's no problem with the VHS machines because they're easily found and replaced. The Betamax machines can be very expensive to replace and having to ship them from the UK also carries the danger of damage in transit. I've bought at least three machines that have arrived 'not working' or damaged, so It can be an expensive problem too. Storage space for tapes is also becoming more and more of a problem, I'm lucky in that I live in a rural area and I have the storage space in the form of a converted attic. I'm not sure I could continue the hobby If I was ever to move to somewhere where I didn't have the luxury of a 'spare room'.

Neil:
People who cut out the ads from their recordings! Also, having done this for a while, you do notice the same things cropping up over and over again. Raiders of the Lost Ark from Christmas Day ‘84 seems to have been a very popular film to record, as was Ghostbusters from Boxing Day ‘87. Finally it’s frustrating to find tapes that have good stuff on, but have been poorly stored so it’s nigh on impossible to get a decent quality capture.

Despite these frustrations, they're not seismic enough to discourage us (and many others) to continue salvaging these curios of television. As long as the technology remains viable, the world of archive tape preservation will be here for many years to come.

If you've got any questions then please add them to the comments below and I'll try to answer them as soon as I can!

Unnatural Causes: Lost Property

July 2, 2019, 7:53 am

≫ Next: My New Book is Out!

≪ Previous: The Cult of Digging Through Old Video Tapes

$

0

0

The climax to Lost Property is so unsettling and so enshrined in nightmare territory that it's one of the most disturbing moments of British television. But barely anyone remembers it.

Perhaps it was so shocking that the nation decided to blank it out from their memories. Or there weren't enough people watching. It was, after all, part of the forgotten Unnatural Causes anthology series. Airing on ITV in late 1986, Unnatural Causes was comprised of seven standalone plays which all focused on unusual deaths. I'd written about the magnificent Hidden Talents episode on here before, so I decided to try another edition to see how it compared. And Lost Property turned out to be equally intriguing.

As adults we often find ourselves yearning for a sense of childlike innocence. This desire for a simpler existence is no surprise. Adulthood is a time of dubious decisions and moral indiscretions. We don't want to give in to base desires, but we can't resist. Unless we're a particularly well behaved member of the clergy. Anyway, does childhood innocence hold all the answers? Or are we looking at it through a lens rose-tinted with nostalgia? Probably. It was so long ago (for most of us) that it's difficult to remember. Nonetheless, we live in an adult world and we wouldn't get very far if all we did was play hopscotch and sing nursery rhymes.

Anne Forest (Miranda Richardson) disagrees with this. And she should know a thing or two about childhood as she owns a school. Unfortunately there's one minor detail missing from her school: schoolchildren. Following an inheritance, Anne purchased the school from the previous owners and moved in there with her artist husband John (John Duttine). With no formal training in education, Anne is unable to transform the fire damaged school (hence the favourable price) into a bastion of learning once more. Instead she rattles around the empty corridors with all the pretenses of a teacher dedicated to her pupils' cause.

Anne's eccentric behaviour hints at a troubled soul, but it also sounds a death knell for her marriage. In her quest for innocence, Anne has retreated into a chaste existence. And this is in sharp contrast to her past actions. John spitefully claims that, in the past, he had to wait his turn behind the rest. But now even this 'turn' has evaporated into the ether. It's not only sexual frustration which is straining the sinews of John's sanity. Anne's reluctance to restore the school, along with a converted studio for his art, has pushed his patience to breaking point. Relegated to sleeping in the staff room, John is prone to exploding into bursts of furious anger.

This marital strife will soon pale into insignificance. Strange things are afoot within the confines of the school. A chilling atmosphere begins to descend and this disturbing mood is heralded in when Anne hears an unseen child singing outside the building. Later, while Anne is collecting pond samples, a small, cloaked figure is seen hurrying around the perimeter of the pond. John's axe soon goes missing and a mysterious chopping sound echoes around the schoolyard late at night. Cracks begin to appear in Anne's adopted innocence and, after John mocks her for having plenty of black marks in her register, she viciously beats him with a cane. And then Marian Price (Louise Hellecar) arrives.

Shrouded in mystery, Marian is an enigmatic character who claims to be an ex-pupil of the school. Anne first comes face to face with Marian when she discovers her sat at a desk in the classroom. And, with a disturbing calm, Marian proceeds to tell Anne about the old days of the school. Marian was very fond of the previous owner Miss Palmer and she's also keen to point out how dangerous the pond, with its entangled weeds that pull you under, can be. Anne also has a warning for the future. She doesn't want anyone sitting at her old desk. And, if they do, Marian promises to hurt them.

Lost Property certainly sets up an absorbing premise and it's one that's difficult to ignore. I was overjoyed to discover Hidden Talents a couple of years ago as it summed up the world of Curious British Telly. It was forgotten, it was downright disturbing and its atmosphere permeated into my mindset for days. So, when I got a tipoff that one episode featured Miranda Richardson and John Duttine I had to investigate.

Fresh out of Blackadder II, Richardson is fantastic as Anne. It's a character which is a world away from the brattishness of Queen Elizabeth and Richardson inhabits Anne with a subtle arrogance and desperation. John Duttine, of course, is that little bit older and that little bit more experienced. And his performance is tremendous, all packed full of naturalism and power. The chemistry between the two is an unusual and enthralling one. It demonstrates not only the impact of past indiscretions and mental health, but, beneath all bitterness, the burning embers of love. Louise Hellicar, whose CV is ridiculously short, cuts an understated figure as Marian, but it's a chilling performance shot through with a psychopathic vengeance.

These characters find themselves in a world created by writer Peter J. Hammond, a man whose well-stocked back catalogue also includes sitcom Lame Ducks which Duttine starred in. And the world that Hammond has crafted is an unsettling, claustrophobic one. The narrative within Lost Property is confined  to the grounds of the school which has the effect of imposing a lonely, remote atmosphere. It's an ambience which reflects the mental condition of Anne whilst also underlining the tragedy of a school where joy and excitement has long been extinguished. Lost Property is also well paced. Despite the low-key action throughout the play it never feels as though time is dragging. And, given that the play is close to 35 years old, this is a testament to the writing.

Where Lost Property really excels is with the ambiguous nature of Marian. A smudged name tag beneath a coat hook in the cloakroom bears the name Marian, but who is she? A malevolent spirit who died in the fire at the school? Or maybe she drowned in the pond? If, in fact, she is still very much a fixture in reality, perhaps she is aggrieved by the suicide of the school's previous owner Miss Palmer. There's a level of psychopathy on display when Marian first meets Anne in the classroom, but her behaviour and movements are far too otherworldly for someone who lives on the other side of the village. Peter Hammond wants the viewer to wrestle with their own interpretations of such obscure motives and it's a device which cranks up the mystery to almost unbearable levels.

Anne's bid for innocence is also shot down by the events unfolding in Lost Property. Two years of pretending to be someone else has done nothing but escalate her misery. Running away from past indiscretions solves nothing. Better to face them and move on rather than trying to cover them with a fragile veneer. Anne finally realises this and decides that it's time to reconcile with John and move on. But it's too late. She's encroached and tinkered with a world of innocence for too long. The ending, which is superbly intertwined with several callbacks, is shocking when it arrives.

If you plan on watching Lost Property then it's probably time to stop reading this paragraph as spoilers lie ahead. The sight of Marian, with all emotion drained from her face, clutching a hand scythe and advancing on the screaming and restrained Anne is nightmarish. It coincides with John investigating the pond, but the viewer is well aware that the jetty into the pond is unsafe. And those unforgiving weeds are not going to let go of him. It's a dark, downbeat ending and one that makes every organ in the body squirm in horror and discomfort. A bleak denouement, but one that sums up the brilliant, grisly nature of the play.

Due to various copyright issues I can't put Lost Property up on YouTube - things seem to be taken down from there more readily than ever these days - but if you want to take a look at the play then feel free to send me an email!

My New Book is Out!

March 3, 2020, 1:08 pm

≫ Next: London is Drowning

≪ Previous: Unnatural Causes: Lost Property

$

0

0

You may have noticed that Curious British Telly has been very quiet for the last year and a bit. But there's no need to worry. My passion for the oddities of British television remains strong. And, for the last year, I've been working on my new book More Curiosities of British Children's TV. And, even better, it's now available through Amazon in both paperback and Kindle versions.

It's the followup to my previous book The Curiosities of British Children's TV and continues a similar theme. However, this time I've featured more programmes and conducted more interviews. The end result is a book packed full of insights about all those shows you can't remember from your childhood.

Naturally, some of the shows featured are slightly better known than others. Ragtime and Heads and Tails were both popular shows in the 1970s, but have since slid into relative obscurity. Other shows such as Treasures of the Mindlord and Chris and Crumble, however, have barely left a trace in our collective memories.

Some people may say that this is with good reason. But I disagree with those people. Sure, these programmes may not have become cultural landmarks, but they are still part of our culture. And it's important that they're not completely forgotten about. That's why I've spent several months tracking these shows down and, where possible, the people behind them.

The best part of writing the book has, of course, been chatting with the people involved in the programmes. And I've managed to get som fantastic stars to contribut their thoughts and memories, so you can expect to hear from Derek Griffiths, Fred Harris, Joy Whitby, Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Avril Rowlands, Rick Vanes, Paul Greenwood and many more.

Hopefully, there should be plenty in there to pique the interest of Curious British Telly readers. These are the untold stories of British television. And that's what this blog has always been about. So, if you pick up a copy, I hope you enjoy it. I'm now off to start planning the next book...

London is Drowning

April 19, 2020, 11:06 am

≫ Next: A Chat with Fred Harris

≪ Previous: My New Book is Out!

$

0

0

London is Drowning concerns itself with an unprecedented disaster that even human ingenuity is unable to stem the tide of. It is, however, far removed from the very real disaster that coronavirus is. But there are still aspects of London is Drowning which chime with a disturbing prescience.

A member of the Play for Today stable, London is Drowning aired on BBC1 in October 1981. Scripting the play was Graham Williams, best known for producing three series of Tom Baker's tenure as Doctor Who in the late 1970s. And it was a play for which the transmission date made the content all the more enthralling. Centering, as you can imagine, on a scenario where London floods, it taps into the environmental movement of the 1970s. More pertinently, London is Drowning aired roughly a year before the launch of the Thames Barrier.

I can't remember when I first heard of London is Drowning. I certainly didn't watch it upon its single transmission due to my recurring inability to have been born. And I delve through so many texts regarding archive television that they all blur into an amalgam of red, green, blue and Radio Times covers. Nonetheless, I read about it somewhere and it sounded intriguing. The few mentions I could find of the series online referred to it as a docudrama on a flooded London. This got my pulse racing. It sounded like Threads, but wetter. And, eventually, I managed to watch a copy.

The play focuses upon two concurrent storylines which are vaguely connected to each other thanks to good old fashioned infidelity. Opening during a presentation on the importance of the soon to be launched Thames Barrier, London is Drowning first introduces us to the perceptive Dodds (David Neal). And Dodds is not happy that the Thames Barrier is not already active. But due to his position, the head of an unnamed flood control board, he can't exactly grouse in public about this. So this is where Pieter (George Roubicek) comes into play. With first hand experience of devastating floods in his Dutch homeland, Pieter chastises London's lack of flood drills and preparation.

And it's Pieter who connects the first storyline with the second. In between discourses on the importance of flood control he is conducting an affair with Clare (Susan Tracy). A graphic designer, currently tasked with designing posters warning about the impact of floods, Clare comes from a large family in Bermondsey. However, family matters are far from rosy for Clare. Following her divorce she has become estranged from her family. This estrangement, mostly empowered by her mother (Elizabeth Bradley), stems from the fact she hadn't informed her family she was married. And this is why the only way she can keep in touch with her beloved father (Arthur Whybrow) is via post.

Clare's parents and siblings are positioned in the play as proponents of normality. And, in all honesty, they are the victims of matters unfolding at a much higher level. Arthur (Colin Prockter) is a reliable staff member of the London Underground with a penchant for model trains. Joyce (Veronica Doran), still living at home, is heavily pregnant. Gerry (Anthony Heaton) is a sharp-suited car dealer with a stream of stolen Granadas and Cavaliers coming through his doors. And, finally, there's Frank (Douglas McFerran), a well-meaning son who is struggling with unemployment brought on by the global slump.

With strong gales and weather conditions combining to create rising sea levels, Dodds is becoming increasingly concerned by tidal predictions. He has, of course, voiced his concerns to the government before, but Dodds' department has been the victim of numerous cuts. With predictions spelling disaster for the Thames, a Flood Control Centre is established shortly before warning sirens begin sounding. As Clare's family begin to take shelter, however, Gerry decides to take advantage of the situation and hatches a plan to shift two of his hottest motors - a Rolls Royce and a Lotus - out of London with the help of Frank. But water is already beginning to rise up from the drains.

So, what's London is Drowning like? Well, first off, I have to report that it's nothing like Threads. And it's far from a docudrama, it's pure drama. What the two plays do have in common though is their initial structure. Both commence with only the gentlest of burbles that disaster is on the horizon. And this simmering discord is pushed to the background as more political and domestic matters take centre stage. Threads, of course, takes in the beginning, the middle and the aftermath of a massive catastrophe, but London is Drowning comes to a close just as disaster strikes. And this is a shame as it's an absorbing and powerful play.

Graham Williams worked mostly as a producer and script editor, but London is Drowning showcases his skills as a writer. Mixing satire and fierce drama, it's a play that demands your attention without the need for action packed set pieces or hysterical plots. Instead the inevitable, and the title alone is enough to indicate where it's heading, denouement builds with a pleasing pace. Dodds' scenes, mostly spent observing tide measuring devices and making predictions, are sedate affairs, but they gently crank up the urgency of the narrative. The same can be said for the domestic scenes which, at first, appear to be little more than an essay on the minutiae of familial affairs. But, in fact, they're laying the groundwork for both family reunions and family disasters.

The script is also keen to criticise both political models and the human condition. Vast swathes of Dodds' narrative are given over to directly attacking government cuts. Something to minimise the flood could have been put in place, but, to win votes, ministers cut Dodds' budgets to implement anything effective. Parliament, of course, demands answers from Dodds, but they are far from receptive to his reasoning. Likewise, Jerry takes advantage of the unfolding disaster to line his pockets, but it's an exercise of greed and dishonesty which is only matched by its failure. Eerily, the play reflects many of the contemporary matters of the coronavirus age. Admittedly, this could be said of almost any disaster narrative, but it feels all the more real at the moment.

Acting wise, there are strong performances throughout which epitomise the Play for Today model. David Neal, George Roubicek and Anthony Heaton are the pick of the bunch, an accolade which is made all the more possible by their three dimensional characters. A number of the other characters, Joyce and Frank for example, add little to the play and act mostly as shadows to the others. That's not to undermine their ability, it's more a negative result of cramming so many characters into a 70-minute play. A longer script, perhaps one which examined the aftermath, could have provided more for these peripheral characters. But, in reality, the prospect of filming a drowning London would have been restricted by both budgets and effects of the day.

As with the vast majority of the Play for Today catalogue, London is Drowning is likely to remain forgotten as it collects dust in the BBC's archives. But it's an absorbing watch that contains important lessons which, as a society, we appear unable to take control of and learn from. In the mean time, stay safe and, just in case, keep your armbands handy.

A Chat with Fred Harris

June 15, 2020, 10:59 am

≫ Next: In Discussion with Joy Whitby

≪ Previous: London is Drowning

$

0

0

Certain names are synonymous with children's television in the UK and Fred Harris is one of them. Starring in almost endless run of shows through the 1970s, 80s and beyond, Harris has managed to entertain generation after generation. And it's a rare presenter who can claim such longevity and plaudits.

Last year, I managed to talk to him about his work on Ragtime for one of my books on lesser known children's television. However, as I've already set out, there's a lot more to Harris' career than one or two shows. And there's even more to his career than just children's television. Seeing as his was a story that deserved to be told, I decided to get back in touch with Fred for a deeper look at his career.

Hello, Fred! Many thanks for agreeing to chat and, without further ado, let's get started. Going way, way back to the start, when did you first get bitten by the performing bug? And how did this lead into making it your profession?

At school I only had a couple of tiny parts in the school plays; third soldier – that sort of thing. I mostly ended up doing sound effects and backstage stuff. But, performance-wise, I did enjoy playing music. In particular, drums, which I thought would be easy. Nobody had told me it’s like juggling and tap-dancing at the same time! It didn't take long until I was in a Shadows-style band, which was obligatory in the early 60s.

At university I auditioned for a play (partly because I fancied one of the girls in the drama group). The producer handed me the script and said “Here’s the scene. You’re facing your boss – you’re in deep trouble, so I want you to speak the lines as if you are terrified.” The thing is, I was terrified, so I just let myself shake. Afterwards, the producer told me that I was really convincing, and I had a great acting talent! The only real acting I did that day was when I casually replied, “Oh, you’re very kind” I then went on to do many more plays and even ended up running that drama group.

You went, in the early 1970s, from working in the theatre to appearing on children’s TV, so what drove this transition and how did it happen?

I’ll go back a bit on that one. After university I taught maths for a year, and was also playing drums and flute with a local folk-rock band. They were really rather good. One of them was PJ Wright who became a pro – Google him. We were offered a recording contract so I quit my teaching job and was all set to become a muso. Sadly, the group literally disbanded before we could go professional, and I was out of a job. Some college friends wanted to start a little touring theatre group and asked me to join them. I had nothing to lose, so I said yes. Previously, I’d had no intention of becoming an actor – it just happened.

The group set up in Southampton. We worked like stink, but we weren’t making enough money to live on. I started doing odd jobs at Radio Solent, often unpaid, and wrote and acted in a dramatised adventure story for their weekly children's show. One of the deejays there suggested I’d be good on telly (I don’t know if he still feels that way!) He’d seen me working with kids, and said “Why not write to Play School?” So once again, my life ricocheted in another direction.

It’s a little easier to appear on television these days due to the vast number of channels, but what did it feel like to be a performer back in the days of three channels? And how often were you stopped in the street?

Is it easier? There are more channels, but there are many more people who want to do it. There’s more competition and, because of Skype and Youtube, there are lots more people who aren’t intimidated by the camera the way we used to be. In the 70s it felt very unusual to have a camera on you. Trying to be natural in front of a monster the size of a Dalek (actually, four monsters in a typical studio) was a bit of a challenge. The secret is always not to think “there are 5 million people watching this” (Play School regularly got 5 million) but to think about one individual in his/her living room. It’s very intimate.

As for being stopped in the street, the great thing about little kids is they don’t think about you being a “celebrity” or whatever. As far as they’re concerned, you’re a chum. You were in their living room this morning. Here you are in Tesco this afternoon. No big deal. They’d just come up and chat as if you were old buddies. I can remember one lad swearing that we had worked together in the Play School studio “We sang that song – Once I Caught a Fish Alive – don’t you remember?” He’d obviously been at home watching but in his head he was “at” Play School.

Bigger kids would ask how you got into television, and I’d always reply “Through the little holes at the back”. (Groan) Doesn’t work any more, because tellies don’t have those vent holes. Lots of them (and their parents) would say “you look much smaller on television!” which always made me laugh, because most tellies then were about 14 inches high. If I hadn’t been smaller on TV it would have been problematic in lots of ways.

Your first television role was in the legendary Play School, so what can you remember about these early steps into television?

At my Play School camera audition, I was really nervous. I’d messed up a lot in the run-through. The director (lovely lady called Carole Ward, who had been a presenter) took me to one side and murmured, “Don’t let me down, Fred. My money’s on you!” It was a wonderful thing to say. It gave me enough confidence to throw in some ad-libs, on the “take”. I was making a sock puppet and said “all you need is an old sock”, then dipped into a box of odd socks to pull one out. Unfortunately I pulled out the wrong one – it was the wrong colour to match the ‘one I’d made earlier’. Realising I’d have to find an excuse to pull out another one, I just sniffed it and said “preferably a clean one” and threw it away. One of the sound technicians laughed and fell off his chair. It probably helped get me the job.

I soon got to work with some wonderfully experienced presenters and learned a lot from them. I was never afraid to ask, and they were kind enough to share techniques with me. (e.g. Julie Stevens – great presenter – showed me that if you need to change eyeline from, say, camera 1 to camera 3, try to find some reason to look down – at a book – or a prop, say - and then up again to the new camera. The vision mixer will have time to make the cut, and will appreciate your helping them)

What was the children’s department like at the BBC when you first joined? And how exciting was it to be hanging out at Television Centre?

I didn’t do a lot of ‘hanging out’ at TV Centre – I was only ever there when there was work to be done, and time was always tight. The thing I liked about children’s TV was that people were there because they wanted to be there. Nobody saw it as a stepping stone to (ahem) “greater things”. All of the presenters would get a bit annoyed – and try not to show it – when members of the public or friends would say “Who knows where this might lead to?” None of us thought of children’s TV as second best. Children are a very discriminating and demanding audience. If they’re bored, they’ll wander away. An adult might watch a show and think “I’ll stick with it, it might improve in a minute”, but not a child! Keep ‘em engaged or you’ve lost ‘em.

You appeared on children’s television for a long, long time, so what do you think it was that helped to establish you as a firm favourite with children?

No idea. Was I a firm favourite? Not compared with Brian and some of the others! People often said to me “You’re just the same off-screen as you are on.” (Of course, that might have been an insult, now I think about it.) If the kids liked me – and I’m sure some of them didn’t – it might be because I didn’t try to “put on an act”. I tried to be myself. Plus, I always made sure there was a bit of energy. Advice to aspiring presenters: TV has a flattening effect which surprises most people at first. You soon learn to heighten the energy level by 30% to put back the bit that gets squashed. I ran some courses for new BBC presenters, years later, and that was the first message. Well, the second actually. The first was the intimacy thing I mentioned before.

Who were the people you worked with in children’s television that you admired the most? And what was it that made them stand out?

So many! I’ve already mentioned Julie Stevens. Derek Griffiths was a phenomenal talent, and still is. Chloe Ashcroft and I always made each other laugh (sometimes with a rude aside off-camera). The production team was also very inspiring. Michael Cole (Ragtime) was a genius. Albert Barber (producer) and I enjoyed working with each other so much he suggested that we try not to show it, in case the powers-that-be broke up the partnership. When he was told he’d been assigned me as the male presenter on his forthcoming week he’d just say “Yeah, fine, okay…” instead of “Yippee!” And I’d do the same.

We also had some wonderful guests on the show, well-known actors, comedians, even orchestral performers. James Blades (the percussion guru) used to let me play all the drums and other kit he would bring in. And the talent in the off-screen musician’s area was incredible. People who could sightread and transpose instantly, and improvise incidental music off the top of their heads. Some jazz legends. Bill le Sage, Spike Heatley, John Horler. (I’m a jazz lover, and I couldn’t believe I was working with my heroes!) Plus brilliant composers like Anne Dudley and William Blezard. They were all superb. Because I’ve always been a frustrated muso, I’d hang around the band area as much as I could.

For me, with my mid-1980s memories, Fred Harris has always meant one thing: Chock-a-Block! What was it like being the Chockabloke and how much fun was driving the Chockatruck?

I’m glad so many people remember Chockablock fondly. I’m afraid I was recovering from a slipped disk and I was rattling with painkillers for most of the time, so my memory of it is a little blemished. Getting out of the Chockatruck was agonising, especially challenging with a welcoming smile on your face! It was also extremely hard work. There was always a tricky chromakey segment at the end of each show, with a double-pass overlay (two recordings) or something equally challenging. We had always over-run on the main part of the show, and these tricky bits had to be done in a hurry without much rehearsal before the whole crew went onto overtime rates. As I’m a bit of a technogeek these were the parts I always wanted to get as close to perfection as we could, but it was never possible.

The Chockatruck was a devil to drive (“Fun,” you ask!?!) It had only one drive wheel (rear right) so when you pressed the “on” button (there was no smooth accelerator like a car) it would lurch to the left at full speed. I’m told that when Carol Leader first got into it she demolished half the set! She’s a good driver, too. But I’m glad to have done the show, and I’m really pleased that the children liked it. That’s what it’s all about. Never mind the hassles and thwarted aspirations! Nobody ever comes out of a TV studio thinking “That was perfect!” Except maybe Trump.

How do you feel that children’s television changed over the course of your career?

Things got much faster in the 90’s, louder and more colourful, to the extent that child psychologists were wondering whether it might induce attention deficit disorders in children. If you look at a Play School from the mid-70s it’s got a variety of paces. Some bits are upbeat and zany, but you might then have a quiet three or four minutes looking at a spider’s web. Those quiet moments disappeared from a lot of children’s programmes from about the mid–80s. Not Play School, I’m glad to say. There’s now been a move back to the gentler pace for the tots, I think.

You didn’t, of course, work exclusively in children’s TV. There were also stints in comedy with End of Part One and, later, Micro Live put you at the forefront of Britain’s computer revolution. How important was it for you, as a performer, to work in other genres?

Really important. I get bored very easily, so the best time I ever had was juggling children's TV, radio comedy and the mathsy-sciency stuff. I also did loads of scriptwriting, which filled in any gaps in the performing work.

The big downside was that my agent used to moan that she never knew how to market me. She’d have liked to tell clients “he does funny voices” or “he’s a bit of a boffin”. I can see her point – I suppose a boffin who also does funny voices isn’t in huge demand. But I loved the variety. She reckoned I was losing work because I refused to specialise. She may be right. One producer from Tomorrow’s World told me I wouldn’t ever get shortlisted for the programme because of my association with Play School. (It didn’t stop them asking me to train the person who did get the job!) Do you detect a raw wound? Possibly...

If there was one thing you could change about your career, what would it be and why?

I wanted to be a drummer! Seriously, I wouldn’t change much. I’ve been incredibly lucky. I’ve had a lot of fun doing all kinds of shows, even if not everybody in the business has been easy to work with (Don’t ask, 'cos I ain’t gonna tell!) My big drawback is that I’ve never been a go-getter. I’ve not chased work the way I probably should have done: I always waited (and hoped) for stuff to come to me. I’ve never had an ambition or real goal in my work.

I always considered “schmoozing” to be a bit tacky. That’s one thing I would change, in hindsight. I now realise it’s a vital part of the job. I’ve loved doing what I’ve done, but I might have done more if I’d been pro-active. Other more enterprising presenters set up production companies or transferred their skills into directing when the presenter jobs started thinning out. I drifted into media training: how to come out of a Paxman-style interview with a smile on your face.

My son Ed is a writer of stage and radio drama, and he’s really good at his job. Won awards and things. Fortunately he has learned from my lack of business acumen, and knows how to network and forge links with other creative people. I left a lot to chance. But for all that, I’ve had a great time. I’m not pretending there haven’t been frustrations, disappointments, and some people and organisations I’d never willingly work with again. But you’ll get that in any job. Nonetheless, I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve done, and I was able to work with some really gifted, inspiring and fun people. I reckon being an entertainer is a real privilege. I’m certainly not sorry I quit teaching!

It's been an absolute pleasure, Fred, and thanks for the memories!

In Discussion with Joy Whitby

June 28, 2020, 10:28 am

≫ Next: Book Review: Opening the Box of Delights

≪ Previous: A Chat with Fred Harris

$

0

0

It's easy (and fashionable) to label individuals as pioneers, but it's much harder for those individuals to justify such plaudits. Joy Whitby, however, is an exception. Her career is one that speaks for itself and underlines its credentials in the boldest marks imaginable. Starting her career at the BBC in the mid-1950s, Joy has spent nearly 70 years ensuring that children are entertained. Now, column inches may tend to be reserved for those in front of the camera, but it's important to remember that television is a team effort. Those behind the cameras are equally important and that's why I decided to get in touch with Joy and find out more about her story.

You started your career in television at the BBC, but how did you end up working there and, in particular, the children’s department?

I got married in 1954 and needed a job. I thought of becoming a social worker and joined the London Mayfair Clinic as one of several secretaries working for a small group of psychiatrists. Patients would leave their young children in the waiting room which must have been an anxious time for them. I started telling them stories and one day, one of the secretaries took me aside and showed me two advertisements in The Times. One was for a studio manager (the BBC culled about 50 graduates a year) and the other was for a producer on Listen with Mother.

I applied and was boarded for both but didn’t get the LWM job. In fact, a year as a studio manager proved invaluable experience, watching different producers at work and making sound effects for dramas. A year later, the candidate they had chosen for LWM left and I was boarded again - this time successfully. The Head of that unit was a wonderful woman called Jean Sutcliffe who invented the phrase “Are you sitting comfortably” and helped to create a new literature for the under-fives. I learned a great deal from her.

You helped to create and launch Play School in 1964, so what was involved in getting it to air and what did you want to achieve with it?

From radio I applied for attachments to television - to Blue Peter under its creator, John Hunter Blair, and to Schools Broadcasting. Whilst there, BBC2 came on air and the new Head of Programmes, Michael Peacock, decided to set aside half an hour for small children, Monday to Friday. There was a dearth of nursery schools at the time and with a young family of his own, he could see the potential for a television programme to fill the gap. I was appointed to run Play School which was an exciting challenge.

I consulted experts in the education world, but for the most part was given an amazingly free hand. I appointed a new and largely untried production team including talented graphic artists. I devised the content, selected the presenters and wrote many weeks of scripts to set the format. The aim was to stimulate children at home in different ways on different days with a team of interchanging presenters, not all English. There would be songs and stories, toys and pets, opportunities to join in and magical windows to look out on the world beyond the Play School set. We had no idea how long the programme might run - I don’t think any of us would have predicted 24 years.

There were a wide range of presenters involved in Play School, but one of the best remembered was the late, great Brian Cant. What was it that impressed you about Brian at his audition and how was he to work with?

Brian was one of Nature’s gentlemen with an extraordinary range of talents.  A joy to work with, he could improvise, dance, sing, be both funny and serious and he connected with his young audience without ever talking down.  He was totally committed to the job and became a role model for others in the team. He often recalled his audition as one of the first presenters. Without advance warning, I asked him to get into a cardboard box and pretend it was a boat sailing across the sea. He set off on a wonderfully zany journey - fun for anyone watching and proof of his charm and ability to improvise, seemingly effortlessly.

What did you feel were your biggest achievements at the BBC?

Play School and Jackanory.

The success of Play School led to being offered another daily slot a year later. This was to be for slightly older children at teatime and as a team we decided to fill it with storytelling. There was a treasure house of children’s literature to draw on from all over the world, novels and picture books, legends and new writing. Most of it had hardly been touched for television and I thought if we could marry great stories to talented people in the adult world of entertainment, we might achieve something original and exciting – within a modest budget.

Sir Compton Mackenzie had just presented a programme for adults called The Glory that was Greece and agreed to tell Greek legends. The eccentric old actress, Margaret Rutherford, read Beatrix Potter stories. We also invited people who were not necessarily famous but had made a name for themselves in their profession, like Eileen Colwell, an elderly storyteller in a children’s library. Soon it became fashionable for leading actors and actresses to queue up for a week on Jackanory. The series ran for 30 years.

You moved to the newly formed LWT in 1968, but what prompted this move and how different was the world of commercial television from the BBC?

When Michael Peacock was appointed Managing Director of the new television franchise, London Weekend Television, he asked several BBC colleagues to join him. I felt honoured to be included with people like Humphrey Burton and Frank Muir and my admired boss, Doreen Stephens, Head of Family Programmes.

I felt I owed Michael loyalty in return for his support at the BBC. Now he was offering new opportunities which were irresistible. I was given shares in the company which proved very useful later when it came to raising funds for my own ventures as an independent. But that wasn’t the main reason for jumping ship. There had been an embargo on BBC Children’s producing drama - a great frustration. At LWT there would be money and encouragement for such projects. Whilst there, I produced Knock Three Times with Hattie Jaques, The Growing Summer with Wendy Hiller and Catweazle with Geoffrey Bayldon.

I remember being quite shocked at first by the difference between working for the BBC and commercial television. At the BBC, there was established expertise to draw on and pride in belonging to such a revered organisation. The studios were backed up by first class make-up and wardrobe, design and sound departments, largely based at Television Centre. At one time I had an office looking down into the central courtyard. At London Weekend, we started in a small office in Park Lane before moving to an open plan, modern block on the Western Avenue. Then there were apartments in Old Burlington Street which felt more like a hotel than a broadcasting base. The studio we used was at Wembley.  

The granting of new franchises led to a lot of ill feeling and redundancies. Many of the people who had lost their jobs in the re-shuffle needed to be taken aboard, whatever their qualifications for working on Children’s Programmes. At LWT we were all settling down after the first challenging years when there was a palace revolution. Michael Peacock was sacked and most of his appointments from the BBC felt we owed it to him to resign in protest.

Following this rather acrimonious departure from LWT you set up as an independent production company. How challenging was this move and what were the benefits/drawbacks of going solo?

There was a sense of moral euphoria after leaving LWT. Doors had closed. I couldn’t go back to the BBC and there were no openings at my level in other ITV companies. But we were confident and optimistic. This was before the independent sector became a force through the creation of Channel 4.  But I was lucky. My ex-secretary had social connections and met a financier who would back my first project, Grasshopper Island.

Doreen Stephens was joint producer and Frank Muir agreed to advise on locations and take part in the filming. It was exciting being in total charge, able to engage wonderful talent like Julian Orchard and Patricia Hayes and work with hand-picked experts like The Goodies cameraman, Tony Leggo. When we started out, I had no idea of the difficulties ahead. We were very shocked when the BBC turned down our Grasshopper Island pilot as “too middle-class” – my first awareness of hostility from ex colleagues. I wasn’t able to embark on new independent projects for another fifteen years.

However, we had enough confidence in the project to press on despite this setback. ITV and many other countries bought Grasshopper Island and people are still buying the DVD version. The latest vindication and source of reassurance comes from a long-standing fan in Germany who is currently setting up a Grasshopper Island website to commemorate 50 years since we made the series. You have to be dogged as an independent producer and believe in yourself against the odds!

A lengthy stint at Yorkshire Television started in the late 1970s where you helped to create shows such as The Book Tower, Raggy Dolls and The Giddy Game Show. What was life at Yorkshire like and what did you want to achieve at this point in your career?  

Paul Fox had recently become the new Managing Director at Yorkshire Television. My husband used to work under him at the BBC so we had met and he knew about my credentials. I was widowed in 1975 and a year later, when Paul parted company with Jess Yates, he invited me to become his new Head of Children’s Programmes. My ten years at YTV were very productive. I had an office in London and an office in Leeds and commuted for part of the week, staying at the Queen’s Hotel.

Paul was happiest dealing with Sport and Current Affairs but he took an active interest in the whole of his output and was an inspiring boss. We had weekly meetings in his Yorkshire office to discuss the children’s output, staffing and new ideas. He encouraged me to attend conferences like the Prix Jeunesse in Munich and was generous about visits to colleagues abroad like the people running Sesame Street in New York.  I was the only woman at Heads of Department meetings apart from an accountant, and YTV was fairly chauvinistic at that time. But many of my colleagues were very able and most of them were friendly so the atmosphere was creative. As in the BBC and LWT, the Children’s sector was like a little world of its own.

I’ve never been very career conscious. I enjoy work for its own sake and have been fortunate in being in the right place at the right time. I was at the start of BBC2, LWT, YTV and Channel 4. Becoming an independent has been a huge opportunity to do my own thing in my own way.

What did you find were the biggest challenges you faced during your career both as an individual and as part of a corporation?

Managing teams of talented people is certainly challenging and can be stressful. Those who work for you often think they can do your job better. You need to be a bit of a psychiatrist to understand what’s going on behind the façade. The television arena encourages gossip and I had my share of the damage long-term hostility can do. But I also found loyal friends and had the privilege of working with many memorable people. Stars like Terry Jones, Neil Innes, George Melly and dozens of others who dominated what we look back on as the golden age of Children’s Television. I also had a loving family behind the scenes which I’m sure helped to put ups and downs at work into perspective.

What do you feel is essential when it comes to entertaining and educating children through a television set?

At the risk of being dismissed as an elitist, I’ve always opted for quality programming and been cautious about getting involved with popular blockbusters. It was a factor, but for most of my time as a children’s producer I wasn’t dogged by the need to increase ratings. I was brought up to respect the Reithian ethic to inform and educate through entertainment.

Examples I’m proud of are The Book Tower which ran successfully for ten years. And the European Broadcasting Union’s Drama Exchange for children. Participants as far away as Australia and Japan joined the scheme which presented short dramatized stories about children in different countries.  You didn’t need to understand the language to follow the plot. The aim was to show how like we are all over the world and yet how different in interesting ways. In its first year, the Australian entry, Danny’s Egg, won a Prix Jeunesse award.

Financial pressures are quite different today and the scene has changed drastically from the days when television was the main source of entertainment for children. It must be much harder to be elitist today!

Who were the people you most enjoyed working with and why?  

 

I particularly enjoyed working with the late Neil Innes who was introduced by Terry Jones, having been part of the Monty Python team. I had admired his series, The Innes Book of Records, and saw him perform at the Edinburgh Festival. He was multi-talented as a composer, singer and performer and our first collaboration was on The Terry Jones Fairy Tales which he adapted for television. He went on to present The Book Tower and worked on other series for Yorkshire Television.  

One of our most charismatic presenters was Tom Baker who launched The Book Tower and fronted it for three magical seasons. But there were numerous other memorable colleagues over the years –  too many to list though I have a special regard for the late Tim Brooke-Taylor who played the six Voices of Authority in Grasshopper Island and remained a family friend.

And, finally, what are you up to these days?

As I approach ninety, I’m still lucky enough to be working through my independent company, Grasshopper Productions. Over the years, I’ve produced both live action and animated films for children. They were all shown first on television but are now marketed as DVDs. Alongside packaging and posting these DVDs, I write and illustrate my own stories for children - a creative solace in these days of lockdown.

More of Joy Whitby's work can be found over at the Grasshopper Productions website.

---

Book Review: Opening the Box of Delights

October 25, 2020, 4:59 am

≫ Next: Just Another Day

≪ Previous: In Discussion with Joy Whitby

$

0

0

It's that time of year where, as the leaves start to clutter our gardens and the days become shorter and colder, we need a dose of comfort more than ever. And, for many of us, this comfort can be found in The Box of Delights. Starting life as a 1935 novel written by John Masefield, The Box of Delights is a good old fashioned fantasy adventure which pits schoolboy Kay Harker against the evil machinations of Abner Brown. A popular book on its initial release, it found a new lease of life in 1984 when the BBC adapted the series for Christmas. And a new book written by Philip W. Errington lifts the lid on both Masefield and his most famous novel.

Almost everyone reading this blog will have watched The Box of Delights at least once; truth be told, it's more likely that multiple viewings will be the case. Either way, with a thoroughly charming cast and a thrillingly imaginative story, it's hard to deny the series' appeal. Throw in some cutting edge special effects - for the BBC in the mid-1980s - and it's an intriguing brew of everything that the venerable TV enthusiast could want. But the story behind both the television and Masefield's novel has tended to fall by the wayside. Thankfully, Opening the Box of Delights pieces together the definitive story.

Regarded as one of the leading authorities on John Masefield, Philip W. Errington has crafted an exhaustive look at the life of Masefield. In fact, it could easily masquerade as a full on biography for a writer who not only worked in a British hospital for French soldiers in World War One, but also served as Poet Laureate for a record breaking 37 years. Errington dissects and analyses Masefield's career with a forensic detail that takes in his earliest experiences training in the Navy through to his down-and-out years in New York and onto his burgeoning writing career. And significant space in the book is dedicated to the genesis and release of The Box of Delights. It's a study which leaves no stone unturned. And this allow Errington to sum up a definitive history of the novel.

The final section of the book is dedicated towards the 1984 BBC adaptation, along with short sections on its various audio incarnations, and again provides a comprehensive wealth of information. Most interesting are the sections that look at how The Box of Delights came to be on our screens. Part of a long running campaign to adapt the novel, the BBC had first floated the idea in the 1970s. However, it was not until the early 1980s that the project began to gain traction. And Errington covers this in great detail pulling quotes from producer Paul Stone and director Renny Rye. Time is also devoted to covering smaller, yet crucial details such as location lists, commercial releases (there was even a rare Betamax video) and press coverage. It is, quite simply, a fantastic companion to the TV series.

Errington's book is subtitled as "A stunning visual celebration" and this is the final seal of quality for the publication. Original manuscripts of Masefield's work are featured alongside archive photos of the man himself and wonderfully obscure promotional materials for the television series. The visual contributions help to colour Errington's study and prevent it from falling into the trap of becoming too academic. The project has clearly been a labour of love for Errington and his dedication to digging out this accompanying material can only be applauded.

A superb book for anyone interested in finding out more about John Masefield and the TV series, Opening the Box of Delights is available from DLT Books from 29th October 2020.

Just Another Day

November 8, 2020, 7:40 am

≫ Next: The Curious British Telly Fanzine is Here!

≪ Previous: Book Review: Opening the Box of Delights

$

0

0

Looking back at the past, during the midst of a pandemic, has provided a momentary respite from the unfolding tragedy outside our sanitised and mask-clad front doors. Getting nostalgic is far from a panacea, but it's comforting to remember what we, through rose-tinted glasses, deem as simpler times. It's even more intriguing, however, to compare and contrast these bygone times with our modern age. And the perfect source material for evidence of the former is Just Another Day. 

Helmed by the unseen journalist John Pitman, Just Another Day is documentary series which takes a literal look at "just another day" in a range of British professions and locations. Pitman, over the course of three series between 1983 - 86, makes his way through episodes which take in life amongst the bustling streets of Soho, the rigours of being a traffic warden and the eccentrics that make up the staff and inhabitants of the Tower of London. All of this is achieved with Pitman's lighthearted questioning, very much in the mould of a less gonzo Louis Theroux, and a selection of subjects who relish their fifteen minutes of fame.

It's a series which feels very much like a spiritual forebear to the late 90s classic documentary series Paddington Green. Both programmes present heartwarming depictions of their case studies and, most notably, they're London-centric. This factor was an intrinsic part of Paddington Green, but with Just Another Day it's most likely a case of being cheaper for the production to stay within the capital. Nonetheless, there's still room for excursions outside of the M25 with episodes dedicated to the exploits of a cross-channel ferry, life in the Cotswold town Fairford and a jaunt to seaside town Walton-on-the-Naze. 

Much is made of the engaging charm at the heart of Just Another Day and it's an appeal which is impossible to deny. Will Wyatt, who was Head of Documentary Features at the BBC throughout the 1980s, revealed in 1985 that the first series had been a massive success. Starting off as a sleeper success, the first series garnered huge audiences for BBC2 on its repeat airing. And when you watch the episodes - several are spread across YouTube and iPlayer - the genius of the series quickly reveals itself. By focusing closely on the inhabitants of these documentaries, Just Another Day presents a quirky range of idiosyncrasies rather than delivering a staid, generic look at its subjects. 

Young, female traffic wardens reveal the sexism they encounter as they patrol streets, infamous Soho landlord Gaston Berlemont of The French House muses philosophically about the charms of Soho and a long-serving barber at Waterloo Station details the various nude nationalities he sees strutting around the station's showers. Perhaps most hilarious, however, is Tower of London toilet attendant Sandy O'Cunneff. Keen to detail the toilet habits of various nationalities, O'Cunneff reveals that the French always leave a mess to clean up, the Japanese are quiet and respectful whilst the Germans are very clean. And she regales Pitman with these socio-lavatorial summaries all as she knits furiously. In fact the entire Tower of London episode is packed full of eccentric Beefeaters and tourists and is well worth seeking out on iPlayer.

Airing so long ago, there are, undoubtedly, huge differences in the way that life is portrayed in the early to mid-1980s compared to 2020. But some aspects remain as true now as they ever did. Fashions and haircuts are far too obvious an area for change, so there's no point focusing on them. However, cheeky chappy shoe repairers at Waterloo bellowing "You don't get many of them to the pound!" at passing females feels very alien to a modern set of sensibilities. Likewise, the sin and salaciousness of Soho demonstrated in 1985 is more prevalent compared to the modern, cleaned up streets of Soho. But, guess what, traffic wardens are still detested all these years later by those who willfully flout parking regulations. And department stores, such as Selfridges, continue to fight the good fight against shoplifters.

The biggest difference between the Britain of Just Another Day and of the one we currently inhabit is the lack of technology. There's no internet and, with mobile phones in their absolute infancy, it feels a very different world. It's one that's less fragmented and still part of the monoculture. This doesn't, of course, mean it's a better version of society. It was an era where race riots, in this country at least, were more regular and the threat of nuclear war loomed menacingly in the background. It's just a different world. No doubt, in 2055, the world of 2020 will probably seem very different. Actually, what am I saying? 2020 will feel different to almost every year for a significant time yet.

Anyway, Just Another Day is a fantastic and quintessentially British series. The majority of the episodes remain out of reach on a shelf in the BBC archives and this is a huge shame. As a historical article they're fascinating. But they are equally entertaining due to the rich, three dimensional cast that John Pitman meets along the way. There have been numerous documentary series about life in Britain produced over the years, but Just Another Day stands out in a way that puts it up there with the very best.

The Curious British Telly Fanzine is Here!

December 8, 2020, 12:02 pm

≫ Next: The Strange World of Gurney Slade on Blu-ray

≪ Previous: Just Another Day

$

0

0

As the title suggests, the Curious British Telly fanzine is here! A nod to the world of old school fanzines and a physical extension of this very blog, the Curious British Telly fanzine contains reviews, interviews, features, a big quiz and even a bit of art. All the content is exclusive to the fanzine and will remain a print-only experience. The full contents are as per below:

If you're interested in this hand printed, hand stapled and hand delivered (by a postman) publication then it's available for £3.50 (inc P&P). Just send an email to curiousbritishtelly@gmail.com and let me know where to send a PayPal invoice. It's currently only available in the UK, but if you are abroad then let me know your location and I'll look into postage costs.

And, best of all, a number of the articles have come from a number of other writers to make this a proper community experience. If you're interested in submitting something for issue two (no specific date planned for this yet) then email me your ideas - the brief is pretty simple: anything celebratory about British television's past.

The Strange World of Gurney Slade on Blu-ray

December 16, 2020, 10:22 am

≫ Next: Archive Tape Digging: December 2020

≪ Previous: The Curious British Telly Fanzine is Here!

$

0

0

The Strange World of Gurney Slade is, quite simply, mind-bogglingly ahead of its time. It's so modern, clever, funny and meta that it's difficult to imagine what audiences in 1960 made of it. But that's when this ATV comedy, starring Anthony Newley and written by Sid Green and Dick Hills, aired. In a world of black and white, the boundary threshing ambitions of Gurney Slade brought a new dimension to television. Audiences weren't necessarily ready for this new world, but, for the 1960s to evolve into the creative decade it was to become, it needed Gurney Slade hammering on the door early on. And now, 60 years later, Network have released it on an amazing Blu-ray set.

Long established as a cult classic, The Strange World of Gurney Slade has frequently been recommended to me since I started this blog. But I've never quite got round to it. However, the launch of the Blu-ray seemed like the ideal opportunity to acquaint myself with this curious series. And it's fair to say that I'm kicking myself for not getting on board the Gurney Slade train earlier. It's a remarkable work of television and one that deserves significantly more recognition that it has. But, of course, it aired 60 years ago. And it's a rare television show which can establish such longevity in the national consciousness. Hancock's Half Hour, naturally, is perhaps the most successful due to its establishment of the modern British sitcom, but Gurney Slade is aiming its sights much higher.

Gurney Slade doesn't take long to establish its raison d'être. The opening scene of the first episode starts with Gurney Slade (Anthony Newley) stuck in the middle of a depressingly upbeat sitcom. But, as the action focuses upon Gurney, he suddenly breaks the fourth wall. And in dramatic fashion. He walks off the set, past cameramen, ignoring floor managers and out into the 'real' world. Or as it's better known: Gurneyland. As an opening gambit it's bold, original and absurd. The chains are unshackled and Sid Green and Dick Hills suddenly have free rein to do what they want - a clause that had been guaranteed by Lew Grade's faith in Newley's potential.

It's a freedom of expression which takes Gurney Slade on a majestic journey through the mind and beyond. The first three episodes are filmed entirely on location and find Gurney navigating his way through abstract philosophies on relationships, romance and family. Whilst set in real world locations such as residential areas, airfields and the countryside, there's something unmistakably offbeat about the way in which they're presented. It's as if the film is running not through a camera, but through Gurney's subconscious and the result is a dreamlike atmosphere. Naturally, it's also funny, but not in your typical setup/gag fashion. Visual jokes are a plenty, inanimate objects strike up conversation and Gurney's own flights of fancy provide observations which are delightfully absurd.

The final three episodes are restricted to the studio, but provide some of the most self-referential moments of Gurney Slade. And, most ambitiously, episode four finds Gurney put on trial for making a television programme which isn't funny. It's a bold move, made bolder still by the muted response it was receiving from viewers, but it's executed perfectly. Focusing the trial on a routine about countersunk screws it has a payoff which is wickedly clever and a testament to the strengths of Green and Hill's writing. The final episode, again, breaks the fourth wall with Gurney, now that the series is coming to an end, having to find future roles for all the characters that have appeared so far. The series closes on a suitably surreal moment which finds Anthony Newley entering the studio and... well... I won't spoil it for you.

Anthony Newley is central to the charm of Gurney Slade and his performance here is strong evidence of the upward trajectory his career was in. A man who can sing, dance and act is always going to be popular, but it's his idiosyncrasies which allow him to stand out as Gurney Slade. Effortlessly comical, the strange terrains and narratives of Gurney Slade allow him to carve out a unique performance here. His acting career on television was regular following Gurney Slade, but there never quite seemed to be an opportunity to highlight his talents as this 1960 oddity. A shame for fans of television, but Newley's career was far from unfulfilled. And his exploits in Gurney Slade - along with his singing style - were an early influence on David Bowie, so that alone is a fine legacy.

And it's important to stress the immense skill with which Network have presented this Blu-ray set. Strangely, for a television series, the entire production was filmed on 35mm film. And this means that the picture quality is breathtaking. The outdoor scenes, in particular, pop with a crispness that makes Gurney Slade look as though it was filmed yesterday. Accompanying the Blu-ray is a booklet (more like a novella) which provides every piece of Gurney Slade trivia you could ever need and a selection of Anthony Newley's other performances from the same era. An absurdist gem of the highest quality, The Strange World of Gurney Slade is essential viewing for any fan of British television.

Archive Tape Digging: December 2020

December 23, 2020, 10:17 am

≫ Next: Arena: Masters of the Canvas

≪ Previous: The Strange World of Gurney Slade on Blu-ray

$

0

0

It's been well over two years since my last edition of Archive Tape Digging, but it's not been for a lack of trying. Unfortunately, I simply haven't had many video tapes come my way since 2018 - naturally, this year's pandemic hasn't helped - so there hasn't been much to report. I have, however, pushed back the 'oldest footage found' date a couple of times since the last ATD, but I'm frustratingly still a few months off that big milestone of a find from the 1970s. Well, I did actually find an October 1979 recording of Doctor Who, but aside from 1/3 of a second of a BBC1 ident there was nothing outside of that serial on the tape. Oh and, only today, I found a recording from December 1978. Yes, 1978. But it was just a transmission of the film High Noon - no continuity or anything else around it.

Nonetheless, I have found a few bits and pieces along the way, so thought I may as well collate the most interesting finds here.

19/12/1986 - ITV - The Giddy Game Show (Christmas)

Seeing as Christmas is less than two days away, what better place to start than with a Christmas special. And this particular extravaganza comes in the form of Yorkshire Television's The Giddy Game Show. It's not overly different to any other edition of The Giddy Game Show, but all the games have a Christmas theme so that's something. And only a Grinch would complain about the efforts of a children's TV show efforts at Christmas.

04/04/1987 - ITV - Parkinson One to One: Billy Connolly (Partial)

Rather unfortunately, it's missing the first 10 minutes but there is still an amazing 30 minutes worth of Billy Connolly at his best here. I actually found this on a tape back in 2017, but only got round to ripping it recently. I think I'd assumed it must already be online, but for some reason it's a Connolly interview which hadn't surfaced.

13/02/1986 - ITV - Puddle Lane (Jeremy Mouse and Mr Puffle)

As part of my research into Puddle Lane for an upcoming book - well, it should arrive assuming this pandemic ends one day - I was lucky enough to be sent a few episodes of the series which were recorded from the original broadcasts. And here's a choice episode which, nearly a year since he died, is a fine testament to Neil Innes talents as the Magician.

1981 - BBC1 Continuity from The Day of the Triffids

Back in August 2019, I went to pick up an extremely large collection of old VHS tapes. These were the ones which contained the 1979 Doctor Who serial I mentioned in the intro. Unfortunately, they didn't turn out to be as amazing as I thought they might. The original owner had, throughout the 1990s, gone back and recorded over many of the original recordings. And they also weren't a fan of leaving adverts in or allowing continuity to be recorded. Most of the time at least. Thankfully, that means I managed to find the original 1981 broadcasts of The Day of the Triffids with accompanying continuity either side of the episodes. That means plenty of idents, Beryl Reid on Blankety Blank and a Mike Yarwood trailer.

01/11/1980 - BBC 1 News and Weather

Continuity, ancient news and a helping of long outdated weather are three of the things I most like to dig up on a video tape. And this particular tape, which I believe - for the true obsessives - was a JVC E120 - delivered on all three fronts at once. For a while this was the oldest thing I had found on a VHS test - aside from those 1970s recordings of commercially available material - but it no longer holds this crown...

12/03/1980 - BBC1 - Continuity

Around a transmission of Call of the Wild - as part of The Wednesday Film slot - I found this continuity which includes a look at the evening's schedule and, following the film, a trailer for coverage of the 1980 World Skating Championships. Neither side of the film's continuity is complete, but I decided to upload it as there was a minute's worth of footage and, of course, it's so old. All I have to do now is find something older and more substantial...

As I'm sure you're aware, I'm always on the lookout for old VHS tapes, so please get in touch if you have some that are taking up space. I'm only really interested in footage that goes up to the late 1980s, so if the tapes are later than this then it's unlikely I would find much use for them. But, who knows, get in touch and let me know what you have.