I've never focussed on adverts when it comes to looking at the weird and wonderful corners of British television. Sure, I've highlighted a few ad breaks I've found whilst sifting through old VHS tapes, but little else. And maybe that's a mistake as, back in the days before streaming and on-demand viewing, adverts could quickly become cultural touchpoints, just look at the rapid rise (and descent) of Flat Eric. Most importantly, there are stories to be told behind these adverts. And there are none more mysterious than Smithy's Kaff.

Neil Miles, an intrepid videotape archaeologist of some repute, uncovered the Smithy's Kaff advert back in 2016. Broadcast in-between parts of The Tonight Show, this particular airing of the Smithy's Kaff advert came on the 24th October 1981 in the Anglia region. And it wouldn't be remiss of me to claim this was a regional advert, bearing all the hallmarks of a low-rent, yet curious production. Clearly, it's a fascinating moment of television. And it whets the appetite in a way which most advertising executives spend their careers striving to achieve. After all, who wouldn't want to go somewhere promising "Boys and Girls, Music and Noise"?

I caught up with Neil Miles to ask him how he felt when he first discovered the Smithy's Kaff advert:

"When I first saw it my jaw dropped, and I had to rewind and watch it again a number of times just to believe it was real! And then came the laughter! It's been more than five years now since I found that ad and it still remains my favourite thing I've ever found on an old tape"

The Smithy's Kaff (Kaff Kaff) advert is 10 seconds of absolute madness. A late night shot in the arm for the senses, and one which poses more questions than it answers. The most pressing question, of course, is where is Smithy's Kaff? Unfortunately, no one appears to know the answer. It's a teaser of an advert which provides no address and no phone number. Was it part of a longer campaign where the location was eventually revealed? Again, no one knows. All we have to go on is this advert. Like many before me, I've tried googling and searching through old newspaper databases to find a scrap of evidence for Smithy's Kaff, but nothing. 

It's a curious riddle and one which makes me wonder if it was even an actual establishment. Was it, in fact, part of a promotional campaign for a piece of regional programming on Anglia? Who knows? I certainly don't. And that's why I'm throwing this out to the internet. Maybe you lived in the Anglia region in the early 1980s and used to pop in here for a bacon sandwich. Perhaps you were related to Smithy. Maybe you are Smithy.

If you do have any information on Smithy's Kaff (or simply want to marvel at the power of the advert) then please leave a comment below.

British children's television in the mid-1980s may have been fantastic, but the amount of children's programming was limited. Across the BBC and ITV, there were roughly six/seven hour's worth of children's content available on a weekday, and around five hours of this was playing at the same time on Children's BBC and Children's ITV.

I was there and, well, I just accepted this was the way things were, a little bit of television for me and then the rest dedicated to Wogan, Pebble Mill at One and Cagney & Lacey. But there was more children's television available. You just had to have access to cable television, where The Children's Channel launched in 1984.

The Children's Channel launch date is announced

Mick Robertson in The Children's Channel studio

There was a time, before the emergence of satellite television, that Britain's televisual landscape was a much simpler, uncluttered place. Turn on your television today and call up the EPG and, well, you can scroll through the available channels until the cows come home. It's a vastly different world to the good old days of, at best, having four channels to watch. But, guess what? There were more than four channels available in the days before Sky.

Some of these were community channels, some required cable and, most excitingly, some were illegal. Regardless of the format they took, there was one thing that they all had in common: a relatively small audience. As a result, it's unlikely that most people reading this article caught these channels when they were on the air, and I include myself in that. Therefore, the time has come to take a look at 7 British TV channels you probably never watched.

3. Swindon Viewpoint

4. Channel 40

5. Starview

 

I'm delighted to reveal that my first ever published article features in the March issue of Best of British. The subject of the article, titled Anarchy Over the Airwave, is one which is a particular favourite of mine: the history of pirate television in the UK.

From the very early days of City TV in the 1960s (which never got on the air) through to Caroline TV in the 1970s (which, again, never got on the air) and onto the glory days of the 1980s when several stations managed to, finally, start making illegal broadcasts, it's all here.

It may be a little later than planned - thanks to a combination of other projects and a nasty bout of sinusitis - but the good news is that the sixth issue of the Curious British Telly fanzine is finally here.

If you've previously read a copy, then you should know what to expect; articles which probe into the more unusual crevices of British television, quizzes, artwork and, of course, a wordsearch. But, rather than provide just a vague overview, I'm going to grant you the respect you deserve and expand a little further on the contents.

The earliest days of Ceefax, when it was estimated that only six people could view it, are exhumed from the depths of time and placed under the Curious British Telly microscope, better known as my eyes. A little known 1979 adaptation of The Diary of a Nobody - starring the Demon Headmaster - is investigated and, spoiler alert, we learn that it's an absolute bobbydazzler. Meanwhile, Neil Martin is on hand (or should that be his posterior? I have no idea of his writing position) to look at the phenomenon that was comedy magazines in the mid-1990s. At the same time, Colin Wright keeps the art school credentials of the fanzine flowing with a nifty piece of artwork.

Oh, and I've gone overboard on reviews of early-EastEnders merchandise with a look at The EastEnders Sing-Along album and the 1986 EastEnders annual. But don't let this put you off, as there's plenty more in the fanzine as per the graphic at the end of this article.

As ever, the cost of the fanzine is £3.50 (inc P&P) - if you're abroad then just drop me an email and I'll work out a cost. The email for ordering the fanzine is curiousbritishtelly@gmail.com

And, finally, if you feel like you could contribute something interesting and compelling to the fanzine, please get in touch with a writing sample. If you get an article in then you'll get a free copy for your troubles.

Thanks for the support!

Unbelievably, there were only 13 episodes of Bagpuss produced, and yet it remains one of the most popular and endearing children's television programmes broadcast in these fair isles. With its otherworldly and slightly jittery stop-motion animation bringing to life an archaic, dusty universe packed full of idiosyncratic characters and stories, Bagpuss is unparalleled in its look, atmosphere and sound. But this curious world wasn't contained purely within the confines of a television series. There is, if you look hard enough, further adventures awaiting the nation's favourite saggy, old cloth cat.

Not only are there the recently uncovered mouse tales, but, back in the programme's heyday, there were also a couple of Bagpuss books released through the iconic Picture Lions label. Released in 1974, the year that Bagpuss made its debut on BBC1, the two books were Bagpuss in the Sun and Bagpuss on a Rainy Day. Written by Oliver Postgate and illustrated by Peter Firmin, these are far from cheap tie-in releases designed to make a quick buck; these are the real deal, 24-carat Bagpuss handcrafted by master Bagpussmiths. I covered Bagpuss in the Sun in issue three of the Curious British Telly fanzine, but now it's time to take a look at Bagpuss on a Rainy Day.

The Morecambe and Wise Show was first broadcast on BBC Two in Autumn 1968. It was one of the earliest British comedy series to be shown in colour and the first series included guest stars such as Bruce Forsyth and Matt Monro. That very first series was never archived as was standard practice at the time and all eight episodes of series one were disposed of in the 1970s, to make space in the BBC's archives for newer shows.

Following years of archive research and restoration, film copies have been found for four of the eight episodes of the first series, with audio-only recordings having also been located for the other four. All eight episodes are now being released on DVD together with a previously lost one-off Morecambe and Wise special from October 1970.

• Four previously unreleased full colour episodes, including a one-off special from October 1970.
• A special reconstruction of an otherwise lost early episode from series 1.
• Four audio-only recordings of otherwise lost episodes from series 1.
• Two short documentaries about the lost episodes of 'The Morecambe and Wise Show'.
• A 1968 BBC 2 interview with Eric Morecambe featuring Marty Feldman.
• An original 1974 BBC 2 trailer for The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show.
• Surviving footage from an otherwise lost episode of series 1.
• Deleted scenes from series 1.
• A raw studio recording from December 1972.
• A BBC Radio interview with Morecambe and Wise from October 1963.
• A collection of original production paperwork, including scripts and Radio Times cuttings.

I was a little bored today, so decided to do something absurd: I took my VHS tapes out for a walk in the woods. It was as much a treat for them as it was for me, as the poor old videos have spent the last 35 - 40 years either up on a shelf or shut away in a cupboard. So, coming face to face with some nature, as opposed to merely being used to record nature documentaries, would make for a wonderful outing.

G Neil Martin celebrates one of TV comedy’s finest double albums

It ended, in a way that didn’t really befit it at all, in a dusky power station, full of sinuous pipes, and shadows and angry gas and steam. As if HR Giger had been brought in to design satire. Four people - three men, one woman - and one monumental double entendre.

Series four of Not The Nine O’Clock News is the apogee of the series’ run. Broadcast in 1982, it led to the final of the NOT albums - this time, a double album (“Not The Double Album”, proper gatefold and all) which included a compilation of the best sketches and songs from series four on one disc and the group’s live Drury Lane show on the other. The CDs, which came later, were designed as two little 33 1/3 LPs. It is probably the greatest comedy double LP based on a sketch show ever produced.

Not A Lengthy History

Not The Nine O’Clock News occupies that rare category of show: the successful TV satire sketch show, a remarkably select and exclusive club. In the UK, you can tally TW-3, Spitting Image, Carrott’s Lib, Have I Got News For You and Not. Extend this to radio and you have Weekending, The Now Show and The News Quiz. There are others, of course,  but they are johnny come latelies compared to the enduring behemoths of the five here. Not The Nine O’Clock News was the second of the UK’s TV satire shows to demonstrate a longevity and quality which secured its place in comedy history. 

First broadcast in 1979 and beset with teething problems of timing, cast, quality and schedules, serendipity was the midwife of its success. Only one cast member survived the first edition that was never broadcast but scheduled to be broadcast on 2nd April (Rowan Atkinson); one and a half if you include Chris Langham who was retained in the “second” (i.e. the proper, first) series but dropped for the others. The first episode’s cast included Chris Emmett, Christopher Godwin, John Gorman, Chris Langham, Jonathan Hyde and Robert Llewelyn, and was to be introduced by John Cleese as Basil Fawlty bemoaning the fact that a technician’s strike had sabotaged Towers’s production and replacement tat was to appear in its place (this can be viewed on YouTube).

The expected broadcast date clashed with the calling of the 1979 General Election and so the episode was jettisoned. As John Lloyd, Not’s co-producer with an “insane, young” (according to Lloyd) television Current Affairs producer Sean Hardie, remarked in The Oldie (January 2020), “it was the second series that aired first because the first one, which only lasted one episode, was cancelled just before transmission”. This was a serendipitous gift because it allowed Lloyd and Hardie to regroup and re-think the cast and the show. 

It was originally titled Sacred Cows and Lloyd and Hardie were tasked with a show mocking political correctness (not politics). This suggestion was quickly shown the door as Lloyd and Hardie went about assembling the cast with Atkinson as its omphalos, the “magically gifted, rubbery-faced electronic engineer as the centrepiece of our enterprise and set about surrounding him with what his agent dubbed ‘lesser talents’” (Lloyd). One of these ‘lesser talents’ was to include Victoria Wood, who turned down the opportunity to occupy the role subsequently occupied by Pamela Stephenson. Alison Steadman and Susan George turned them down, too. Langham was retained from the aborted first edition and was joined by Mel Smith (“more ticket tout or a minicab driver than an actor”, sick of his directing work at the Royal Court) and Griff Rhys Jones (a co-performer with Lloyd in the 1973 Footlights Revue, and a then-radio producer at the BBC). 

After this chaotic beginning, the show went to four successful series, three comedy compilation albums, a live stage show, three books and two desk diaries. A BAFTA, a Montreux Rose and an Emmy followed. It made the careers of all of its stars, that much is known. Less well-known, but known to those in the know, is the roster of comedy writing talent that created the show. It was phenomenal and included Nigel Planer, Guy Jenkin, Colin Gilbert, Stephen Fry, Colin Bostock-Smith, Andy Hamilton, Ian Brown, Clive Anderson, David Renwick, Andrew Marshall, Dick Fiddy, Alastair Beaton and Richard Curtis (Atkinson’s stage performing partner).

And, yes, it is rather gent-heavy. Howard Goodall took on the role of Musical Director and was supported by Pete Brewis and Nic Rowley (more gents). Bill Wilson (series one and two - seven episodes; series three - eight episodes) and Geoff Posner produced (series four, 1982; six episodes). Gents, again.

The Album, The Sketches, The Songs

Which brings us to The Memory Kinda Lingers. The roll-call of sketches, now classic sketches, in this release is formidable and this is even before we appreciate the sumptuous terpsichorean valediction that is the oral sex tribute at the end of the very last show (of which, more soon).  If this were a Spinal Tap analogy, the album is where the Dobly is set to 11.  The first two albums (Not The Nine O'Clock News from 1980 and Hedgehog Sandwich from 1981, the cassette version of which was reviewed by Ben in the second issue of Curious British Telly) featured songs and sketches that are amongst the best and cleverest in comedy - Gerald the Gorilla (David Bloody Attenborough), Constable Savage, I Like Trucking, General Synod’s Life Of Python, Hi Fi Shop, Supa Dupa, That’s Lies, The Ayatollah Song (with its simple, perfect rhyming intro “There’s a man/In Iran”)…

Kinda Lingers meets all these and raises them higher, by several chips. It starts with one of the best self-contained (and not satirical) sketches with the perfect punchline of any show (The Spy Who Came In From The Cold written by Neil MacVicar). This is such a perfect example of incongruity, I use it to illustrate this theory of comedy in a lecture that I give on the psychology of comedy (I pair it with Newman and Baddiel’s History Today). One of the major theories of humour and comedy, incongruity theory argues that we laugh when we perceive two or more contradictory or opposing elements being placed together when we do not expect either to co-occur. It has a long history - a version was suggested by Cicero - but gestated in the work of Hazlitt and later Kierkergaard.

No spoilers here but for the uninitiated, the sketch is worth seeking out on You Tube for the full audio-visual glory and the crisp, exemplary delivery of Mel Smith and Rowan Atkinson who feature as spy and potential spy. Then, it is straight onto the traditional quickies and news one-liners before we encounter another of the series’ classic sketches, its spoof of Question Time which punctures Robin Day (here played by Griff Rhys Jones), the Question Time format, the stereotypical panel, the QT audience and bland political sloganising and sophistry. 

This is followed by another TV spoof, this time of Game For A Laugh in which the GFAL team, in the style of one of their Candid Camera set-ups, kills a viewer’s family to the alarm of the clearly distraught viewer, Geoffrey Lewis, whose distress turns to embarrassment and laughter when he discovers he is the patsy of the set up (“You guys!!!” he says to Mel Smith’s Beadle as his family lies dead inside his house and the corpse of his brother lies on the road outside after having been machine gunned by Pamela Stephenson’s Sarah Kennedy). 

This half of the album also includes two perfect phonological and visual quickies (Pizza Moment written by John Lloyd) and Hey Bob (written by Graham and Wilson), the latter featuring the brilliant punchline, “The new BL Ambassador. Built by Roberts” after a succession of Bobs in a car factory ask other Bobs where Bob’s torque wrench is. Webb’s Bread of Heaven is mercilessly lampooned, as are the Welsh, in a pastiche of the song in which a series of things is listed and the tune ends with “Failed in Wales” or “Made From Whales”. The Swedish Chemists Shop sketch (Great Old Chestnuts of the World, No 8) written by Barry Faulkner is also a quick and perfect play on phonology with its confusion between “aerosol” and “arsehole”.

The second half includes three of the show’s most admired sketches - Hey Wow (written by Smith and Jones) a spoof of a youth TV programme in which Griff Rhys Jones plays the presenter as an irritable and peremptory school teacher (“Would you do that at home?? Well, DON’T DO IT HERE”) and features the line “Mr Carpark has been kind enough to come here all the way from Nottingham”; McEnroe’s Breakfast (written by Tony Mather), another nice incongruity sketch in which Rhys Jones plays the querulous tennis player at the family breakfast who throws a tantrum because nothing is to his satisfaction; and Aleebee, written by Paul Smith and Terry Kyan, which is an extended funny joke about mis-pronunciation and the harbinger of Nigella and her "micro- waveh". The sketches culminate in Rowan Atkinson’s lubricious, phallocentric performance in What A Load of Willies written by Richard Curtis (“The Post Office Tower? THE POST OFFICE TOWER?? Pah! It’s the Post Office PRICK!”). 

And it is this theme, and this end to the first album, which brings us to the pinnacle of the discs, and the show’s, achievement: its swansong. But the filth did not start here, even if it ended here. 

Colin Pearson’s Two Ronnies skit/parody, The Two Ninnies, and its musical number written by Peter Brewis were written as if on a dare to see how many filthy double (and single) entendres the cast and writers could fit into one sketch and song while sending up the Two Ronnie’s formulaic comedy structures. “We like birds; we’re ornithologists”, begins the song, “HORNY, PORNO- thologists” and, later, “we’re marching up and down on the spot, spot, spot because the sodding choreographer’s a twat, twat, twat.”  It climaxes, in a manner of speaking, in a torrent of just about broadcastable filth.

After the Willies, we finally reach the pipes, the steam and the electric guitar and plaintive piano which open the show’s final goodbye, Curtis and Howard Goodall’s Kinda Lingers. Goodall had been the cynosure of this season’s musical output, giving us Typical, Bloody Typical, Headbangers and, of course, Nice Video Shame About The Song. When Goodall was asked at the 40th anniversary celebration of the series at the British Film Institute in 2019 how he created these musical pastiches and parodies, he said he simply followed a 2-3 minute formula and that these songs did not take long to create. When you consider the actual musical sophistication and cleverness of a song like Nice Video, it does sound like a testament to the idea that the best ideas are created under pressure. The song was better than the video and the lyrics are as memorable as the sepulchral cast and the goose-stepping Nazi. 

Goodall’s comic and musical pedigree is pretty well-established, his song That’s Why I Hate The French (sung by him) written and composed for Rowan Atkinson’s live show is a beautiful, acidic distillation of Francophobic inferiority with an astonishingly catchy melody. He also composed the Oh Oh Oh Means I Respect You song for the live show and this is another beautiful, heart-breakingly crafted tune and a song of two moods in which Pamela Stephenson translates her sex noises. For a silly concept, the song is perfect. You can say this of many of Goodall’s musical parodies - that they could stand alone as pure little fizzing pop songs if you stripped out the comedy. His and Curtis’s Barry Manilow parody, also part of the live show, shows a virtuoso at work: “The ponderous pounding of the piano, is like the pounding in my heart, but as the verse has just begun, it’s time for the chorus to start!”). It’s almost effortless.

Kinda Lingers, the song, is famous - notorious - for its barely concealed double entendre. What plays out as a melancholy exchange of goodbyes and the bittersweet reflections of parting from a cast to each other on their last ever show, culminates with each reassuring each other that the memory kinda lingers, a sledgehammer double entendre and a brave effort given its broadcast at 9pm on BBC2 in 1982. It begins, of course: “A wise man once said/All good things must end/It’s been the theme of many singers/But goodbye is the hardest word to say/So let’s just say…kinda lingers”/cunnilingus. And if you play the song and listen you know exactly which of those words the cast is singing (“You’ll soon find someone new, who’ll never say cunnilingus to you” promises Atkinson). I liked this song and its sentiment so much that years ago I embedded it in a hyperlink in an old work email signature in the week I left. Nobody noticed.

Not In Front Of The Audience

The second disc is a recording of the live show, Not In Front Of The Audience, at the Drury Lane Theatre in London in 1982. This is more of a hit and miss affair because some of the sketches clearly rely on us the audience being there in order for it to really work. It does mark a milestone, as such, and provides a glorious confirmation of the show’s success in that it was able to create and put on a live show that sold-out thus continuing a long tradition of (mainly Oxbridge) comedians adapting their revues or TV shows for the stage (most famously, Monty Python who also recorded their show at Drury Lane). They’re all at it now, of course.

There are some longeurs in the show - and the need to comply with the constraints of theatre are painfully obvious and seem stretched on occasion. There is a lengthy series of sketches featuring the Pope which overstays its welcome but is redeemed by the pontiff’s impression of Tommy Cooper. As befits theatre, it’s perhaps surprising or not that the most successful portions of the show are musical, it opens with Peter Brewis’s Confrontation Song, includes the Respect You and Manilow songs mentioned earlier, and reprises Gob On You.

Most of the material is new. The show reprises Constable Savage in a new sketch. The original was famous for two reasons. First, it is a perfect satire on police racism where Savage is hellbent on arresting the same man (a Mr Winston Kodogo) for a series of increasingly preposterous and fictitious crimes. And, second, it was scripted by a writer (Paul Newstead) who, by all accounts, only wrote this one sketch for the show before disappearing into comedy oblivion. As became a tradition, the show was accompanied by further comedy material in the form of the show’s souvenir programme which was mercifully short on adverts for Cameron Mackintosh, paeans to the theatre and its history, and tempting post-show specials at Joe Allen’s but long on spoof adverts and features. See below.

Not Another Paragraph of Praise

Like all NOT albums, The Memory Kinda Lingers holds up even now, a rare feat for a show that was defined by and promoted for its satirical drive. It is a testament to the strength and timelessness of its comedy. It is slick, polished, sharp, funny and inventive, created by a crew at the height of its ability. Personally, this was the one album that made me in awe of comedy writing. It is a masterclass. If I were ever invited onto The Rule Of Three, this is the album I’d discuss. And it’s one that, despite the years that have gone by, just - well - kinda lingers, doesn’t it?

G Neil Martin is a Professor of Psychology and writer (@thatneilmartin)
He was a writer and books reviewer for Deadpan, the UK's first - and last - magazine about comedy. His book, The Psychology of Comedy, is published this Autumn by Routledge.

It would take three more years for the wheels of breakfast television to start moving, with the IBA announcing that ITV would be offering a licence for national breakfast television. And it would then be another three years before a regular service arrived on our screens. Good Morning Television may have only represented a minor stepping stone in this progress, but it was an admirable folly of innovation.

The main difficulty as child watching a comedy aimed at young adults was many of the jokes sailed clean over our heads. Gags about period pains and wet dreams became the stuff of huddled “do you know what x is?” conversations, always commenced by the one boy who knew what x was and wanted to show off. And not just sex, but politics too; the meaning of Rik’s accusation to Neil that “you’re so blinking bor-joicey!” evaded me for years afterwards, until I realised it was the writers’ brilliant way of showing Rik’s political ‘right-on’ fakery (if you’re still in the dark, Rik is mispronouncing ‘bourgeoise’).

With many households owning just one television set in the early 1980s, there was many an awkward living room silence with parents glaring over their blushing child’s head at, for example, the scene in ‘Interesting’ in which an unknowing Rik and Vyvyan play with a female friend’s tampon applicator (“It’s a telescope – with a little mouse inside it!”). This relative frankness about previously taboo topics in TV comedy resulted in some unfortunate children being banned from watching the show by their parents.

As for myself, although my father described one episode as “filth”, I was allowed to watch whatever shows weren’t past my bedtime. And the day after each new episode, my schoolfriends and I would recite what parts of the show we could remember, one of the very few ways of keeping scenes alive beyond their original screening - few of us had access to VCRs in 1982, though that would change over the next few years. In my case, a 1985 repeat screening of the season two episode ‘Time’ became the first TV show I taped and kept, on a Scotch E-120 tape that, 37 years later, I donated to the editor of this very blog.

Roy Clarke needs little introduction, so we’ll simply state that he started writing for British television in 1968. And didn’t stop writing. By the time that Mann’s Best Friends made its debut, on the 15th of April 1985, Clarke was a relentless scriptwriting machine. Not only was he working on Last of the Summer Wine and Open All Hours, but he somehow managed to defy the laws of time and also fit in scripts for The Clairvoyant, Pictures and The Magnificent Evans. Most of Clarke’s oeuvre has emanated from the BBC’s transmitters, but Mann’s Best Friends represents an interesting anomaly in that it was Clarke’s only outing, up until now, with Channel Four. Produced by Thames Television, Mann’s Best Friends ran for six episodes and received just one repeat run.

2022 sees the centenary of Manx screenwriter Nigel Kneale, best remembered for the Quatermass stories. There’s been panels and seasons from the British Film Institute, HOME in Manchester and Cambridge Festival, as well as a one day retrospective at the Picture House in Crouch End, London (full disclosure, that was organised by me). For this esteemed organ however, something a little more obscure is needed and so let’s have a look at Kneale’s final contribution to the BBC, his lost adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk, broadcast on 24 March 1974.

Recalling the story in Andy Murray’s biography, Kneale explained “there was no Jack and there was no beanstalk. It was all entirely psychological…looking for the truth behind fairy tales. I picked on Jack and the Beanstalk, which was full of symbols and things like that.”1 What we have is a domestic drama about coming to terms with trauma and the stories families tell themselves.

Jonathan (Martin C. Thurley 2) is on his way to an interview at Leeds University. The ‘cow’ here is Jonathan’s future. His career is a meal ticket for his mother, Linda (Stephanie Bidmead 3  – Doctor Who fans may know her as Maaga from Galaxy 4). Jonathan is unwittingly persuaded to abandon his trip and return home by an arrogant travelling salesman, Nethercott (Peter Jeffrey). But he isn’t ‘sold’ an alternative future by Nethercott, instead, by questioning Jonathan’s life choices he helps him understand he’s running from something unresolved: the death of his father, Duggie (Glyn Owen). He died when Jonathan was three and looms like a giant in his memories. Jonathan must learn the truth of what sort of a man his dad was before he can move on with his life.

A number of Kneale’s stories deal with generational conflict, Julian Petley calls it “a distrust in youth 4”. Kneale uses it to a greater or lesser extent in his Wednesday Plays BAM! POW! ZAP! And Wine of India, as well as Quatermass, which in part uses themes from his earlier abandoned project The Big Big Giggle. Here in Jack and the Beanstalk, Nethercott believes he’s entitled to some say in Jonathan’s future because his taxes help fund Jonathan’s degree.

“If you pay taxes. Or rates even. Then you've bought a part of him. What d'you say to that?... I'll make it easy for you. Simple terms. Bingo-- Legs—eleven, clickety—click, full house! Better still the pools, they more in your line? Treble Chance, record divvy, Miss Crumpet greets the happy winner!

And who is the happy winner? This lad here! But who put down the stake money? You bloody did! I did! All the rest of us…They've run off with all the chances we missed5.”

Of course generational conflict is nothing new. The First World War in part created a lost generation that rebelled against Victorian social norms, while the teenage culture that rose in the 1950s sought to break free of society’s conservative constructs. But these were both largely social changes. The generational conflict prevalent at the time of Jack and the Beanstalk’s writing, recording and broadcast in the early 70s wasn’t just social, it was also an economic one.

The UK began 1974 in its first recession since the Second World War, an oil crisis, caused by the Yom Kippur War, inflation breaking 17%, and the ongoing miners’ strike led to a three day working week in order to save power. The economic instability led to political turmoil, and after Prime Minister Edward Heath called an early General Election in order to try and solve the impasse with the NUM with the slogan Who Governs Britain? The electorate came back with the inconclusive answer that we’re not really sure, but it isn’t you anymore, sunshine. Although the Tories got the most seats, they didn’t win a majority and failed to do a deal with Jeremy Thorpe’s Liberal Party. Labour leader Harold Wilson was then able to form a minority government and end the miners’ strike with an improved pay offer. Cheers, Ted.

So while the older generation may be resentful of youth for taking advantage of opportunities they never had, the youth themselves blamed them in tern for messing up the world they were to inherit (it’s sounding familiar isn’t it?). Films like Whatever Happened to Jack and Jill (1972) and television series like Rising Damp (1974-1978) would highlight this conflict in terms of housing, from the youth perspective. And like Rigsby, Linda has had to take in a lodger, Marcia (Miranda Hampton), who’s young and modern (read: sexually active), and she has a boyfriend, Mike (Ian Halliburton) who often stays over.

So while this provides a standard arena of conflict for the generations and their social views, Linda also creates conflict with her son by essentially exploiting his potential for university as her opportunity to escape, essentially justifying this as a return on investment. Only 5.57% 6 of school leavers went to university in 1973-74, the academic year from when Jack and the Beanstalk was broadcast, and the vast majority of those weren’t working class. It’s not hard to have some level of sympathy with Linda, that having been a single mum for so long, having to work and bring up a child, she would feel a fair amount of frustration at Jonathan turning down so rare an opportunity. But if Jonathan doesn’t want it, should he be forced to go? Kneale doesn’t provide simple answers to complex problems.

Of course the reason for Linda’s single mother status, the absence of Duggie, is the main theme of the story and we experience Jonathan’s confused memories of his father via a series of flashbacks. Sadly it’s not possible to view these sequences but thanks to Kneale’s detailed descriptions in the script, we get a good idea.

“INT. KITCHEN, 1960. NIGHT

Everything is monstrously distorted. Huge pieces of furniture loom high above. Even the table-top is above the eye level of JONATHAN-AGED-3. The chairs are things for ogres to sit on. The ceiling is as high as the sky.7”

Duggie’s world as Jonathan remembers it. But what of Duggie himself?

“The towering, terrifying figure of DUGGIE WEIR rushes out on to the landing. He is fighting drunkand bellowing oath-words unrecognisable to the cringing JONATHAN-AGED-3. Animal sounds of pure threat.

The handheld camera retreats down the stairs. JONATHAN’S small voice utters strangled cries of terror as DUGGIE stumbles down after him, huge hands outstretched, eyes bulging with fury, teeth bared.8”

But he suspects these are unreliable memories, largely curated and reinforced by his mother. A mother who Jonathan knows is overbearing. Jonathan seeks out some of this father’s old drinking companions and meets Vic and Dorrie Whitaker (real life husband and wife Will Stampe and Julie May) who describe a broken man, full of drink but who doted on Jonathan until Linda kicked him out. What’s interesting here is that despite the reframing of Duggie who was loving and bereft, there’s no attempt to justify and whitewash the domestic abuse Linda suffered. Kneale merely explains: Duggie found comfort in drink to escape Linda’s rejections and then hit her when he was drunk. You don’t have to be a good man to love your son.

We also learn that Duggie loved to sing, and there’s one in particular used throughout the play:

“One night as I lay on my bed/I dreamed about a pretty maid/I was so distressed I could take no rest/Love did torment me so.9”

The song is a traditional English folk balled first recorded in Dorset by Henry Hammond in 1906 10. But by the time of Jack and the Beanstalk’s broadcast, One Night As I Lay On My Bed proved popular with a number of artists of the British folk music revival including Steeleye Span (1970) and Shirley Collins (1974). It continues to be recorded to this day.

“This song has always been popular among gypsy singers of England's southern downs. It dates back at least as far as the Elizabethan era, when John Dowland adapted it as Go from My Window. It is a night-visiting song, which means it belongs to a curious genre of song which hovers between the supernatural and the erotic. The visitor, who has usually endured an unpleasant journey, is faced with practical difficulties (Mom and Dad in this case) before being admitted and spending the night. Only the enforced departure at dawn reveals his or her ghostly nature. This variant of the genre avoids being either spooky or sexy and settles for the most discreetly understated ending of any folk song.11 ”

Songs or rhymes with deeper meanings feature in a number of Kneale scripts, from Oranges and Lemons in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954) to Hufferty Pufferty Ringstone Round in Quatermass (1979). Kneale also invents an incantation for the climatic ritual in his adaptation of The Witches (1966). The erotic elements of this particular song would certainly sit uncomfortably with Linda, and there’s a subtext of sex as bad throughout the script. Linda couldn’t bare for Duggie to touch her, and resents Marcia for her carefree attitude, eventually throwing her out and replacing her with the older Miss Long (Liz Smith). There’s an interesting note in the stage direction when Jonathan fixes the lock on the new tenant’s bedroom door.

“MISS LONG seems to flinch, to avoid the male intrusion into her personal space. But she bares her teeth in a kind of smile.12”

Boyfriends moving in by proxy would seem to be less of an issue here. The final revelation that Linda never wanted to have a child and that Duggie did is all the justification Jonathan needs to break away.

Ultimately, Jack and the Beanstalk is about a teenager coming to terms with where they’re from and thus talking charge of where they’re going. But it leaves more questions than it answers, indeed the final scene is a dream sequence featuring a Duggie that only exists in Jonathan’s imagination, suggesting he’s not interested in the wider, more complex truths of the circumstances of Duggie’s life and death. It also marks a transition for Kneale, not just from the BBC to ITV, but in moving towards a more intimate, focussed style of storytelling that would continue with Murrain and Beasts. The fact it’s a lost production, and coming relatively soon after the big hit of The Stone Tape makes this one of Kneale’s most overlooked stories.

Jon Dear is a writer on TV and film. He co-hosts the Nigel Kneale podcast BERGCAST, and featured on the commentary for the BFI’s recent release of Nineteen Eighty-Four. He recently wrote about Kneale for Fortean Times and curated the sold out Nigel Kneale – A Centenary Celebration in April of this year.

1 Murray, Andy, Into the Unknown – The Fantastic Life of Nigel Kneale 2 nd Ed. (Headpress 2017), p. 184
2 Long-term readers of Curious British Television may recall that he appears in Clive Exton’s adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s The Breakthrough. See the piece I wrote on The Mind Beyond in issue 4.
3 Sadly this would be Bidmead’s final role. She died in the September of that year aged just 45.
4 Murray, p.289
5 Script, p.6
6 https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1976/mar/29/school-leavers
7 Script, p.24-25
8 Script, p.23
9 Script, p.46
10 https://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/songs/onenightasilayonmybed.html
11 Nigel Schofield in the CD liner notes of Many Hands by Steve Tilston (2005).
12 Script, p.50

• The ‘objects’ cards are placed face down upon Bertha’s conveyor belt
  
  
• The ‘bits’ cards – which contain all the constituent parts of an object – are dealt out amongst the players.
  
  
• Players move around the board and if they land on a character, they get to ask Bertha to make an object – achieved by revealing the top object card
  
  
• If they player requesting the object card can match it to one of their bits cards, they get to keep the object card
  
  
• If the player can’t match the object card, then the card is placed face down on one of the yellow spaces on the factory floor
  
  
• Players can then request either Bertha to make an object or, using the power of their memory, match one of their bits cards to one of the object cards which have been placed on the factory floor spaces
  
  
• If you land on one of the Tom squares you get an additional go
  
  
• The winner is the first person to match all their bits cards to the relevant object cards

It’s a lot to take in, especially as the game is for ages 5 and up. Nonetheless, as you play, the instructions start making sense; at least they did to me, my mother and daughter remained confused. The game’s main problem is that it eschews simplicity and delivers a convoluted matching game. Rolling the dice and moving around the board is fun but... well... after that you'll find your cranium sending out a distress flare. Admittedly, when I played it for a second time, with just my daughter, it was much easier. With only two players, there was a 50/50 chance of matching our bits cards to Bertha’s objects. Fewer cards built up on the factory floor and less intense memory mapping was required.