A thrilling game of cat and mouse, The Price is a drama which grasps political ideologies, romantic discord and the pursuit of happiness close to its chest. Unrelenting in its analysis of relationships and the seismic impact of wealth upon British society, 1985's The Price radiates with a vitality and thrust that many a mini-series has failed to maintain. And, as luck would have it, this gripping narrative has finally received a commercial release on DVD through Simply Media.

Setting the Price

In an age where the microcomputer is exploding in popularity, Geoffrey Carr (Peter Barkworth) is truly the computer king of Britain with his company Carr Computers taking advantage of the new, QWERTY shaped landscape. And it's a demand that has granted him a wealth unimaginable to the common man. A life spent chasing success and fortune, however, has left Geoffrey bereft in the old romance stakes. Determined to remedy this romantic malady, Geoffrey believes that he has found salvation in the form of the much younger Frances (Harriet Walter), a widower looking for money to support her and her daughter Clare (Susanna Reid).


It's very much a marriage of convenience, with both parties attempting to buy into each others differing needs, and the awkwardness is already palpable. With finances providing very few obstacles to Geoffrey's pursuit of happiness, he embarks upon a grand scheme to purchase Frances' childhood home in the Republic of Ireland. A luxurious, Georgian mansion, Kilmaneath represents family and security for Frances. And with Andrew (Nicholas Jones), a former childhood sweetheart, living nearby, Frances is more than amenable to buying into Geoffrey's forced take on happiness.


Meanwhile, at the other end of the financial and social spectrum, Frank Crossan is an IRA hitman with an axe to grind not just against the British, but also his superiors in Derry. Having fallen out of favour, Frank has a plan to raise his stock within the fight for Irish republicanism. It's an ambitious scheme that involves kidnapping a wealthy member of British society and then extorting a significant ransom to bankroll his greater objectives. And, after scouring the society magazines, Frank settles upon Frances. Frank, of course, is not on his own and is aided by the hard line IRA advocate Kate (Aingeal Grehan).


And Frank gets his woman, or should I say women. Launching a ruthless and brutal ambush, Frank and Kate kidnap Frances and Clare at gunpoint before bundling them into a van and racing to a remote Irish cottage. Presented with a ransom fee of £3 million, Geoffrey, for whom helplessness is usually a foreign language, struggles to cope with his lack of control. Taking the advice of his insurance team - who look after his kidnap policy - over the Garda, Geoffrey desperately tries to raise funds to secure Frances and Clare's release. Mindful of losing his business empire, though, Geoffrey begins to contemplate a grand plan that he prays will satisfy all his interests.

Paying the Ransom

Based upon Peter Ransley's 1984 novel of the same name, The Price is an intriguing melange of elements that produce an engaging and stylish commentary on the human condition. The kidnap, while central to The Price, acts merely as a starting point to examine the main characters swilling around the narrative. It's a keen literary device employed by Ransley and one which allows the story to drill deep down into the character's mindsets.


Marrying for all the wrong reasons, there's an air of malaise hanging over Geoffrey and Frances' marriage. And it constantly feels as though they're fighting for an emotion that has failed to spark since day one. Geoffrey, at the very least, dreams of a grand romance, but even then he's grasping wildly at a superficial ideal; for Geoffrey, his one true love will always be business. Frances is much more realistic in what she expects from her marriage to Geoffrey: money. Sure, it's a mercenary approach to obtaining security, but Geoffrey is well aware of her intentions. The Price cleverly subverts this greed, though, by using it to alter Frances' life beyond all belief.


Geoffrey's love for his achievements, too, is given centre stage and provides one of the series' most curious plot strands. A man of great self belief and determination, the idea of losing his business constantly nags at him and, ultimately, provides an insurmountable anathema. Although clearly distraught by the kidnap, Geoffrey eventually regains control of his business mind and, with an almost rampant fervour, formulates complex solutions to keep everything. A nifty comment on the trappings of vast finance and power, it also taps into that sense of emotional detachment which blights his relationship with Frances.


Frank, of course, is just as proud a man as Geoffrey, but exhibits this in a set of clothes that cost significantly less than a pair of Geoffrey's socks. The Price finds Frank as a man scorned by the upper echelons of the republicanism and determined to show, and even outdo, them. If pride takes up a substantial amount of Frank's motivation then his passion for women is attempting to wrestle the majority of this back. Frank understands Kate's devotion towards him - and there are hints at a more physical past - but he's keen to use this to keep her onside as a useful ally. His present intentions, though, are much more focussed on Frances. And not just as a hostage.


Playing the main victim, both physically and emotionally, is Frances. And yet, she's hoisted by her own petard on numerous occasions. Her desire for security manifests itself in the most greedy and material ways, so she doesn't have to look far to find why she's trapped in such a disjointed marriage. Clearly, she's always wanted someone else, even in her first marriage, but love doesn't pay quite enough for Frances. Familial love, however, is present in her relationship with Clare. Imprisoned together in a dinghy cellar, Frances' maternal instincts go into overdrive and eventually leads to an impromptu relationship with Frank in order to move the chance of escape that little bit closer.

These complex narratives and objectives all mesh together with an ease that ensures the serial maintains an energy at odds with the claustrophobic atmosphere. The initial impact of the kidnap could easily trickle out of power, but Ransley's story is so multifaceted that the episodes propel the series with a pleasing vigour. Even the final episode, which resolves the kidnap halfway through, still has plenty to examine regarding Frances' and Geoffrey's uncertain future.


One of the driving forces behind the programme's success is the level of acting on offer. Peter Barkworth is an understated joy throughout and demonstrates a depth of emotion which puts Geoffrey on the rack for all the audience to see. Derek Thompson - forever Charlie from Casualty - is a brutal character at times, but there's a twinkle in his eyes and a charm which transcends his barbarism and sums up why he's irresistible to women.

Calculating, yet fragile, Frances is a complex character, but Harriet Walker takes this challenge in her stride and embodies the character's emotional turmoil with ease. While Aingeal Grehan is slightly less well drawn than the other characters, her ability to spit and spark with the ferocity of a rottweiller is admirable and underlines her character's devotion to her political ideals. Susanna Reid - years before her presenting career flourished - has little to do as Clare, mostly acting as a satellite of Frances' angst and, accordingly, her impact upon the production is limited.

At times The Price can be a brutal watch, but this should come as no surprise given the level of violence and bloodshed that soaked The Troubles. What's so appealing about The Price, however, is its unrelenting desire to be a story about people and their motivations to achieve something in life. In that respect it's a truly universal narrative. And, with a script that somehow endears a central cast that are all monstrous in their own ways, it presents an intense yet enjoyable experience that shouldn't be missed.

The Price is now available from Simply Media and Curious British Telly readers are entitled to a 10% discount by using the code CURIOUS10

Packed full of tension, The Mad Death is a chilling, disturbing watch and, after watching it, one that ensures you'll never stroke a dog in the same way again. Not seen on British TV screens since the mid 1980s, The Mad Death is finally available on DVD for the first time through Simply Media.

First transmitted in July 1983 on BBC1, The Mad Death was a three-part drama series which examined the impact of a rabies outbreak in Britain. Based on Nigel Slater's novel of the same name, The Mad Death tapped into a contemporary fear of rabies. Despite Britain being declared rabies free since 1922, the ominous threat of the disease still hung heavy in the air due to the risk posed by animals imported from the continent. Helping to instill fear into the hearts of millions, numerous public information films were released throughout the 1970s and 80s to warn about the horrors of rabies.  

The Mad Death, however, manages to trump all of these with a disturbing ease.

Spreading Panic

With an infected cat smuggled into Britain, it doesn't take long for rabies to start spreading through the British countryside. Rabies, being a zoonotic disease, eventually makes the leap to humans when Tom Siegler (Ed Bishop) foolishly takes home an infected fox he finds on the roadside. Siegler gradually succumbs to the nightmarish symptoms of rabies and, before long, he finds himself in an isolation room at the local hospital. Following Siegler's death, and the confirmation of rabies, public health officials are drafted in to action a containment plan.


Heading the containment strategy is Michael Hilliard (Richard Heffer), but, as with all public health scares, it's an unenviable scenario to be facing. Fighting the spread of rabies requires an unpleasant and, at times, brutal methodology, so the public's emotions soon reach breaking point. For Hilliard, meanwhile, the disease also brings a personal dilemma in the form of his assistant, Dr Anne Maitland (Barbara Kellerman). With a past already established between the two, romantic tensions run high, much to chagrin of Maitland's partner, the shotgun toting Johnny Dalry (Richard Morant).


Most disturbingly, though, is the unconditional love displayed by the unhinged Miss Stonecroft (Brenda Bruce). A quintessentially British eccentric, Stonecroft shares her decaying mansion with a multitude of dogs that she holds in a much higher regard than humans. Hilliard's hardline approach to quarantining animals sends Stonecroft into an apoplectic rage and leaves her seeking justice for her canine friends. However, Stonecroft's twisted brand of justice is one that threatens not just Hilliard's interests, but also the fate of the nation.

Analysing the Disease

Thanks to the huge advances in modern medicine, we've never been more comfortable in terms of our health. However, whilst our healthcare knowledge is good, it's not perfect. And, given that mother nature has several million years on our understanding of illness and disease, it's no surprise that she can outwit and confound us with a devastating impact. Rabies, of course, has remained a thorn in man's side for thousands of years, mostly down to our domestication of its most active carrier, the dog. While a post-exposure vaccine for rabies is available, if it's not administered swiftly then death is inevitable.


The Mad Death takes man's love of animals and sets this against his inherent fear of death and disease. It's a shrewd move and one which allows plenty of contrasting emotions to bubble to the surface and fight for air. Heartstrings are tugged with such an uncomfortable and bewildering frequency that you can't help but become deeply engrossed in the narrative. Naturally, it helps that The Mad Death has numerous subplots running alongside the fight to contain rabies.

Hilliard, portrayed by Richard Heffer and his usual swashbuckling brilliance, faces conflict on a number of fronts throughout the serial. Despite the enormity of the situation, Hilliard, much to his consternation, is frequently forced to kowtow to the modern demands of public relations. It's a frustrating and complex scenario for Hilliard to contend with, but he certainly doesn't improve matters by indulging in a spot of romantic misdemeanours. His affair with Maitland, characterised by Kellerman's fantastic emotional range, is not surprising given the closeness of their work, but the jealousy and rage it generates in Dalry threatens to derail all of Hilliard's work.


Hilliard's biggest opponent, however, is the British public's love of their animals. Blinded by an unwavering devotion to their pets, the public fail to appreciate the massive threat of infection and play fast and loose with any sense of precaution. The discord that this produces leads to Hilliard being threatened with ferrets in a pub (yes, you read that right) and facing nothing but stifling opposition as he enforces a strict quarantine programme. The most vicious opponent of this, of course, is Miss Stonecroft.


Holed up in a dark, decaying mansion overrun with cats and dogs, Miss Stonecroft is a British eccentric of epic proportions. Brenda Bruce summons up an amazing performance and inhabits the wild, unhinged eyes of Stonecroft with an unnerving realism. For Stonecroft, the lines between man and beast have been blurred beyond all recognition. It's impossible to quantify any form of love, but if you could then Stonecroft's measure of love for her animals would still be off the scale. Clearly teetering on the edge of insanity, Stonecroft is pushed into unimaginable emotional turmoil by Hilliard's quarantine regime.


And it's Stonecroft's dark, dark response that reminds you that The Mad Death is much more than just a drama. At times it's pure horror. The thrilling, psychological horror of Stonecroft's detainment of Maitland sends highly disturbing shivers up the spine with a Hitchcockian glee. As Maitland tentatively pads around dimly lit catacombs, terrifying silhouettes of cats climb up the wall in a nod to Nosferatu. Meanwhile, the numerous cat skeletons that litter the floor make for the most horrific carpet imaginable. The Mad Death doesn't reserve the horror purely for Stonecroft, though, as it's present throughout the whole serial.

Some of the most nightmarish and unsettling moments come early on in The Mad Death and centre upon the fate of Tom Siegler. Best known to British audiences as Ed Straker from UFO, Ed Bishop brings his irresistible brand of transatlantic charisma and confidence to the role of Siegler. His wonderfully white and perfect smile, however, soon fades. Despite the fairly fleabitten puppet employed, Siegler is subjected to a hideous attack by an infected fox which is absolutely terrifying and ratchets up the tension to unbearable levels. It only becomes worse as Siegler succumbs to the symptoms of rabies in a series of hellish, hallucinogenic scenes in the hospital.


Perhaps in a nod to Dawn of the Dead, further horror is on the way in the scenes set in the East Kilbride shopping centre. While it's amusing to look back at the long defunct shops such as Saxone and John Menzies, the sight of a snarling, foaming Alsatian on the loose is less warming. As Hilliard and the police watch CCTV footage of the Alsation pursuing a family through the shopping centre, it's edge of the seat stuff. Tragedy, for the family, is avoided, but only just. There's only one real moment of gratuitous gore in The Mad Death and that comes much later, in a blink and you'll miss it shot, when a sheepdog is shot in the head at close range with a shotgun - I do not advise using the slow motion feature here.

The horror, much like the narrative, is nicely balanced and never falls foul of sensationalism. While there are dark moments throughout The Mad Death, the entertaining thrills contained within make it an intriguing watch. It's helped by a pleasing pacewhich is testament to the directing and writing and ensures there are few dull moments throughout the serial's three episodes. It's a scintillating watch recommended for any fan of British TV, but just make sure your dog's locked in the kitchen as you hit the play button.

The Mad Death is released on 7th May by Simply Media and Curious British Readers can claim a 10% discount by using the code CURIOUS10.

Fun House was an ITV children's game show presented Pat Sharp (prime mullet era) which genuinely promised to deliver on the "whole lot of fun" ethos of its insanely catch theme tune. And there were also some decent - if not "outrageous" as the theme tune advised - prizes on offer such as helicopter trips, computers and holidays. However, in amongst these great prizes were some truly diabolical prizes. I suspect that the majority of these 'prizes' were either discarded after one use or, more likely, left behind in the studio by the children.

To help you understand the mundanity of these prizes, I've put together a list of 15 of the most terrible ones:

1. Handy Hairdryer


This 'handy' hairdryer is the type of thing you find nailed to a wall in a low rent hotel and has the capacity for creating scalp melting bursts of hot air.

2. World's Most Difficult Jigsaw Puzzle


What child actually completes a jigsaw puzzle? Let alone the world's most difficult jigsaw puzzle?

3. Trendy Tennis Set


If this is a 'trendy' tennis set then I dread to think what an 'untrendy' tennis set looks like. And why did they refer to it as a tennis set? It's clearly a table tennis set!

4. Super soft sleeping bag


I don't know, I mean... a sleeping bag, but no tent? Were the producers worried that childhood homelessness was about to skyrocket? And, no, you don't get Melanie or Martina included (I never know which is which).

5. Stamp Collecting Kit


Every child's dream is NOT a new bike, it's a stamp collecting kit that includes stamps from Papua New Guinea.

6. Candle Craft Set


No child should be subjected to a craft set, let alone a candle craft set. Remember kids, fire kills.

7. Atlas and Globe


Explore all the places in the world that Fun House weren't able to send you to in your shiny, new atlas. And then do the same thing on your globe.

8. Game Boy Bag


Congratulations! You've won the hottest new toy in the country! A Game Boy! Oh wait... no, it's just a bag to put your non-existent Game Boy in.

9. Dream Kite


I have never, ever dreamt about a kite. And, if I did, it certainly wouldn't be one that resembles a pair of Bermuda shorts.

10. Filofax


What on Earth is a child going to do with a Filofax? Just write '8.30am Go to School' in it every day?

11. Dynamic Daypack


This isn't just a normal daypack (or what sane folk call a backpack) it's a 'dynamic' daypack. So, in true early 90s fashion, this means little more than an overload of garish, neon colours.

12. Backgammon

No child plays Backgammon.

13. Draughts

No child plays draughts.

14. Electronic Chess


Okay, yes, children do play chess, but this electronic chess game appears to be completely unplayable due to the pieces being the same size as grains of rice. It's electronic though, so, yeah... cool?

15. Compass and Video Set


If you need a video to explain how to use a compass (point it, look at it, read it) then you genuinely deserve to be lost forever.

So, how many of these would you have actually wanted? And which of you deviants would still want them?

Week In, Week Out was an investigative series produced by BBC Wales between 1963 - 2017. It may not be as well known as other current affairs programmes due to the fact that it was never networked and was only broadcast on BBC One Wales. The series was, due to my growing up at the opposite side of the country to Wales, completely unknown to me, but whilst digging about on YouTube I stumbled across a few episodes. And, in particular, two of them stood out as interesting slices of society and culture in the 1980s, so here they are:

1. AIDS / Haemophilia - 26/01/1988



Born with the blood clotting disorder haemophilia, Julian Miller's life had always been a struggle due to the limitations imposed by the condition. Internal haemorrhages and arthritis were commonplace for Julian, but by the age of 24 he had risen to boardroom level in the world of advertising and appeared to have a grip on his haemophilia. This was, in part, thanks to his usage of the medicated form of Factor VIII, an essential blood clotting protein. However, due to vast batches of Factor VIII becoming contaminated by donors with HIV, Julian was diagnosed with HIV in October 1984.

Noreen Bray presents this edition of Week In, Week Out and delivers a documentary which strives to cut through the ignorance of AIDS hysteria and give the disease a human face. Julian's ordeal is particularly tragic due to the manner of his infection, echoing the sincere sympathies afforded to those infected through blood transfusions. All HIV infections, of course, are tragic in their own right and I certainly don't mean to reduce them, but when these infections happen through the avenue of healthcare they're particularly galling.

There's an honesty and bravery to Julian's story which is incredibly admirable in an age, before anti-retroviral treatment, when AIDS was nothing less than a death sentence. Although initially ruling out the concept of a relationship with a woman, he reveals how, over time, he has realised it's a possibility and the only thing stopping him is himself. Clearly determined to fight the disease on several fronts, Julian's decision to go so publicly with his HIV status helps to raise the profile of the disease. Crucially, he also helps to drive a campaign which leads to the British government donating £10 million to The Haemophiliac Society.

Sadly, Julian passed away due to AIDS related complications in 1991, but his contribution to fighting the disease cannot be underestimated and this documentary acts as a heartfelt reminder of his work.

2. Steve Strange - 1984



You probably don't know who Steven Harrington of Newbridge, Wales is, but you should know who Steve Strange of the Blitz club and Visage is. And, guess what, they're only one and the same person. Yes, the otherworldly figurehead of the early 80s New Romantic movement was, in fact, just an ordinary guy from a small town in South Wales. Ordinary may not be an entirely accurate description, though, as this Week In, Week Out documentary on Strange reveals that he was the first punk rocker in Newbridge. And the first person at his school to dye their hair orange.

Directed by Mark Killick, this short film traces Strange's route from orange haired punk rocker in Newbridge right up to his ownership of the Camden Palace in 1984. Starting with a trip down memory lane in Newbridge, Strange revisits the remains of his now demolished school and pops round to his mum's house to discuss how and why he broke out of Newbridge. The documentary pays significant attention to his position as a trendsetter in the world of fashion and this point is exemplified by a trip to his hat-maker, Stephen Jones. Visage, of course, are also touched upon and, in particular, Strange's love of making music videos which he considers to be mini films.

If you're a fan of early 80s music then you're in for a treat with this edition of Week In, Week Out. What's most evident from the piece is that Strange was determined to escape the mundanity of every day life typified by Newbridge. He wanted glamour and fantasy and found this in London. Later, of course, he would become the dispenser of such escapism through clubs such as Blitz and the Camden Palace and his music. Blitz is fairly glossed over here, aside from a quick 1981 interview featuring a magnificently dandified Strange, and, instead, the film concentrates on the Camden Palace. With Europe's largest video-screen at its disposal and an equally stunning light show, it appears to be a phenomenal night out.

We don't learn too much about Strange as a man and there was certainly plenty happening in his life at the time which is left untouched. Visage were, by this point, coming to the end of a lengthy contract battle which had left them unable to release music since 1982 and Strange had now developed a nasty heroin habit. Nonetheless, it's an intriguing look at Strange's life as it reached its 80s peak and the fashion on offer is a nice reminder of a more experimental era for British culture.

Hancock’s Half Hour was the first modern sitcom and, consequently, it turned Tony Hancock into the first star of British sitcom. With his hangdog expression and downtrodden personality, he encapsulated everything that, even to this day, is painfully funny about being British. As is well known, the tragedy that played out at 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam was refracted into an even more sorrowful angle in Hancock’s personal life. Spiralling into a destructive alcoholism, Hancock committed suicide in June 1968 while living in Sydney, Australia. His relocation to Antipodean climes had been a disastrous attempt to re-ignite his career in Hancock Down Under, but his final British TV series had aired a year previously in the guise of Hancock’s.

Genre: Comedy
Channel: ITV
Transmission: 16/06/1967 - 18/07/1967

Hancock’s finds Hancock running his own nightclub, Hancock’s, which offers food, drink, dancing and a number of parking problems outside. Hancock claims that the club is his personal reply to Swinging London, after all, he’s always been a bit of a raver. Described as having an ambience which is akin to Eamonn Andrews with food, Hancock’s promises to deliver an inimitable brand of raving every night. Until 9pm. 9.30pm on Saturdays. Oh, and their drinks range from Napoleon brandy through to brown ale and even methylated spirits.


One man, of course, can’t run a nightclub on his own, so Hancock is joined by a staff who, although they may not respect him, do at least turn up. Toulouse (Joe Ritchie) is the long suffering restaurant manager who finds himself having to manage topless waiters and appear in Hancock’s impromptu performance of King Lear. Heading up the waitress staff is Miss Esmerelda Staveley-Smythe (June Whitfield), a waitress who takes her workplace fashion cues from the USA and, accordingly, dresses as a bunny girl. Hancock, of course, is horrified by Staveley-Smythe’s attire as he wants traditional British waitresses: slow, rude and offensive. Finally, the house band, who are reluctant to play due to Hancock’s reluctance to pay, are led by Nat Temple.

With so many different elements at play, it’s no surprise that running Hancock’s is a tough ask for poor old Tony. When he’s not having to dress up as a Romany gypsy and fiddle the night away, Hancock can just as easily find himself being arrested for a desertion charge going back to 1904. And that’s all before he has to deal with his customers, who are prone to arguing the merits of apple crumble over crepe suzettes and causing havoc in the coatroom over a couple of macs and a camel coat. Acting as a brief interstitial to all the bickering and chaos taking place, Hancock’s provides cabaret in the form of performances from singers including Marion Montgomery, Frankie Randall and Vikki Carr.

Setting up Hancock’s

Hancock’s was a six episode series which was produced by ABC Television for ITV and was transmitted on Thursday evenings in the summer of 1967. The writers of Hancock’s– John Muir and Eric Geen – were no strangers to working with Hancock as they had previously written Hancock at the Royal Festival Hall and The Blackpool Show. Aside from their work with Hancock, the duo had also written together for Tommy Cooper on Cooperama and, individually, they would go on to write for Kenneth Williams, Dick Emery and The Two Ronnies.

Talking to The Tony Hancock Appreciation Society in 2018, Eric Geen revealed that he and Muir had a close relationship with Hancock and, for a time, Hancock took up residence in their flat, sleeping on the couch. Having been very pleased with the scripts that Geen and Muir delivered for The Blackpool Show, Hancock was keen to continue working with the young writers. Geen explains that he and Muir were well aware of Hancock’s love of variety, so they decided to structure something around this for Hancock’s. With a variety framework in place, this also allowed the series to bring in different performers and limit the reliance on Hancock, whose alcoholism was getting steadily worse.



Installed not only as on-set writers, but now as Hancock’s minders, Geen and Muir began to see a different Hancock during the filming of Hancock’s. No longer the warm, friendly individual they had first encountered, Hancock was now turning nastier with each bottle of vodka he downed. It was an unenviable position to be in, as Geen remembers, due to ABC expecting the writers to keep Hancock’s behaviour in check. However, Geen and Muir didn’t want to take a management role, they simply wanted to write and maintain their relationship with Hancock. Following the end of Hancock’s– and there was no discussion of a further series – Hancock departed for Australia, but remained on good terms with Geen and Muir.

The drama and intrigue of Hancock’s doesn’t end purely with Hancock’s disastrous contribution. Whilst, thankfully, the soundtracks to the entire series remain extant, all visual footage is missing believed wiped. Well, that’s not entirely true as, in the mid-1990s, a few minutes’ worth of the 29/06/1967 episode were discovered by video restoration expert Terry Martini-Yates.



Having received several reels of tape that originated from the Sony CV2000, an early domestic video recorder from the late 1960s, Martini-Yates discovered, at the end of a reel, the only surviving fragment of Hancock’s. The footage is freely available on YouTube and provides a final, curious glimpse of Hancock on British TV.

Is Variety the Spice of Life?

The fact that Hancock’s Half Hour still feels relevant (and is uproariously funny) sixty years on from its initial transmission is why Tony Hancock remains a fascinating figure. It helps that it was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. What didn’t help Hancock is that he severed his relationship with these two masterful writers in 1961. An actor – even one of Hancock’s quality – can only ever be as good as his scripts and ATV’s 1963 series Hancock is strong evidence of what happens when it goes wrong.

By 1967, Hancock had been limping along for several years with only the disappointing role of compere on The Blackpool Show and his disastrous attempt at stand-up in Hancock at the Royal Festival Hall putting him centre stage. Given his alcoholism at the time – Geen remembers finding him surrounded by empty red wine bottles one evening – granting Hancock a leading role in a new series wasn’t the shrewdest move on ABC’s part. However, with Hancock claiming he was on the wagon, it’s no surprise ABC were eager to work with an actor who was still held in great affection by the British public.

Unfortunately, for all involved, it would prove to be a disaster. The variety format was meant to provide a crutch for Hancock’s unpredictability, but all it brings to Hancock’s is a jumbled mix of ideas. Too much time is focused on creating sketches for Hancock to demonstrate his comedic prowess, but they’re paltry affairs which focus upon little more than debates with customers about haricot beans and arguments with the house band. It’s a galaxy away from the delusional aspirations and exploration of the self that Hancock’s Half Hour packaged up as the perfect comedy.

That’s not to say there aren’t funny moments in Hancock’s. Geen and Muir certainly know how to write a funny line and there are flourishes of hilarity. Hancock’s revelation that he had to stop beat groups from performing at his club due to the electric bill is pure Hancock. Likewise, the police raiding the club and attempting to arrest Hancock for possession of mind altering substances (while he’s dressed as a folk singer) certainly raises a few smiles. Sadly, these laughs are in short supply and are hidden amongst generous helpings of what can only be described as mundane bickering.

Hancock’s performance also merits discussion due to the horror stories regarding his behaviour during his last few years. In The Blackpool Show, a year earlier, Hancock had been unable to recall the name of a guest he was introducing and, a few months after Hancock’s finished, he fell into an orchestra pit while on stage in Australia. Hancock’s performance in Hancock’s is marginally less disastrous, although his voice sounds strained at times and he fluffs at least one line. There are glimmers of the old brilliance, but it’s blunted and clumsy where once it was effortlessly precise.

The change in Hancock’s physical appearance, though, was much more apparent. Close-ups had previously worked to his comedic strengths, but the camera now revealed little more than a man out of shape. Nonetheless, Hancock demanded that close-ups were filmed due to the popularity they had brought him in Hancock’s Half Hour. At a later screening, however, upon seeing one of his close-ups, Hancock described himself as looking “like a fucking frog”. Consequently, close-ups were barely used throughout the series, but this was far from enough to prevent the terrible viewing figures awaiting Hancock’s.

Closing Hancock’s

For the first two episodes of Hancock’s, the theme tune features a brief, hummed version of the brass sting which opened Hancock’s Half Hour and, in a later episode, there’s a further call back when Hancock offers to perform a section from The Blood Donor for an American director. Although mildly amusing, they also act as a stark reminder of just how far Hancock’s star had fallen in the intervening years. Hancock’s never really gets going and, although it’s difficult to get a true handle on it due to the missing visuals, the soundtracks clearly demonstrate it was a misjudged idea. Unfortunately, for Hancock, it’s unlikely that even the best scripts on the planet could have saved him by this point. Instead, Hancock’s acts as little more than a sad farewell to his career on British TV.

Further Reading: Tony Hancock Appreciation Society

Stand-up comedy has become more and more ubiquitous as the 21st century has unfolded, particularly on television. In fact, it seems that it’s almost impossible to flick through the channels these days and not come across either a stand-up showcase or a panel show packed full of stand-ups. Jump in a time machine and head back three and a half decades, though, and you’ll discover a very different landscape for comedy.

Aside from The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club and The Comedians, fully fledged television platforms for stand-ups were rare. And stand-ups weren’t even called stand-ups then, they were just comedians. It was never seen as a career either – the modern age now offers degrees in stand-up comedy – and many of the stars of the circuit just fell into it in between jobs.

However, the alternative comedy boom promoted a new interest in comedy and, with the establishment of The Comedy Store in Soho in 1979, a whole new raft of exciting comedians began to enter the fray. And showcasing this burgeoning scene was Pyjamarama.

Genre: Comedy
Channel: ITV (LWT only)
Transmission: 06/01/1984 - 10/02/1984

Pyjamarama follows a fairly basic premise: either two or three acts perform sets in front of a studio audience and Arthur Smith, in a series of wonderfully 80s jackets (although he strips half naked in one episode), acts as the compere. Appearing throughout the series are acts as diverse as the lugubrious Norman Lovett, masters of physical comedy The Joeys, the mimicry of Chris Barrie and there’s even time for John Hegley and The Popticians.

Behind the Circuit

Having previously only produced arts programmes in the shape of The South Bank Show and Book Four, LWT were determined to venture further into the arts in the mid-1980s. Alongside new series such as The Arts Review of the Year and Hey Good Looking! there was also time to explore the vibrant comedy landscape of the day in the form of Pyjamarama.


Shown only in the LWT region, Pyjamarama was a six episode series which was transmitted at 11.30pm on Fridays on ITV. Episodes were typically 25 minutes long, but the final episode was extended to 40 minutes. The series was the brainchild of LWT researcher Mark Holloway while Melvyn Bragg acted as executive producer. Arthur Smith came on board the series, as he recounts in his wonderful memoir My Name is Daphne Fairfax, following an approach by LWT while he was performing in Edinburgh.

Tonight's Acts...

Compared to the glitzy stage sets and palatial seating areas of modern stand-up shows, Pyjamarama is a rather cramped affair. It takes place against a pink lighted backdrop, punctuated only by some unremarkable columns with occasional neon flourishes of pink and green. Thankfully, the main action is taking place centre stage and it all starts with Arthur Smith.

Whether he’s ripping his top off to perform some agit-poetry in the style of a dyslexic Channel 4 poet or merely introducing John Dowie as “a dull, dour, mean spirited American toilet”, Arthur Smith is already showing his brand of unpredictable, observational comedy all fed through a South London filter. And, yes, he wears some fantastically 80s suits with my favourite being a beige affair with grey flecks.


We’re not here, however, to discuss Smith’s sartorial elegance. Instead, Pyjamarama, with its vaguely unreadable logo, wants to demonstrate the thriving and varied stand-up scene of 1984. Whereas modern stand-up concentrates, with the occasional exception, on solo performers, the 1980s was a time of great variety taking in sketch troupes, musicians and poets. And with people of all backgrounds stumbling into the scene, it ensured a whole host of influences were stoking the engine.

You only have to a take a look at the lineups to understand the choice on offer. The Joeys’ fantastic mime/physical comedy takes in deep space madness and ‘emotional boxing’ sketches while Ronnie Golden plays out songs which poke fun at his similarity to Buddy Holly and Elvis Costello. Alternatively, how about the magisterial impressions of Chris Barrie rubbing shoulders with satirical singing group Fascinating Aida? Yes, that happened. And that’s before we mention early TV appearances by Mark Steel and Clive Anderson.


Crucially, Pyjamarama presents comedians that are more than capable of producing laughs from the viewing public. Sure, the atmosphere of a comedy venue – all dark, grimy and full of cut price lager – is difficult to reproduce, but the quality of the material on offer in Pyjamarama ensures that the laughter can’t help but snort out of your nose. And, okay, comedy is subjective, but there really is something to tickle everyone here be it through poetry, song, sketch or just good old fashioned story telling.

Final Thoughts

Stand-up comedy on television may have become slicker in the intervening decades since the mid-1980s, but this increase in production values does nothing to reduce the lustre of those early days. Presenting a considerably less homogenised landscape than its comedy descendants, Pyjamarama is not just funny, it should also be seen as an important step in developing stand-up comedy on television. And, for that final reason alone, its curiosity value is assured.

Clerical celibacy is an absolute prerequisite when it comes to being ordained as a Roman Catholic priest; the objective of this celibacy is to help the clergy focus their energies on serving God. Now, if you ever attended biology lessons, then you should be able to do the maths (or should that be biology?) and realise that priests can never father children of their own. However, this clerical celibacy doesn’t mean that a priest can’t become a father in familial terms. It’s perfectly possible, but the relationship just needs a little tinkering as seen in Father Matthew’s Daughter.

Genre: Comedy
Channel: BBC2
Transmission: 11/05/1987 - 22/06/1987

Previously an agnostic Fats Waller fan in a jazz band, Father Matthew Fitzstanton (James Bolam) is a scatterbrained priest serving God’s children in Fulham. Keen on repeating himself midway through sentences and twisting everyone else’s sentences into absurd statements, Father Matthew remains a sage fellow despite his obvious eccentricities. Serving alongside Father Matthew in the parish is Father Charlie (Ray Winstone), a rough and ready curate with a love of fruity sauce and Miss England.


Following a plane accident in South America, Father Matthew’s sister and brother-in-law have died and their last will and testament contains a surprise for Father Matthew. With their final wish being that Father Matthew takes guardianship of their eight year old daughter Holly (Samantha Hurst), Father Matthew is in a quandary. After all, he, a priest, can’t tear his dedication away from God, but neither can he palm off his own niece to an adoption agency. Thankfully, Father Charlie has a solution and suggests that his broody sister looks after Holly.


Despite being run ragged by her four boys, Sharon (Gabrielle Lloyd) reluctantly agrees to take on Holly after Father Charlie plays upon her distrust of adoption agencies and her desire to have a little girl. Holly’s arrival in the UK is certainly no easy introduction, though, as she decides to lock herself in the plane’s toilet and refuses to come out. Eventually, Holly relents and takes up residence in Sharon’s house under the keen guidance of Father Matthew, but life remains far from simple.


Upended from what Father Matthew terms her life in the jungle, Holly struggles to adjust to life in Fulham with her new family. No sooner has Father Matthew resolved Holly’s issue with eating food than the death of her rabbit is causing her to denounce God and threaten agnosticism. Further tests await Father Matthew in the form of Holly’s painfully modern new school while Holly’s desire for Father Matthew to marry leads to all manner of debate on his position as a priest.

Preparing the Sermon

Father Matthew’s Daughter consisted of six 30 minute episodes which aired on Monday evenings at 9pm on BBC2 in 1987. The series, written by husband and wife Terence Brady and Charlotte Bingham, only received one airing and was never repeated. Brady and Bingham had previously written a number of comedies including Take Three Girls, Pig in the Middle and No, Honestly alongside dramas such as Upstairs, Downstairs and its spinoff Thomas and Sarah.

Directing the series was David Askey who had previously worked with Brady and Bingham as well as Bolam on No, Honestly and When the Boat Comes In respectively. Askey was a comedy director of some repute with his CV taking in Doctor in the House, Galton and Simpson Comedy, the Sid James starring Taxi! and The Fenn Street Gang. Curiously, Askey had also directed the sitcom Bless Me, Father which featured Arthur Lowe as a Catholic priest.

With Father Matthew’s Daughter, Askey would be directing an idea which had originated almost two decades before with the writers. Brady and Bingham had previously known a Catholic priest who, following the death of his sister, had found himself taking guardianship of his niece. This priest had not always been a priest and, as with Father Matthew, led a very different life when the will was drawn up. However, rather than being a freewheeling member of a jazz band, this very real priest had previously been a soldier.

Serving the Parish

Although officially categorised by the BBC as a sitcom, Father Matthew’s Daughter has much more in common with the genre known as comedy drama. Dispensing with a laugh track and containing virtually no dialogue that subscribes to the setup/punchline structure, Father Matthew’s Daughter is a very different beast compared to other priest-based comedies like Bless Me, Father and Father Ted. Instead, Brady and Bingham craft a more gentle, naturalistic universe for Father Matthew.


It’s an intriguing and brave area of society to tackle and, although the concept of Catholicism appears to be somewhat immune to criticism here, Father Matthew’s Daughter manages to remain honest to its characters and grants them a real world essence. And, perhaps part of the success with these characters, is down to the rather special cast bringing them to life.

With a career on screen lasting well over 50 years, it would be preposterous to assign James Bolam anything less than legendary status. And, having made an indelible mark in the comedy world with the roles of Terry Collier and Roy Figgis, Bolam is truly a master of comedic acting. It’s a pedigree which serves him well in Father Matthew’s Daughter. With a script that calls for a certain amount of verbal dexterity, Bolam manages to navigate Father Matthew’s unconventional speech patterns and ingrain them with an amiable warmth. Coupled with a face capable of expressing incredulity just as quickly as a knowing smile, Bolam is perfectly placed to create an engaging central figure in Father Matthew.


Ray Winstone is less well known for comedy than Bolam, but has appeared in a number of comedies throughout his career that include Fairly Secret Army, Get Back and Minder. Winstone’s salt of the earth ferocity generates a pleasing juxtaposition with his character’s religious background and provides a more straightforward point of view for Father Matthew to muse upon. Unfortunately, Winstone’s screen time in Father Matthew’s Daughter is rather limited and his appearances in the series are only fleeting. Gabrielle Lloyd, meanwhile, captures the role of an overworked and stressed mother perfectly, but it would have been nicer to see her given a little more range, shackled, as she is, to domestic duties.


Samantha Hurst, as Holly, is performing in her first major role on television and, unlike many other child actors, comes straight from local drama lessons rather than stage school. It’s a confident, if unremarkable performance, from Hurst, but she manages to bring an element of fragile sweetness to the role. Much like many child actors thrust into the limelight, an adult career in television failed to materialise with only sporadic appearances following in Ain’t Misbehavin, Emmerdale and Heartbeat.

The actors find themselves in a series of narratives that examine not only Father Matthew’s attempts to come to grips with guardianship, but also the period of adjustment that Holly must undertake. The series is at its best when it combines Father Matthew’s faith with Holly’s innocence and, as in the episode where Holly goes on strike from religion, the resulting denouements feel most satisfying and touching.


Other episodes, at times, feel a little lacklustre in thrust such as the final episode which concentrates on Holly’s failing grades at school. The plot is a little too slight – even if, again, the payoff is sweet – to fully make a mark on your memory. Even then, though, there’s still time for hilarious insights into modern teaching such as her school’s decision to label classwork as “basic acquirement” to help nurture a child’s self-esteem.

Balancing drama nicely with comedy, thanks in part to Bolam and the writers’ vast experience in both, the episodes play out with an engaging tone and are the perfect length. A more traditional comedy drama setup, with a running time of 45 minutes to an hour, would perhaps have stretched the rather simplistic, yet no less enjoyable, plots. Nonetheless, there’s certainly room for a little more philosophical conflict between Holly’s childlike innocence and the established, age old teachings of Catholicism.

Final Thoughts

With a fantastic cast in place and backed by an established writing duo, Father Matthew’s Daughter would have to try very hard to disappoint. Sure, it doesn’t dig too deep into its foundations to explore any notions on the flexibility of religion, but not everything needs to be so aggressive in comedy. Sometimes a gentle and simple watch with a few light laughs is enough. A second series would have probably suffered a diminishing return as the basic premise had already been explored fairly comprehensively, but there’s enough in Father Matthew’s Daughter to placate any fan of British comedy.

It’s thanks to inventors and their unique innovations that we live such a blessed life in the 21st century. Take the light bulb, for example, just how amazing is that? And it's all thanks to one man: Thomas Edison. In fact, there's an almost endless list of inventors such as John Logie Baird, Alexander Graham Bell and Nikola Tesla who have all made an indelible impact on society. However, just how many people have heard of inventor extraordinare Norman Lovett? That’s right, hardly anyone, but if you want to know a little more, maybe you should look at I, Lovett.

Genre: Comedy
Channel: BBC2
Transmission: 24/03/1993 - 28/04/1993

Norman Lovett (playing himself) is an amiable eccentric living in a small, terraced house and passing his time by creating inventions which include a strap on ‘cup of tea’ hat (to prevent heat loss from the head), miracle hair restorer and heated toilet paper. While these antics hint at Norman’s eccentricities, it’s only when you meet Norman’s longstanding associates that you get a true flavour of his peculiar universe.


Living with Norman is Dirk (Geoffrey Hughes), a shaggy mongrel with a penchant for licking his testicles and making sardonic digs at Norman’s cheerful optimism. He may appear to be confident, but he’s all bark and no bite (unless, of course, he grows to 400 times his normal size). Dirk may have the run of Norman’s house, but it’s Horse (Leon Sinden) who has the run of the walls. Horse, you see, is a portrait of a horse blessed with a sense of sophistication and uses this to project an air of mocking despair towards Norman.


Next door to Norman lives Darren (Dicken Ashworth). At times, Darren can be rather pally with Norman and invite him to parties, but at other times he can act as Norman’s arch nemesis. And this rivalry is never more evident than when it comes to the annual marrow growing competition.  Away from his relationship with Norman, Darren drives a Ford once owned by Marlon Brando and enjoys nothing more than receiving a good spanking from his wife Una (Sara Corper).


The adventures that Norman finds himself undertaking are just as unconventional as his peers are. For example, when Norman tries to reconcile with his dying father, he, instead, finds himself tracking down a snowman he had built decades earlier. There are also the trials of competing with a childhood rival who invented everything with a hole in it (mints and donuts), which results in Norman dressing up like a bird and attempting to fly. And Norman also ends up with a legion of bald men (including Duncan Goodhew) worshipping at his feet thanks to his hair restorer.

Inventing an Inventor

Starting off as a 1989 pilot episode within the Comic Asides series (which also included a KYTV pilot), I, Lovett eventually morphed into a standalone six episode series which received a single airing on BBC2 in 1993. I, Lovett was produced by BBC Scotland and written by Norman Lovett and Ian Pattison (Rab C. Nesbitt, Naked Video and Atletico Partick). The filming – which all took place in Glasgow – was directed by Ron Bain.

To find out a little bit more about the mechanics behind the series, I decided to get in touch with Norman Lovett and find out what he could remember:

“I wanted to create something that was a bit different from the normal sitcoms; I always liked the idea of a dog that could speak. I gave Ian a page or two of what could happen for each episode and he got on with completing each script. We sat and discussed things for a couple of hours each week. Ian reckoned we'd do at least three series which was encouraging, but this never happened"

The pilot episode was written purely by Lovett, but Ian Pattison was drafted in onto writing duties for the full series:

“I had been working freelance for BBC Scotland’s Comedy Unit. In 1989 I was offered a full time job as a script editor. A pilot had been made of Norman’s show some time before I joined. The pilot had been, I believe, transmitted but for some reason the progress of the show seemed to have stalled at that point. I think there was a view, shared by Norman that he needed a bit of help with writing any series that might materialise. I was asked, after Norman gave his approval, if I would help him write the series. I said yes, and off we went”

And it was with the addition of Pattison and the efforts of producer Colin Gilbert that work could begin on getting the series to air as Pattison recalls:

“Norman had meetings with Colin Gilbert, head of the Comedy Unit and others, including myself, at which attempts were made to learn lessons from the pilot and to firm up the Norman character’s environment, outlook, occupation, friends and acquaintances in order to present ‘I, Lovett’ as a fully formed comedic world before attempting to climb the BBC TV Centre budget mountain. BBC Scotland was, obviously, highly important in the development process as, after all, they made the pilot and continued beavering away – albeit intermittently – trying to extract a budget from TV Centre that would enable them to make the series”

Lovett?

The average man on the street will recognise Norman Lovett as Holly from Red Dwarf, but the true comedy aficionado (therefore anyone reading this book) will also know that Lovett is a legend of the standup circuit. And that’s why the prospect of a fully-fledged sitcom by the great man is difficult to resist. However, when you couple Lovett’s talent with that of Ian Pattison, it becomes rather obvious that I, Lovett is a crucial watch.


What with Lovett being an inventor, there’s an initial risk that the plots of I, Lovett could easily buckle under the immense strain of wacky inventions. However, Pattison and Lovett are clever enough to never focus the narrative squarely on the situation. Instead, in that time honoured tradition of sitcoms which know what they’re doing, they concentrate on the character. And that’s why Norman’s attempts to fly mask his desire for vengeance while his hair restorer tonic examines male pride in all its many forms.

These plots are blessed with a playful warmth that is both surreal and, more importantly, funny. Although not quite Dali-esque, the series dreams up a fun, offbeat landscape where Norman can find himself in deep discussion with a talking dog and a well-spoken portrait of a horse – no one else ever witnesses these usually mute entities talking, so perhaps they’re merely manifestations of Norman’s eccentricities. Either way, they’re ridiculously funny.


But it’s not just the animals of I, Lovett which provide the laughs. The opening episode is gloriously unhinged with Norman discovering a snowman from his youth sheltering (and dying) in a freezer in his parent’s attic. Sure, the haggard, wheezing form of the snowman is a little terrifying, but Norman’s offer to take him to Alaska and the discovery of a lettuce leaf that Norman assumes the snowman was saving for a special occasion is hilarious. Oh, and the snowman is voiced by Bernard Cribbins which makes everything a little more special.


The spirited air of I, Lovett also allows plenty of storytelling techniques to be brought to the table which both ratchet up the bizarre atmosphere. Imaginary sequences where Norman is roughed up and kidnapped by a gang of bluebottles add another layer of nightmarish humor while flashback sequences explore how a schoolboy Norman lost out on inventing the hula hoop. Okay, many other sitcoms may employ these techniques, but I, Lovett seems keen on stretching them to Dadaist extremes.


Rivalry, of course, is always an important factor in sitcom and I, Lovett serves up plenty between Norman and his curious neighbour Darren. Although grounded in a reality which is slightly more conventional than Norman, Darren can still be found pushing round his prize marrow in a pram or becoming enraged when his “very fine blonde hair” is ‘mistaken’ for baldness. Occasionally, Norman and Darren appear to be on good terms, but on the whole there’s a pleasing tête à tête between the two that form the most enjoyable narratives.


Clearly, then, there’s an unusual, yet highly engaging vein of comedy running through I, Lovett. And it’s a brand of off-kilter comedy that Pattison was keen to capture from start to finish:

“We shared a taste for slightly off- beat comedy. I think – and I may be misremembering – that we had a couple of reverential chats about ‘The Strange World of Gurney Slade’ which had aired in the 1950’s. I recall we wanted some Eric Satie as our signature music but that was probably bombed out on twin grounds of cost and accessibility. So we ended up with something cheap and cheerful in order to send a jolly signal to the viewer”

Naturally, the script would completely fail to materialise into something funny without a fine set of performances bringing the universe to life. Lovett’s quaint mannerisms jostle pleasingly with Geoffrey Hughes’ trademark rough around the edges everyman (Steve Coogan also auditioned for the role of Dirk) while Dicken Ashworth’s gleeful bravado and rage completes the inimitable atmosphere. And that’s before you even consider all the special appearances by stars such as Bernard Cribbins, Jean Alexander and, yes, even Magnus Magnusson. A special ensemble indeed.

Final Thoughts

I, Lovett contains everything that makes a great British sitcom: it’s offbeat, it views everything from particularly obtuse angles and, of course, there’s Lovett’s deadpan brilliance to hold it all together. It may have only flourished for a single series and, even then, it was relatively under the radar, but I, Lovett is surely up there with the light bulb for an invention which improves your life no end.

If you were young at some point between 1974 and the early 2000s then there's a good chance you would have watched a Saturday morning children's TV show along the lines of Tiswas, Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, Saturday Superstore, Going Live, Motormouth, Ghost Train, Live and Kicking, The 8.15 from Manchester etc. In fact, there's more than a good chance you watched these as they were on for around three and a bit hours every single Saturday morning.

They were wonderful programmes which crammed in pretty much everything that a young person could want: pop videos, cartoons, competitions, interviews and, of course, the anarchy of live television (see Matt Bianco on Saturday Superstore). Gradually, though, the televisual landscape changed and these marathon length programmes disappeared from the schedules and were replaced by non-stop streams of children's TV across a dozen channels.

Now, recently, I was lucky enough to receive a rip of an entire edition of Saturday Superstore from 16th March 1985. Aside from a few clips that I've dug up from old VHS tapes, I know very little about Saturday Superstore as I was too young to remember it. Sure, I may have watched bits alongside my older brother, but they certainly didn't stick in my memory. Therefore, I decided that it was a fantastic opportunity to relive the experience of Saturday morning children's TV, but one that was completely new to me.

Tuning in, naturally, on a Saturday morning at 9am, I conducted a thorough watch and decided to carry out a running commentary of the events. And, maybe, I'd begin to understand whether something similar could work in the 21st century.

0:00:00


Starting with a cold open, we've got the three presenters Sarah Greene, Keith Chegwin and Mike Read in a ship at sea as the mist rolls in across the waves. However, this is the world of mid 1980s children's TV, so it's not a real ship. Instead, it's a few props, some wooden cut outs and a smoke machine to help disguise all the rough edges.

Up in the crow's nest is Crow, a cheap and cheerful puppet crow who sees himself as some sort of comedian. Greene shouts up "What's aloft?" and Crow responds with "Where you keep your old newspapers!". Now, as a man in my mid 30s, it's the kind of groan inducing gag which makes me shake my head and roll my eyes, but as an eight year old I probably would have thought it was some exceptionally witty word play.

Perhaps pre-empting my thoughts on Crow's joke three decades on, a deep sea diver emerges from the smoke and presents the presenting trio with a message in a bottle which reads "Enough of this rubbish, it's Saturday morning, it's nine O'clock, it's time for Saturday Superstore!". Chegwin suspects that things are only going to get worse, so announces that he's not sticking round for this and jumps overboard.

0:00:45


The lively opening credits have kicked in with the plinky plonk Saturday Superstore theme tune going at full throttle as the presenters run round a shopping centre. And, my word, these credits are all sorts of 80s brilliance. Not only do we get to see them trying on some truly horrific fashion of the time, but we also get to see Greene pulling perhaps the most sultry pout in the history of television. Less sultry, but equally amazing, is the sight of Read in front of some state of the art video recorders. Magnificent.

0:01:27


There's still some smoke floating about, but Cheggars, Greene and Read are now in the studio! And, wait... Is that David Icke? David Icke was part of Saturday Superstore? Well, I never.

Anyway, it turns out that the viewers have sent in a tonne of Get Well Soon cards as Read was off sick with a cold last week. This, however, doesn't mean that Cheggers and Greene are cutting him any slack and they're soon mocking his hair. Admittedly, it is a highly curious barnet, so you can't blame them for holding it up to ridicule. Cheggers and Greene even go to the extreme of debating whether it's real and start trying to pull it off. Turns out it's real.

No mention from Icke about lizard people so far.

0:02:52

There are, as there are every week, kids in the studio and this week it's the turn of a youth club from Cwmbran, Wales. To make them feel more at home, The production team have stuck a load of daffodils. A belittling stereotype I suppose, but it could have been worse, they could have suspended leeks from the ceiling, blasted out some Welsh choir music and forced them to work in a coal mine.

0:03:30


There's some exciting news regarding competition winners, but the Superstore team are keen to build the tension and aren't announcing it just yet. The competition in question, though, they are willing to divulge. Last week there was a prize up for grabs which would surely melt the heart of any mother: a bouquet of flowers to be delivered to the mothers of three lucky winners. And I'll let you into a little secret: it's Mother's Day the day after this edition of Saturday Superstore.

0:04:23


It's time for a quick run down of what's on today's show and it sounds like a belter. Bryan Adams (years before that Robin Hood song) is in the studio, Manchester United's Frank Stapleton will be talking to Icke (maybe about lizards, maybe not), Strawberry Switchblade (no idea who they are) will be in the store, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys-Jones are popping in and, finally, we'll be discovering who this year's Superstar of 1985 is.

0:05:25


Before all that, though, it's time for a Tex Avery cartoon. On this occasion it's something called 'Rock-A-Bye Bear' which features a dog getting pins stuck into its backside on numerous occasions. Great fun if you're a pin (and that's your bag), but bad news if you're a dog. Ultimately, it's a rather dull cartoon punctuated only by the hollering of an angry bear trying to get some sleep.

0:12:40


It's time for more get well messages for Mike Read, the kids really loved him back then (even if he had been a fusspot the year before and refused to play Relax by Frankie). As for Greene, well, her hair looks amazing here. The amount of hairspray involved probably put a hole in the ozone layer though. Nonetheless, there's an engaging personality bubbling away within Greene and I still maintain that she's the greatest primary school teacher that never was. Well, her and Chloe Ashcroft.


Anyway, there's another competition (or Store Bargain) coming up and you can win a 14" Sony television. All you have to do is list your three favourite features on Saturday Superstore, three things you dislike about the show and then suggest a new item. Answers on a postcard - when was the last time someone entered a competition on a postcard? It's all premium rate text messages now.

Whilst all this has been going on, that little robot called Sieve Head has been bleeping and spinning about on Mike's desk. It's a remarkable construction for the BBC in 1985 and is highly impressive. These days, of course, it would be a charmless CGI creation to save on space, money and time. In fact, you only have to zip forward nine years to find a CGI cat companion called Rats in the Broom Cupboard. Remember him? No, no one does. Says it all.

0:15:28


Now it's time for the first of two specially recorded music videos featuring Strawberry Switchblade. As I said earlier, I have no prior knowledge of who they are or what they sound like. Well, guess what, they're bloody amazing? Dressed in a manner which can only be described as Gothic French maid spliced with the DNA of a New Romantic, they're a world away from the Primark clad pop stars of today.


And the song they're performing - Who Knows What Love Is - is a fantastic slice of dreamy pop rock backed with chiming harmonies. Sadly, a quick bit of research reveals that they only completed one album before splitting up. Will I be downloading the album and sticking Strawberry Switchblade posters on my wall after this? Almost certainly.

0:19:20


It's time find out who the winners of the Mother's Day flower baskets are. And, as Greene reveals, Interflora will be delivering the baskets that very afternoon, which is pretty impressive. The question which was set last week by John (I assume Craven) was fiendishly difficult: What is the correct name for the plant commonly known as Mother in Law's Tongue? I have absolutely no idea about this and I'm an adult in my mid 30s, so how they expected children to know this is beyond me.

And, remember, in the mid 1980s there was no such thing as Wikipedia. Finding out the answers to such perplexing questions took some real legwork. I doubt this particular answer would be found in the family encyclopaedia, so some genuine legwork would be involved. I'm talking about a trip to the library and a severe scanning of the books in the botany section. All this for the love of a mother, it almost brings a tear to my eye. Anyway, the answer is Sansevieria and the three winners - as picked from a shopping basket - are:

• Terry Peacock (Read mocks his handwriting)

• Rosalyn Porter

• John Kernow

Their mothers are going to be cock-a-hoop.

0:21:12


It's time for David Sandeman! But who is he? I didn't know either, but it turns out he managed to sail across the Atlantic in his boat Sea Raider when he was 17 (he's 26 now). There's a short film of his exploits backed by Rod Stewart's Sailing. Following this, we cut to Cheggers and Sandeman in the warehouse. Sandeman's exploits are certainly impressive (all I did at 17 was fail my driving theory test), but he's not the most scintillating 26 year old in the world. In fact, he's akin to a company director in his mid 50s down at the local sailing club.

Cheggers, however, is his usual ebullient self and reminds you why he was on TV for so long. Oh and he informs us that there's a dinghy show currently on at Crystal Palace. I suspect that less than 0.1% of the Saturday Superstore audience attended this.

0:28:01


Mike and Crow are reading through the viewer's letters. A couple of viewers were so shocked to hear, on a previous edition, that Crow was smelly that they've decided to remedy this by sending in some Crowfume. Crow says it smells horrible, but Read ignores this and throws it all over Crow. Read then goes on to advise listeners they can ring in to speak to the guests and, if they feel like it, make fun of them.

0:30:09


As Bryan Adams is one of the guests today, it's time to watch the video for his latest single Somebody. It's a very Bryan Adams song and video featuring Bryan Adams being Bryan Adams in the style of Bryan Adams.

0:34:12


Bryan Adams is in the studio chatting to Read. There's some rather mundane waffle about Adams' morning routine and his latest European tour. Adams mentions that Switzerland is his favourite country and Read takes this opportunity to inform Adams that his garden was thick with snow this morning. Understandably, Adams is far from flabbergasted at this news.

And then things get deep when Adams starts discussing musique concrète which Wikipedia describes as "a form of musique expérimentale that exploits acousmatic listening, meaning sound identities can often be intentionally obscured or appear unconnected to their source cause". This is absolutely unnecessary at 9.30 in the morning.


Moving things back into the realms of children's TV, it's time to reveal the winners from some of last week's competitions:

• Alvin Stardust competition: Viewers had to look at the letters on a telephone's keypad and determine the number combination that spelled out SUPERSTORE. Fiona Bell from Chatham is the winner and gets an Alvin Stardust record and a phone.

• Nicholas Lyndhurst competition: To be in with a chance of winning some Only Fools and Horses photos and Rodney's jacket, you had to write in and confirm what's written on the side of Del Boy's Regal Reliant van. As we all know, it's "Trotters Independent Traders" and the winner is David Fargood from Clacton.

0:37:58


Read hands back to Cheggers and Icke who are with the kids from Cwmbran. Cheggers, for some unknown reason, is doing a 'Rolf Harris with a wobble board' impression, but it doesn't really work. Following this disastrous impression, Cheggers and Icke - whilst a mic hovers into view several times - are getting to know the youth of Cwmbran who also happen to own some of the worst jumpers ever seen on British TV. Cheggers has written a song for them to sing with its main subjects being Saturday Superstore and Wales, but it's no Strawberry Switchblade.

0:40:36


Now over to Greene and Read who are unfurling an exceptionally long roll of paper. And on this paper are 3,000 stickers all loving applied by hand by Melissa and Belinda from Weybridge. Quite why they've done this I'm not entirely sure. It's certainly taken a lot of effort, but they could have just as easily got their names mentioned on Saturday Superstore by drawing a picture of Read eating a pie. These days, of course, Pinterest would offer up a virtual solution to Melissa and Belinda's effort.

Greene and Read move on to taking some calls from the viewers. Peter Grant rings in to ask if the presenter's lines are from a script or made up. Read scoffs at this and explains that they couldn't possibly learn a 3 1/2 hour script in a week. Greene is a little more polite and holds up a copy of this week's running order to show how they work. Peter Grant then asks for the presenters to say "Hello" to his brother Benjamin, but Read chooses to ignore this.

0:46:19


I was a little snide about Sandeman earlier, but it turns out I was wrong. He's back with Cheggers in the warehouse and discussing his exploits in a little more detail and his story is one of graft and bravery. Several callers are waiting to ask Sandeman questions regarding the loneliness and danger he faced whilst crossing the Atlantic and he handles these admirably.


Following these calls, it's time for another competition and this time there's a nautical theme to tie in with Sandeman's presence. On offer is a Topper dinghy and, although it's not up for grabs for an individual, you can win it for a local youth group or club simply by nominating them. The winning nominator, however, won't be left empty handed as they'll win a week's worth of dinghy lessons.

0:55:19


Now it's time for the Telegrams which feature various drawings and paintings by viewers on themes such as birthdays, odes to football teams and even requests for Joe. S to ask out Dena. It's a standard staple of children's TV and can still be found on the various children's channels today. Most pressing, though, is the question regarding whether Joe. S asked out Dena and if they're still together today. In my most wild fantasy, they still are and they had a son which they christened Mike Read. S.


This week's telegrams are backed by the dulcet tones of Penny Crook singing her debut single Will You Help Me. Penny, of course, was the 1984 Superstore Superstar. And she's a bloody little talent. Unfortunately, it appears that her career sank without trace as various Google searches reveal nothing. Therefore, it would appear that she was the Steve Brookstein of her day. And that's a label no one wants.

0:58:19


Just coming up to the hour mark and it's time for Sound Off with Greene. This is where the viewers can write in to complain about various grievances that they want to get off their chest.

Several viewers are put out that they find it impossible to buy records before they're in the chart (something that's ridiculously easy to achieve in the internet age), another viewer is desperate to find out if there's a Bruce Springsteen fan club (Greene then plugs a fan club directory, but cruelly it doesn't contain one for The Boss) and there's a big demand for more no smoking areas. Nowadays, there's no need for a postage stamp to get your airs viewed, you just log onto Twitter and rant about whatever you want, so Sound Off feels strangely archaic.

01:01:36


It's time for a bit of Frank Stapleton, but, before they talk to him, it's time to show off a few clips of his footballing brilliance. Following this, David Icke settles down to interview Stapleton who is fresh from a 2-2 draw with West Ham the night before. Back in 1985, footballers weren't as drilled in media training as they are today, but Stapleton doesn't fare too badly. There's also the opportunity for David Eccles from Bingley to appear on TV with Stapleton as he won a competition in Match magazine. And Eccles sits next to Stapleton like an absolute pro.


There's also the chance to reveal the results of a football based competition which Jimmy Hill recently set. Viewers were challenged to match his picks for the best European XI of 1985. And little Carl Dean of Tollerton has matched Hill's picks and, my word, it's a phenomenal selection which would easily rival that of any other era. Stapleton is impressed too and reveals how Ray Wilkins has recently been eulogising about the amount of things that Platini can do with a football.

Unfortunately for Carl Dean of Tollerton, though, there doesn't appear to be a prize on offer for matching the thought processes of Jimmy Hill. And if anything deserves a prize it's that.

01:11:09


It's now time for Mike Read to serve up a couple of BBC plugs. Casually brandishing a copy of the recently launched BEEB magazine, Read informs the viewers that there's a new 'pop video' programme coming Lift Off! which is looking for photos of pop fans with pop stars. I can't remember Lift Off! at all, but it appears to have run for three series in the mid to late 1980s.

01:12:00


The wonder of pop stars soon segues into something a little more highbrow as Read turns his attentions to Andrew Lloyd Webber's latest project. Dedicated to the memory of Lloyd Webber's father, Requiem is a requiem mass which has recently premiered in New York. And, for the choirboys of Winchester Cathedral, it's proved to be an exciting adventure. In the studio to discuss their transatlantic exploits is Paul Miles-Kingston.

Although Miles-Kingston is a little shy at first, all staring at the floor, he soon warms up and starts talking about his Requiem experience. He mostly chats about how he fits in his choir work with his school work and how the New York school kids were much better at basketball - I'd like to see them try their hand at cricket or lawn bowls as it would be a much different story. Miles-Kingston is also overjoyed that he got to work with Placido Domingo as a result of Requiem.

And it turns out that Miles-Kingston carried on singing for a few years and is currently holed up as the director of music at St Peter's School, York.

01:20:15


Read's musical odyssey has now set its sights on rock music, so it's back to Bryan Adams. I'm actually warming to Adams now, mostly because he's a football fan and has played quite a bit in Canada and Portugal. I'd like to have seen David Icke grill Adams on the history of Canadian football, but, instead, it's time for some questions from the viewers.

Adams reveals that if he could meet anyone then it would be John Lennon. Now, this is hardly an original choice, but Read is completely taken aback by this fact because, guess what, he himself has said the same thing before. Adams is rather nonplussed by this revelation, so he starts answering a question regarding what he would have done if he wasn't a singer. And, in true Canadian style, he tells us that he would have been a lumberjack. This, apparently, is every boy's dream in Canada, so Read informs Adams that every boy's dream in Britain is to be a train driver. Is it? Is is really?

And then there's a question from Penny Feurr who wants to know who Adams would most like to duet with. He's not sure he can top his recent duet with Tina Turner, but John Lennon (upon Read's suggestion) is also a contender. It's a nice enough question, but then things go a little odd. Read tells Penny Feurr that she's a got a nice voice. Okay. Then he expands on this idea by saying she has a sexy voice. Read, please! You're 38! When could that sort of comment ever be a good idea on a children's show? Oh, sure, you find out after this that she's 16, but still, JESUS!


The section concludes, not with Read expressing any hint of embarrassment, but with a Bryan Adams competition. Up for grabs is a heavy red jacket (I'm not sure what a heavy jacket is), a VHS tape and a record. The question set is ridiculously easy, especially when compared to that Mother in Law's Tongue question, and is: what is the national emblem of Canada?

01:26:40


Cheggers is back in the warehouse and, with him, is multi-million pound entrepreneur, Richard Branson. However, far from being a confident businessman, Branson is ridiculously nervous and awkward here. He's also wearing an incredibly dull 80s jumper. Branson is here to discuss his attempt to claim the Blue Riband trophy for crossing the Atlantic in the quickest time. Instead, he mostly mumbles, trips over his words, giggles and plays with his face.

Here's a little spoiler for you: Branson's 1985 Blue Riband assault failed, but he later succeeded in 1986.

01:36:30


It's time for another Strawberry Switchblade videorecorded specifically for Saturday Superstore. This time they're performing their single Let Her Go and, again, it's a pleasing slice of jangly, dream pop. This time there's also the added bonus of some gloriously 80s multi-view effects on offer, so it really does have everything.

01:39.10


Finally, Strawberry Switchblade are in the studio! And aren't they a lovely couple of young women? Comprised almost entirely of giggles and effervescence shot through with punk sensibilities, Bryson and McDowall reveal how they met through their boyfriends and that it's easier to style their hair when it's dirty. The cherry on top, though, is that they're big fans of The Young Ones and Robbie Coltrane. Seriously, what is there to dislike about them?

There's also a fantastic competition on offer. Up for grabs is a Strawberry Switchblade 'bath bag' which comes complete with strawberry toothpaste, strawberry lip balm and a set of strawberry bath mits. Outside of the bath bag, there are some rather swanky vinyl picture discs for their latest single and a copy of the promo video. In order to win all this wonderful booty, you need to inform the guys and gals at Saturday Superstore what the name of the plant family is that the strawberry belongs to.

It's a decent question, not exceptionally difficult, but one which would take a little bit of work for children to discover. Today, of course, you can Google it in three seconds flat. The answer, to save you three seconds work, is the Rose family.

01:47:13


Next up is Plug of the Week and, if you're a young ornithologist, you're going to be a like a pig in the proverbial. If you're not, then, I don't know, maybe you'd go and grab a Panda Pop for this bit.

Receiving a plug this week, through Greene's infectious enthusiasm, is the Young Ornithologist Club. In particular they're looking for help from the general public in the migration patterns of birds returning to Britain. Through the medium of a special phone-in model, viewers can contact regional numbers every Tuesday to describe the migration patterns they've observed locally. Where can you find these numbers? On good old Ceefax, so there's a brief snippet of archive Ceefax magnificence.

Again, the progression of technology would mean that, firstly, children would be completely baffled by what the hell Ceefax was and, secondly, an app would be the preferred method for children to provide their input.

01:49:50


More viewers' letters and photos now with Read. Someone's sent in a picture of them posing next to a 'HEAVY PLANT CROSSING' sign which has seen better days and now reads 'HEAVY ANT CROSSING' which Read finds hilarious.

Catherine Hall, meanwhile, has written in as she's desperate for a Saturday Superstore pen and, to prove this, she's composed a rhyming poem to describe her insatiable desire for said pen. She's even enclosed an SAE for them to send it to her, so she's not being completely unreasonable. Read says they'll send her a pen. I really hope she received it. And still has it.

01:50:50


Icke hasn't been on screen for a while now, so it's time for his sporting passions to come to the fore once more (it's not just Catherine Hall who can rhyme) in Sporting Requests. I'm not entirely sure why, but the section starts with Read, rather eccentrically, throwing a fish prop over to Icke.

Picking up this fishy baton, Icke entertains viewers' requests for sporting footage from the archives. Up this week is footage from the 1984 Benson and Hedges Cup final, the North of England XI playing the All Blacks in 1983 and, most delightfully, the daughters of marathon runner Colin Kirkham have written in to request footage of him coming 4th in the 1971 European Games marathon.

Thanks to YouTube, and its abundance of sporting clips from 1890 up to this afternoon, this type of section would be completely redundant now.

01:55:47


Richard Branson has been allowed back on screen and, apparently, he's ready to take some phone calls with Read. Let's hope we're not going to witness a panic attack. The signs aren't good as he's still acting fidgety, fiddly and struggling to speak in coherent sentences. The callers don't probe too deeply and, quite frankly, I don't think Branson could have handled anything more complex than questions regarding his favourite hobbies (windsurfing, tennis and swimming) and that his favourite football team is Oxford (although he's only saying that as he lives there).

Read, aside from boasting about having been round Branson's house, seems most concerned with the surname of a caller by the name of Andy Eleazu. Read is disappointed that young Andy doesn't know the origins of his unusual surname, but even a quick Google search uncovers little on the name Eleazu (it may be Nigerian). It's also the perfect moment for Read to spoil the identity of today's surprise guest by telling a Paul Young fan that she should keep her eyes peeled later. Don't ruin it for the kids, Read. Please.


I'll turn the focus back to Branson as this section should be about him, not Read's eccentricities. So, yes, Branson is still here and he's got a competition with some quite astounding prizes. There's a Virgin bag packed full of Virgin goodies including t-shirts, computer games and a calculator, a model Virgin plane and, wait for it, two return tickets to America. Just imagine heading to America in 1985 and watching The Goonies a cool five months before it came out in the UK. Amazing.

All you have to do is answer this question: What was the name of the plane that Charles Lindbergh made the first solo flight across the Atlantic in? The answer, which is probably easy enough to be found in any encyclopaedia is The Spirit of St Louis. I can only imagine that the BBC post room was flooded with entries that week.

02:02:09


Attentions now turn towards the SuperSponsorBoard with Greene where sponsored events are given a quick plug. There's an exhibition (confusingly it's not sponsored) at Britannic House (now known as CityPoint) on Down's Syndrome to look forward to and the Focus Gateway Club are doing a 400 mile relay race from Edinburgh to London. Everything featured is for a good cause, so it's a fine lesson in altruism in the viewers and hopefully sparked an interest in charity work.

02:04:30


Every superstore needs a store detective and Saturday Superstore is no different, so please welcome Sherlock, a dog far too cute to do much more to a potential thief than nibble at its ankle. Such is the love for Sherlock that one viewer has submitted a curious drawing of Read and Sherlock. While Sherlock pads around on Chegger's desk in the warehouse, Cheggers deals with some complaints from the viewers.


Their most pressing concern is that, in the latest Saturday Superstore book, there's a mistake on page 39 that identifies jockey Bob Champion as Rob Champion. One mistake is not enough, though, and other viewers have realised that the same page claims there are 13 red balls on a snooker table when there are 15. In terms of scandals, it's not exactly the Profumo affair. Still, there's nothing more satisfying for a child than to point out an adult's mistake, so it's a good excuse for children to ratchet up their levels of smugness.

02:07:10


Stone me! The sloppiness continues as Read confesses that there should have been five winners in the Michael Jackson competition last week, but they only picked one! Read swiftly reveals four additional winners and, for now, all is well in the Superstore.

02:08:21


In fact, things are only getting better and better on Saturday Superstore as Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones are coming in to promote their new film Morons from Outer Space. First, though, we're going to take a look at the music video for the tie in single. Although a jolly little song, it's nothing remarkable and, much like the film, it made little impact on the British public. Nearly 35 years on, it's a curiosity but nothing more.

02:11:50


Smith and Jones are now in the studio with Read and providing plenty of value, Jones is also looking particularly smart in his suit jacket and burgundy shirt. Smith discloses that they decided to release the Morons single to make more money and Jones tells Read that the gala premiere is being held in Basildon. Read goes onto inform Smith and Jones that he was hoping to show a clip of their send up of Read's Pop Show programme, but the tape has, he says, been stolen by screaming fans. Yet more competitions need winners picked, so Read gets Smith and Jones on the prize picks.


Rolf Harris (oh dear) had previously asked "Which country is the America's cup now held in?" and the answer, predictably, was Australia. The winner is Katriana Ray from Alness, Scotland and she's won a Rolf Harris LP called 'Coojeebear and the Monster'. No doubt that record has since been smashed up.

Judith Hanns, meanwhile, has posed a question which asks "What is the vital ingredient that makes brown bread good for you?" and the answer is fibre. Can you class fibre as an ingredient? It's certainly never listed as one, but perhaps I'm being pedantic. Anyway, the prize on offer is a health plan, a couple of Tomorrow's World books (which Hann presented for 20 years) and a swimming bag. Josephine Fieldon from Garstang, Lancashire wins and Read remarks that he's never seen a swimming bag before. He's clearly never lived.


The final prize pick is for a competition set by Spelt Like This (a short lived synth-pop band) who set viewers the task of making anagrams out of the title of their new single Contract of the Heart. Suggestions from the viewers include "Choc or treat then fat", "Note for the chart act", "No chatter for the cat" and "Thatcher one for tact". However, the winner is Simon Sergeant from Farnham with "Force that chart tone". And Simon wins a dictionary, some chocolate, a sweatshirt and a Spelt Like This LP for his dalliance with wordplay.

None of these competitions have remarkable prizes, but it's always fun to receive something in the post that you haven't had to pay for; it's a joy which as welcome in 2018 as it was in 1985. Read promises that Smith and Jones will be back later, but for now it's time for Saturday Specials which, this week, is backed by Don Henley's Boys of Summer.

02:15:57


Saturday Specials is fairly similar to the earlier Telegrams section, but purely features photos sent in by viewers with a brief message. Again, it provides a few seconds of fame for those featured, but I suspect its main purpose is to allow set changes to take place.
02:17:15


It's finally time for the results of this year's Search for a Superstar! Read and Greene are standing at a podium and the contestants are all gathered round as they anxiously await the results. The whole affair is fairly low-rent compared to the sickening glitz of modern day talent extravaganzas such as Britain's Got Talent. And, as a result, it infuses the affair with a curious charm, much like an end of year school talent show.


Six lucky contestants have made it to the final and they are:

• Carl and Claire Smith: Carl's on the drums and singing whilst sister Sarah backs him up on keyboards as they perform Queen's 'I Want to Break Free'

• Cheeky Bits: An upbeat dance collective wearing some disturbingly skimpy outfits

• Derek Cullen: A dancer who enjoys dancing in PVC clothing to Carol Lynn Townes 'Believe in the Beat'

• Nigel Harvey: Ventriloquism is Nigel's area of expertise and he's a performing a routine with his monkey puppet

• Jamie Bowden and Prudence Oliver: With their eyes and hearts set on the West End, Jamie and Prudence are belting out a version of Gee, Office Krupke from West Side Story.

• Scarlet Ribbons: Unfortunately, I'm not entirely sure what Scarlet Ribbons are doing. Okay, yes, the older girl sings a song (I can't figure out what it is) and twirls a younger girl around, but what is this?

And, as a special treat, there's a surprise mystery guest to award the prizes. Unfortunately, Read started yapping about Paul Young earlier and more or less confirmed it would be be him. And, guess what, it's Paul Young.


Read, however, manages to summon some respect for the audience by not suddenly screaming out the name of the winner and, instead, allows Young to announce the results:

• 3rd Prize: Scarlet Ribbons, who, although her act is obscure, does have a phenomenal voice on her and it's nor surprise that she takes third place. Her prize for belting out such fantastic vocals is an electronic organ with a built in music game.

• 2nd Prize: Second place goes to the familial duo of Carl and Claire Smith. They're a talented pair, but perhaps picking a song popularised by Freddie Mercury's inimitable vocals was probably too taxing to pull off. Nonetheless, they've won a cassette player with a built in recorder for vocals and backing tracks.

• 1st Prize: This year's superstar is Derek Cullen with his brand of graceful, balletic dancing taking the spoils. His prize is a Sony television and the coveted Superstore trophy (which looks like it was knocked up in 5 minutes). There's also a bonus surprise for Cullen as he'll be appearing onthe following Monday's edition of Wogan.

It doesn't appear that Cullen went on to become a true superstar, but there's a very brief mention of a Derek Cullen being involved in some choreography online. I'd sleep a lot sounder at night if I knew he was still involved with his passion, so please get in touch if you know for sure. One act who continued honing his act was Nigel Harvey who worked as a ventriloquist round the holiday parks for 20 years before moving into acting.


Even though none of the contestants went onto fame and fortune, Search for a Superstar is a good outlet for young people to demonstrate their creativity.The 21st century, though, has decided to lump all age groups together in Britain's Got Talent which, if you ask me, doesn't exactly serve up a level playing ground.

02:29:55


Icke is back and this time there's a hint of comedy to his sports desk as he's ready to crown the 'winners' of Saturday Superstore's search for the Worst Football Team in Britain. There were hundreds of entries, but, with some relish, Icke can reveal that the absolute worst football team in Britain are Shortheath Juniors from Walsall. Their current record stands at played 18 and lost 18; in the process, they've only managed to score four goals whilst conceding 400.


Their prize for such abominable performances is actually rather fantastic. It's a visit to Old Trafford which includes a guided tour by a sheepskin jacket clad Bobby Charlton. In 1985, of course, Manchester United hadn't won the league for nearly 20 years and they were still eight years away from finally ending this barren run. It's intriguing to see glimpses of Old Trafford before all the redevelopment kicked into gear in the 1990s, but even back in 1985, United were getting the highest league attendances.


Charlton is kind enough to take the lads for a quick spot on training to hone their skills and hopefully stop the rot. And there's a further surprise in store in the form of a match against the local Salford lads. Despite being the same age, the boys from Salford are physically superior and can string a series of decent passes together. Shortheath Juniors lose count of score in the end, but, rest assured, it's heavily in favour of the lads from Salford.

02:39:57


Shortheath Juniors are such a great bunch of lads that Icke has got them in the studio today and it appears that the coaching has finally paid off. In their last game they managed to score two goals. Mind you, they conceded 21, but they're clearly making progress. There's more good news as Bobby Charlton is on the phone to reveal that TSB - the sponsors of the Bobby Charlton Soccer School - are going to pay for a week's worth of coaching for the team in the summer. And Charlton reckons that, although it'll be difficult, he might be able to improve them enough to win a game one day.

02:42:37


We're now heading from Icke's area of expertise over to Read's with Pop Panel which features all the day's guests opining on the latest music videos. It's an absolute bonanza of 80s musicianship and here's what's on offer:

• Everytime You Go Away - Paul Young: Everyone is very complimentary of what was an international best seller for Young. It's not really a surprise that everyone's full of praise as Young is still knocking about the studio. Branson, who knows a thing or two about the music industry, isn't too keen on the video though and labels it as dull.

• Call to the Heart - Giuffria: A slice of hair metal which is, to my eyes, interminably dull and riddled with every cliche of the genre. Strawberry Switchblade aren't keen on the girl in the video with a fur coat as they're vehemently against the fur industry. Mel Smith, meanwhile, is more concerned about the amount of animals killed to make the band's wigs. Overall it gets a mixed set of reviews from the guests.

• That Ole Devil Called Love - Alison Moyet: If Alison Moyet ever wants to cross the Atlantic then she shouldn't wait for a lift from David Sandeman as he would not have this song on his boat. Mel Smith doesn't have much time for the song, but is taken with Moyet's voice. Everyone else, though, is rather keen and Moyet's offering is deemed a success.

Judging the latest pop videos was a mainstay of Saturday morning children's TV and it always guarantees an engaging watch due to the subjective nature of taste. And, in an era where MTV in the UK was still a few years away, features such as Pop Panel act as a valuable chance to glimpse the latest music videos.


Moving on, there's time for a quick competition to be set and, seeing as You Spin me Round by Dead or Alive is flying high in the charts, Read asks the following question: What force keeps water in a bucket if you spin it around? The prizes on offer appear to be some Spelt Like This and Andrew Lloyd Webber LPs, a Morons from Outer Space 7" and some Marvel marbles. There doesn't appear to be any Dead or Alive memorabilia, which is a little odd.

02:55:30


Cheggers, Greene and Sherlock are back in the warehouse and there's a return to Saturday Superstore's obsession with anagrams. Having asked viewers to make anagrams out of several words/phrases related to the programme, Cheggers and Greene announce the following suggestions:

• SUPERSTORE = SOURER STEP / TRUE POSERS
• KEITH CHEGWIN = WEE HICK THING
• MIKE READ = A MERE KID
• SARAH GREENE = AGE NEARS HER

Clearly, this section is filler and acts merely as a device to pad out a running order prone to fluctuations, but at least it's fostered a sense of creativity in the viewers. Well, in at least five. Sadly, it's a feature which would warrant little respect today as cheating would be rampant thanks to the millions of anagram machines available online.


Pushing cynicism to one side, for a moment, there's something truly wonderful to celebrate on Saturday Superstore this week as Greene is presenting her 50th edition! A true professional, Greene isn't singing her own praises, but is as pleased to punch to reveal that  Kevin Cook has sent in a congratulations card for her efforts. I've got no idea who Kevin Cook is, but it's a sweet gesture.

02:58:30

The show is starting to wind down now, but there's still a chance for the viewers to direct a number of questions towards Smith and Jones who are sat with Read. The questions put forward are fairly trivial such as "Did you laugh when doing Not the Nine O'Clock News" and "How did you meet" through to one rather demanding caller who expects Smith and Jones to recreate a high fibre sketch they had performed the year before. There's also time for Read's curiosity for surnames to be piqued one more time by a caller by the name of Lee Amderton, but again Read is left disappointed as to an origin for this oddly spelt surname.


And there's also the opportunity for one final competition. On offer is a silver tour jacket featured in Morons from Outer Space and a VHS copy of the music video. The question is relatively simple as all Smith and Jones want to know is what the name of the Geordie actor/singer that's featured singing the main part of the song in the video. It's Jimmy Nail, but please note that this competition closed over 33 years ago, so please don't try entering.

03:08:05


There's still one more music video to come and it's everyone's favourite, Greg Kihn! Who? No, me neither. Apparently he's some type of American musician. He's the kind of American singer that your dad would have liked in the 80s.  Anyway, he's performing his latest single Lucky and it's tiresomely awful.

03:11:07


Right, Kihn has faded out, and all there's left to do now for the presenters is to wrap up the show. There's a quick update on what's coming up next week - Carl Davis, The British Railway Steam Film, Frankie Goes to Hollwood and Tears for Fears - while Greene gives a big thanks to all the Superstar finalists. And, finally, with St Patrick's Day fast approaching, the presenters wish everyone a happy St Patrick's day and indulge in a spot of Irish dancing. Branson, who finally seems to be conquering his nerves, attempts to join in, but, oh dear, he's just as awkward as ever.

AND THAT'S IT!

Can Saturday Morning Children's TV Still Work?

Well, that was a marathon watch. Admittedly, it was very rare that you would watch an entire episode of Saturday morning children's TV. Usually, you'd get dragged out the house at some point by your parents to go up town or get your hair cut. Failing that, your mates might even come round and invite you out to throw rocks at things and steal penny sweets. Nonetheless, watching this edition of Saturday Superstore never felt gruelling and there was more than enough entertainment on offer.

There's truly something for everyone here, but viewing habits and they way we digest popular culture have changed beyond all recognition since 1985. For one thing, there are no longer just four channels to choose from on a Saturday morning. There are hundreds. This has fractured the audience in ways that Saturday Superstore could never imagine. And then there's the massive impact of social media. Virtually every feature of Saturday morning children's TV is now covered by Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The opportunity on offer for children to interact with pop stars, display their photos and watch the latest music videos is available every single second of the day. Sure, there's no sense of continuity between all these different formats and channels, but the choice on offer is phenomenal. Saturday morning children's TV, as we used to know it, will never come back, but this doesn't mean we should forget it. It was the best way to satisfy a huge audience who were bored out of their minds and, as a result, will never be forgotten by those who were there for it.

I started the month with no new video tapes to look at and a slight sense of apathy seeping into my television archaeology exploits, but the month ended quite spectacularly. Not only have I now got an improved VHS player, I've also managed to uncover my oldest footage yet.

First things first, the new VHS player. I say VHS player, but it's actually an S-VHS player which means I can now dig through S-VHS tapes. S-VHS didn't launch in the UK until the late 1980s, so I'm not going to find anything ridiculously old on S-VHS tapes, but the picture quality is fantastic.


The actual player is a Panasonic NV-SV121 and comes complete with 3D Dolby Noise Reduction and Time Base Correction, so the picture quality is better than that of my Sanyo DVD/VHS combi. I now hook the Panasonic player up to the Sanyo and record to DVD before ripping.

As I said earlier, the number of VHS tapes to explore at the start of the month was zero, but I managed two pickups this month. The first collection came via a Facebook Marketplace ad  I had spied and contained around 120 VHS tapes. It sounds quite the haul, but the pictures clearly showed that around 80% of them were pre-recorded tapes.

However, I could see, in amongst the Only Fools and Horses and The Howling tapes, that there were also some fairly old blank tapes. There wasn't too much on them, but I found a couple of clips going back to 1984. Nothing amazing, but I've picked up worse batches before. Much worse.

Thankfully, almost all of my VHS dreams would be realised a couple of weeks later when I headed to Luton to pick up close to 200 tapes. Now, before we go any further, I need to explain that I've had a bit of an obsession with finding material recorded before I was born. My birthday, if you're thinking about getting me a card, is in September 1982 and VHS footage from before 1984 is pretty tough to track down.

The oldest I had previously found was some BBC News dating from December 1982, but anything older seemed to be out of reach. These tapes, nestling in Luton, however, went all the way back to 1980. I hadn't even been conceived by that point.

Anyway, you're probably not interested in anything relating to my conception, so I'll stop waffling and show you what I've dug up this month:

09/12/1980 - BBC1 - Nationwide John Lennon Tribute (Clips)



First up are selected clips from Nationwide's tribute to John Lennon which aired on BBC1 the evening after his death in December 1980. It's exciting enough to find such old footage, but the most striking aspect of the piece is that it features a relatively young looking Hugh Scully compared to the silver fox of more recent memory. Unfortunately, due to Apple's stringent copyright demands, I can't place all the footage I have up on YouTube, but these are the most interesting clips.

02/01/1981 - BBC2 - Girl in a Glider



Someone recently commented on my YouTube channel that my videos of television from yesteryear are like a form of therapy and I think Girl in a Glider is proof of this. A genteel documentary featuring the exploits of 16 year old Judith Mountford as she prepares for her first solo glider flight, it features the beautiful landscapes of the North Yorkshire moors and the most dreamy soundtrack imaginable. The perfect antidote to the stresses of the modern world.

16/02/1981 - BBC2 - Did You See? (Partial)



Found at the end of a tape containing the first five episodes of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this clip comes from an episode of BBC2's television review show Did You See? Ludovic Kennedy, as ever, hosts the event and discusses Douglas Adams' classic with Patrick Moore, Alan Plater and Julie Welch. I suppose the modern day equivalent of Did You See? would be Gogglebox and I think the fact that we've fallen so far may be a modern tragedy.

16/10/1981 BBC2 Continuity



Here's a snippet of BBC2 continuity for the continuity fans out there. And not only does this contain a slide for Starsky and Hutch, but there's also a trailer for the new series of Russell Harty. For some reason, Harty isn't sat in his studio and, rather inexplicably, is sat in front of a tent on a green.

15/02/1982 - BBC2 - Riverside



A few weeks ago, I was bemoaning the availability of any episodes of Riverside and, lawks a lordy, I only ended up with a few complete episodes after picking up my latest batch of VHS tapes. Riverside, if you haven't seen it, is a fantastic programme looking at the cultural trends of the day. This particular episode - hosted by Mike Andrews, Nicky Picasso and Steve Blacknell - is packed full of retro brilliance such as a trip to a Leicester pub which has recently installed a new fangled video jukebox.

15/02/1982 - BBC2 - Not the Nine O'Clock News



Not the Nine O'Clock News was a sketch show blessed with an exceptionally talented cast and equally amazing writing. Repeats have been far and few between whilst commercial releases have been limited to a couple of compilations. Quite why the series has never had a full release is a matter of debate. Some point to the topical nature of the material and the royalties/rights attached to the myriad contributors, but you could say the same about Spitting Image and that's received a complete release on DVD. Anyway, here's a complete episode from the final series and it's absolutely brilliant.

03/05/1982 - BBC1 - Multi-Coloured Music Show 1982



A compilation of the best music videos/performances from the last series of Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, this edition of Multi-Coloured Music Show features Noel Edmonds in a hilariously bad jumper providing links between the videos. Copyright restrictions, again, mean that it's difficult to put everything up, but I've included the majority of Edmonds' links and the opening titles.

Jan 1985 - Sky Channel - The Sky-Fi Music Show (Tony Blackburn)



Now this is a very exciting find. Back in the 1980s, various cable TV packages sprang up in several cities around the UK which offered new channels to subscribers. And one of these was the Sky Channel. The majority of the programming on offer was American imports, but there were a few offerings of original, homegrown programming and The Sky-Fi Music Show was one of them.

Essentially just a music video show, the episodes had continuity provided by a number of presenters such as Tony Blackburn, Pat Sharp and even Holly Johnson. And here are several of the links provided by Tony Blackburn way back in January 1985. What's most interesting about this footage is that the master tapes are long lost, almost everything from the early days of the Sky Channel is missing. Thankfully, due to home recordings, we can piece together what those early days of multi-channel TV were like.

BBC1 - 1987 - Sportsnight (Partial)



I'm always happy to find anything that features football from the 1980s and, tagged on at the end of a tape, I managed to find an early 1987 football feature from Sportsnight. It takes a look at the inaugural play off promotions taking place for the first time at the end of the 1986/87 season. Graham Kelly, Barry Fry and Peter Swales all feature and provide an insight into the changes taking place in the football league.

More Finds to Come?

So, it's been a bumper month and, the good news is, there is still loads to come. I've barely scratched the surface of those 200 tapes I picked up and I'll be busy with them for the next six months. I am, of course, always open to receiving new tapes (in particular, S-VHS tapes), so if you have anything that's particularly old then get in touch.

Having achieved my previous objective of finding material recorded before I was born, my new aim is to find some 1970s footage on VHS. This is going to prove incredibly difficult as VHS was only available from 1978 onwards and tapes from that era have either been recorded over countless times or chucked out. However, there must be some lurking up in attics or at the backs of cupboards, so who knows?

It's been confirmed today that Peter Firmin has passed away at the stately age of 89. Alongside Oliver Postgate, Firmin was responsible for many of the programmes which have gone on to define British children's TV such as Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine, The Clangers and Pogles' Wood to name but a handful.

The strength of Firmin's contribution to British culture is almost unparalleled in terms of longevity; not only was he behind millions and millions of childhood memories that remain active after many decades, but the appeal of his shows has remained strong for one generation after another.

Firmin's passing is, naturally, tinged with sadness, but it also represents yet another break from that rose tinted era when only a handful of channels made up British television. An era when children's TV shows ran for relatively few episodes, but remained ensconced within our hearts for time immemorial. It may seem tiresome to repeat that oft quoted opinion that children's TV from the past was sprinkled with magic, but it was. That's why people are still buying Ivor the Engine mugs and Bagpuss soft toys over 40 years on from their initial broadcast.

The legacy of Firmin's work will continue to delight and entertain millions of viewers for many decades to come. And there can be no finer compliment to Firmin's talents than that.

Dating has never been anything less than a highly precarious and tricky activity. Two completely different entities coming together and hoping that things will click is a recipe for disaster. It’s not impossible to succeed, but, you can rest assured that your path towards happiness will be littered with misfires and misfortunes. If, of course, you’re the wrong side of 40 and have an interfering mother acting as a matchmaker, matters get a whole lot worse. And, for Marjorie Belton, that’s exactly what’s happening in Marjorie and Men.

Genre: Comedy
Channel: ITV
Transmission: 28/06/1985 - 02/08/1985

Divorced from her once beloved, Marjorie Belton (Patricia Routledge) is on the lookout from love. Residing, for now, with her mother Alice Tripp (Patricia Hayes), Marjorie seeks to find a new man while working as a bank clerk in Norwich. With the heartbreak of her marriage to Mr Belton rescinding into the past, Marjorie is hitting the dating circuit with an exuberant and effervescent outlook on the opposite sex. Dating, however, is far from easy for Marjorie.


While Marjorie is more than capable of running her own life, her mother is convinced that she should intervene and help force true love’s hand. With a glimmer of charm amongst her bulldozer-like approach, Alice Tripp is a woman for whom agreeing with, more often than not, is the easiest option. Potential suitors are invited round to the family home without Marjorie’s consent and Alice is keen for her daughter to attend live art classes with her in pursuit of men.


Work, too, brings an unwarranted intrusion into her romantic liaisons in the form of her manager Henry Bartlett (James Cossins). Respectably married, Bartlett bumps into Marjorie in a singles bar one evening. Horrified at discovering that he’s drinking in a bar that should be anathema to married men, Bartlett begs Marjorie to smuggle him out. Marjorie duly does this, but finds that it sends Cupid’s arrow flying straight into Bartlett’s heart. Much less overbearing, Sid Parkin (Ronnie Stevens) is a fellow bank clerk and, despite a sparkle of romantic admiration for her, acts very much as her confidante.

Disregarding these obstacles, Marjorie manages to line up a string of dates with potential suitors. Dates find her disco dancing with the cheeky, yet charming Norton Phillips (George Baker), riding pillion alongside the slick but heartless Frank Aston (John Quayle) and being bored to tears by the potato obsessed greengrocer George Banthorpe (Timothy West). In fact, there’s little escape from dating for Marjorie, but she does experience a brief respite when helping out on an amateur production of HMS Pinafore. Even then, though, Marjorie finds male attention awaiting her in the wings.

Getting Ready

Only the second sitcom produced by Anglia Television (and the first since the late 70s Backs to the Land), Marjorie and Men was a six episode series that was transmitted on Friday evenings in the summer of 1985. The series was jointly written by John Gorrie and Peter Spence, each writer penning three episodes each. The initial idea for Marjorie and Men had come from John Gorrie and he would also go on to direct the series, having directed endless TV plays and series since the early 1960s.


Peter Spence’s involvement was much more detached and, aside from a brief meeting with Gorrie and producer John Rosenburg, acted merely as a hired writer. Spence suspects that he was brought into the series due to the perception that he excelled at writing for middle-aged women following To the Manor Born. The middle-aged woman that would star in Marjorie and Men, however, was less well known for her comedy prowess.

Aside from a few one-off appearances in Steptoe and Son, Doctor at Large and a string of monologues in Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Patricia Routledge was not yet the comedy legend she would later become. Routledge had previously turned down several sitcoms and she had to thoroughly read through five of the scripts before taking on the role. At the time, Routledge told Jan Etherington of the TV Times that the part appealed to her due to Marjorie’s dedication to romance despite the failure of her marriage.

True Romance?

The pursuit of love is a well-worn trope when it comes to television, but it’s a subject which remains eternal, universal and, therefore, relevant. And, in Marjorie and Men, John Gorrie has created a sitcom bathed in warmth and strong performances. Although traditional in its reach, it’s far from staid and, most excitingly, provides the initial steps for a comedy legend in waiting.

Along with Roy Clarke, Patricia Routledge created one of the greatest ever sitcom monsters in Hyacinth Bucket. It’s no surprise to learn that Keeping Up Appearances is the BBC’s most successful export. Routledge, of course, is an actress of some repute having won a Tony Award back in the 1960s and, in 1988, an Olivier Award to go alongside it. As you can expect, she doesn’t disappoint as Marjorie Belton. It’s a confident performance and one that benefits from the character’s desire to find romantic happiness in a sea where the fish are rapidly dwindling.


Routledge is helped, of course, by another Patricia, in this case Hayes. A character actress of some repute, Hayes is fantastic as the scheming, yet ultimately well meaning mother who appears desperate to get her daughter married off once more. With a twinkle in her eye, Hayes portrays Alice Tripp as a woman possessing a sharp wit and even sharper tongue. Proud of her manipulative skills, she acts as a ruthless counter to Marjorie’s more organic approach to social occasions.

Back at the bank, Routledge is again flanked by fine comic actors in the form of James Cossins and Ronnie Stevens. Character actors to a tee – and with extensive CVs to back this – they help to support Routledge’s character by intermittently injecting social awkwardness and a shoulder to cry on. Michelle Collins also pops up in an early role as bank clerk Debbie and contributes a young dynamic in amongst a cast who, it’s fair to say, are all middle aged. These characters, milling around at the bank, are unfortunately underused and their true value to the series never quite surfaces.


Much more critical to the series are the men attempting to woo Marjorie. All actors of some repute, they create an engaging chemistry with Routledge which keeps the viewer glued to the screen in the hope that romance could blossom. Mark Kingston and George Baker stand out as being notably charming and it’s a real delight to see their talents at full throttle. Timothy West, admittedly, is portrayed as a terrible bore who stands no chance with Marjorie, but even that performance is transformed into a joy thanks to his wealth of experience.


The scripts almost, but not quite match the quality laid down by these performances. Each week brings a different date for Marjorie and, with it, an array of new settings. Certain dates go fantastically such as her dancing escapades with Norton, but others end in hurt and heartbreak as evidenced in her tryst with Frank Norton. They’re scripts which help to develop a multifaceted character in Marjorie, outwardly and mentally strong, but no stranger to vulnerability. The revolving door of men, although satisfying that sitcom requirement of constantly resetting the protagonist’s clock, fails to cement a strong consistency and the series almost splutters to an end.

Finally, if we’re watching a sitcom, then we’re obviously here for the laughs. Marjorie and Men is clearly geared towards a demographic who are looking for light laughs and frivolities, so this should indicate the impact of the humour. Thanks to the sophisticated, well composed dialogue and a firm understanding of comedy, it achieves this with ease. From Mrs Tripp’s devilishly polite form of forcefulness through to Marjorie donning her gladrags for the disco and finishing with Bartlett’s rapidly rising obsession with Marjorie, there’s plenty here to raise a few smiles.

See You Again?

The premise of Marjorie and Men is such that one series was probably enough. There’s just not enough mileage in the tank to justify Marjorie embarking on yet more dates. Due to its short lifespan and lack of repeats, it’s no surprise to learn that it’s not a sitcom that’s remembered by huge swathes of the public. However, this is by no means a marker of the series’ quality. Certain sitcoms, much like the opposite (or same) sex, slide in and out of our lives leaving little more than a few happy memories. This is what Marjorie and Men does and sometimes that's enough.

You may have noticed that there's a World Cup on. England, after all, haven't delivered their customary turgid showing and the nation is going as mad for football as Gareth Southgate does for waistcoats. Live sport, however, doesn't really fall under the Curious British Telly banner, but thankfully that doesn't mean we can't enter into the spirit of the event. And that's why we're going to highlight the hilarity of World Cup Heroes and Villains from 1994.

Genre: Comedy
Channel: ITV (LWT)
Transmission: 1994

Now, if there's one thing I'm sick of, it's clip shows fronted by a load of comedians being paid to talk about subjects they have absolutely no interest in. Bob Mills, however, is different. Take, for example, In Bed With Me Dinner. Mills isn't just chasing the dollar here, you can tell by the look in his eyes that something else is going on. He's absolutely fascinated by the bizarre clips dug out of the archives. And you just know that, decades on, they still haunt and delight him.


Therefore, he's the perfect host for World Cup Heroes and Villains, a one-off clip show looking at the, you guessed it, myriad heroes and villains from World Cup history. That's not, of course, the only attribute that qualifies Mills to be presenting the programme. He's also a huge football fan and, when he's not on the terraces at Brisbane Road supporting Leyton Orient, he can be found setting fiendishly complex football quizzes on TalkSport.



The setup for World Cup Heroes and Villains is as simple as the set it's presented from. In what appears to be a mockp of his living room, Mills passes judgement on the morality and integrity of all those involved with the grand history of the World Cup. It's not quite the complete history though. No doubt caused by the need for a one hour running time, Mills doesn't start with the first World Cup in 1930. Instead he decides to start with the first World Cup that counts, which is obviously 1966.

Picking his way through the endless footage with his trademark brand of everyman cynicism, Mills is eager to highlight not just the obvious heroes and villains, but also the more intriguing candidates. And that's why, nestling amongst heroic footage of Gary Lineker scoring a hat trick against Poland, we also see England winger John Connelly being feted for being dropped from the team which led to the formation of Alf Ramsey's "wingless wonders" who went on to claim the trophy.

There are also the villains such as the Dutch businessman that can clearly be seen leaping for joy behind the England goal in a 1993 qualifying game against Holland. Ronald Koeman, who should have been sent off earlier, has just scored and Mills' fury at this businessman leaping "like Tommy Steele in Half a Sixpence" may be one of the funniest moments in the show. Other villains include Jeff Astle for missing an absolute sitter against Brazil in 1970 and a whole bevy of players from the 1986 World Cup for feigning injury by performing acrobatic rolls on the floor.

However, it's not just archive footage on offer. A number of the heroes and villains on offer appear in short interview segments where they either defend or celebrate their infamy. John Connelly lovingly strokes his 1966 England tracksuit, Harald Schumacher defends his horrific 'assault' on France's Patrick Battison and Terry Fenwick fails to explain why he didn't just give Maradona a punch up the bracket in 1986. As a result, Mills labels him a nancy.

The whole thing is held together by Mills' irreverent and mocking jibes which often stray into highly surreal avenues such as suggesting the Russian linesman in the 1966 World Cup final was replaced, at the last minute, with fictional 1930s music hall star Benny Bennett. Mills, once described by Mark Lewisohn as "the engagingly friendly comedian", ensures that the pace never drops and its a testament to his delivery that, 24 years on from when I first saw it, I can still remember some of the gags.

Much like the majority of England's World Cup endeavours and adventures, World Cup Heroes and Villains is gone before you know it and sadly it remained a one off. Nonetheless, there are plenty of gags throughout and, luckily, the whole thing is on YouTube to help you get in the mood for the latter stages of the 2018 World Cup. And, who knows, maybe we'll have a few more heroes and villains by the end of it.

Thanks to the wonder of personal video recorders (PVR) we can record anything we want from the TV schedules with just a few clicks of the remote. You don't even have to get up thanks to the hard drive element of PVR. Roll the clock back about 40 years, however, and things were very different. Whilst, yes, you could record anything from the schedules, you most certainly had to get up and fiddle about with mindbending timers and, of course, those clunky old video tapes.

Naturally, hindsight can pooh-pooh the limitations of past technology, but, back in the late 1970s and early 80s, home video recorders were the future. They were Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century made real, but housed underneath a TV in Surbiton. Now, if you've ever followed my tweets on Twitter or scrolled through my Archive Tape Digging blogs, you'll be well aware that I'm still in love with the wonder of these machines. Not only did they allow us to capture wonderful slices of television (master tapes of which are now missing), but they also looked amazing.

And, to get a better understanding of what they promised us when they first launched, I decided to track down some early press adverts (click on the pictures for full size versions).

Betamax






Philips N1700


Video 2000


VHS

Norbert Smith: A Life is yet another comedy gem from the magnificent Harry Enfield although, quite frankly, if you were expecting anything less than fantastic then your funny bone clearly stopped functioning around the same time that a man first slipped on a banana skin.

Written by Harry Enfield and the equally legendary (yet much less publicly celebrated) Geoffrey Perkins, this one-off mockumentary was directed by Geoff Posner and produced by Hat Trick Productions for Channel 4 in 1989. Finally, after years in the wilderness, Norbert Smith: A Life is coming to DVD thanks to Simply Media.

The Legend of Norbert Smith

Norbert Smith is clearly a parody of arts review shows and, in particular, The South Bank Show. In fact, such is the magnitude of Norbert Smith's parody, Melvyn Bragg, perpetual host of The South Bank Show, stars as the presenter chronicling the career of Norbert Smith (Harry Enfield). And it's an apt time to be celebrating Norbert as this documentary coincides with his 80th birthday.


Starting the retrospective at Norbert's converted vicarage - it was originally an old country manor house, but Norbert then converted it into a vicarage - Bragg runs through the full gamut of Norbert's career up to that point. Born to a father who was a man and a mother who was a woman (sadly not all of his life is this well documented), Norbert's output is one which managed to take in almost every conceivable genre of film.


Inspired by Mr Wilkinson and his Amazing Dog act - a man who blew up dogs in the music halls - Norbert went on to appear in public information films for venereal disease, played Laurence Olivier opposite Sir John Gielgud, took on the role of Mozart (despite being 20 years older than Mozart at the time of his death) and eventually set up Norbert Studios which would produce gentle comedies such as Passport to Puddlewitch.

Norbert's later career would find him starring in kitchen sink dramas in the form of It's Grim Up North (where Norbert's character constantly threatens to take his belt to everyone, especially to whoever has nicked his belt) and screwball British comedies, most notably Carry on Banging. A true curiosity of his later career was the series of poorly received Rover films (inspired by Lassie) which starred a young Michael Caine as Rover.


Bragg's dissection of Norbert's life takes place as Norbert potters around at home as he retrieves cold cups of tea from the bathroom cabinet to offer Bragg and destroys hedge sculptures in his grounds. Helping to shed further light on Norbert's life and times, there are innumerable insights by provided by those who know him including his wife Lady Norbert (Renee Asherson), lifelong acquaintance Sir Donald Stuffy (Moray Watson) and comedian Dick Dotty (Mike Kelly).

A Life Worth Reviewing?

If you tuned into British television at any point from the late 1980s up until the moment that Big Ben chimed in the new Millennium then you've almost certainly seen Harry Enfield in action at his peak. He bestrode British sketch comedy like no other. Well, apart from Paul Whitehouse, who was very much the Cristiano Ronaldo to Enfield's Lionel Messi. They were good mates, though, so it was all good fun rather than competing for most goals scored or most laughs generated.


Norbert Smith: A Life, however, isn't an Enfield vehicle that immediately comes to mind. Instead, most people reminisce about Harry Enfield's Television Programme and Harry Enfield and Chums. They, of course, ran for multiple series and captured the 90s British zeitgeist with such precision that the catchphrases are still thrown around in pubs and offices all over the land. The seeds of these huge successes, though, can be found germinating within Norbert Smith.

Packed to the rafters with film parodies, Norbert Smith clearly inspired such Enfield classics as Mr Cholmondley-Warner and Mister Dead The Talking Corpse. Rather than the sketches in Norbert Smith being works in progress, though, they're fully formed comedic gems cast from moulds that clearly shattered into a million pieces afterwards. Norbert's adaptation of Hamlet (with additional dialogue from Noel Coward), for example, is riproaring stuff, but it's also blessed with a surreal touch that confounds any preconceptions of a Shakespearean parody.


The production, too, is incredibly authentic and helps lend a level of professionalism to the parody which could so easily have been reduced to mere scratches and jumps in the footage. The attention to detail and no-expense-spared approach of the Technicolor big show tune from Lullaby to London demonstrates the amount of effort injected into the project. And, thanks to Norbert's multi-decade career, the production is able to pull this trick off countless times as each film style is lovingly scrutinised to administer the maximum level of hilarity.


Talking of laughs, Norbert Smith is as packed full of them as a consignment of sardines in an overloaded lift in Piccadilly Circus. Norbert recalls that he only realised his drinking had got out of control when he started drinking a bottle of vodka before his morning bottle of whisky. There's the prize quip during the public information film on venereal disease which warns about the danger of "unpleasantness on the unmentionables". And there's the base comedy of the alcoholic cast list from Dogs of Death which reads: Richard Smashed, Dick Booze, Oliver Guiness and Peter O' Pissed.

I won't spoil the rest of the laughs as, honestly, there are far too many to list.

Final Thoughts

Norbert Smith: A Life may only be 50 minutes long, but there is much to admire and enjoy throughout its running time. Comprising superb writing, amazing aesthetics and a cast absolutely bursting at the seams with amazing talent (the Carry on Banging parody contains a delightful trio of guest stars), Norbert Smith stands as a prescient signpost towards everything that Enfield would go on to achieve in the 90s.

Curious British Telly readers can claim a 10% discount on the Norbert Smith: A Life DVD by using the code: CURIOUS10

For many years, all I knew about Jan Leeming was that she briefly appeared in the 1985 Roland Rat Christmas special Roland's Yuletide Binge. When I got a little older I discovered that she had been a BBC newsreader. And, many years later, after trawling through innumerable VHS tapes of old TV recordings, I realised just how fantastic a newsreader she was. Blessed with an innate calmness, yet complemented by an authoritative air, Leeming delivered the news with all the chutzpah of a classic BBC newsreader.

However, what I also noticed with all this old footage of Leeming was that she was an absolutely amazing dresser during her tenure on the various 1980s BBC News programmes. Versatility was the key to her style success as she mixed polka dot blouses, knitwear with embellishments going in all directions and even dungarees. It's easy to mock 1980s fashion, but Leeming always pulled it off with consummate ease. Whilst Princess Diana may have been getting all the plaudits for her fashion sense, Leeming was matching her at every step.

And, to celebrate this sartorial elegance, I decided to gather together 25 examples of Jan Leeming being a BBC News fashion icon.

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So, it should be evident to anyone with even an ounce's worth of taste that Leeming managed to pull of every single one of these outfits. They're no doubt helped by her fantastic hair and the iconic aesthetics of those ancient BBC News studios, but even if you removed these factors, these frocks, jumpers and blouses would still be beyond compare.

Let me know which of them are you favourites in the comments below!

Regular readers are aware that I spend an unhealthy amount of my time scouring through old VHS tapes in search of intriguing curios that haven't been seen in years. I've found a few interesting clips here and there, but nothing that was outrageously beyond the bounds of my imagination. However, that all changed the other night when I found what appears to be a BBC engineering test.



I was innocently working my way through a section of Channel 4's yoof culture show Switch when, during the middle of a Musical Youth video, the above appeared. Seeing as it had just gone midnight, it was a truly horrifying spectacle to be confronted by, especially with that perfectly-tuned-for-disorientation tone running throughout it. When I revealed the footage on Twitter, the majority of people thought it was either an alien communication or Japanese horror film The Ring made real.

However, the most likely explanation is that somebody caught the engineering test - probably late at night - and grabbed which ever video was closest and recorded it before it was gone. I've found a few random test card recordings in this collection of tapes, so it makes sense. What doesn't make sense, though, is the insanity on offer within the engineering test. It's so abstract, so surreal and so mind-bending that I decided to look at each section individually and try to describe what was going on.

1. Blue Peter Band


I don't know who this band are but, purely based on their shirts and guitar, I'm going to say they're Spanish. Or South American. What I do know is that they're on Blue Peter and I've been advised that the logo in the background was only used from 1986 onwards. It would be fantastic to hear what they're playing here as they're thoroughly enjoying themselves, but instead we're stuck with the tone from hell.

2. Bemused Toucan


Is this toucan actually on the Blue Peter set listening to the lilting melodies of the aforementioned Spanish quartet? Unfortunately, I've got no idea, but he looks slightly bemused. I suspect a lot of this is because he doesn't understand why a large camera is pointing right in his face. No doubt he'd much rather be advertising Guinness.

3. Back with the Band


The band - I'm going to stop referring to them as Spanish in case I've made a huge cultural faux pas - are back and look at these two guys strumming away on their triangle guitars. Anyone know what these guitars are? Those sharp edges could be dangerous and it only adds to the trepidatious nature of this footage.

4. Grooming Rabbits


Here's a couple of rabbits being groomed by a mysterious hand and brush. These rabbits are more than likely long since dead and this only serves to ratchet up the eerie atmosphere. Surely the toucan is also dead, right? How long do toucans live for? Let me know in the comments below.

5. Wheelbarrow in the Garden


Now this is definitely the Blue Peter garden, but was it before or after it was ransacked by Les Ferdinand and his unruly mates? Is that Carol Keating pushing a wheelbarrow? Who knows, but I do like that ornamental heron in the background.

6. Test Patterns




The most dizzying section of this engineering test are these bamboozling test patterns which no doubt mean something to a BBC engineer, but to you and me? Well, I guess they're kind of colourful, but they're also capable of inducing monumental migraines.

7. Test Card F


Finally, a moment of calm in this mad, unruly world! It's the classic Test Card F, but it's only here for a split second before...

8. Planet


I'm not sure if this is supposed to be Saturn or if it's just a generic planet with a moon orbiting it. Nonetheless, it makes no sense in relation to anything that's preceded it or will follow it.

9. Tree with Many Branches


Now that's a lovely tree. Just look at its bark and its many, many branches. What does it all mean though??!

10. 80s Couple


I'm not sure that anything sums up the 80s aesthetics more than this screenshot. I would LOVE to interview these curious souls and discover where the hell this piece of footage came from.

11. More Test Patterns





Finally there are a few more test patterns guaranteed to send your eyes funny before it loops back to the start.

Does ANYONE have any ideas of dates for the footage above and what the test patterns are used to measure? Please get in touch below as it's a huge mystery. And well worth solving.

Whatever You Want is thrilling, agitated, rock and roll, hilarious and out to prove a point. It's the kind of television that the British youth had been waiting for in 1982, a soapbox for them to investigate and discuss the issues affecting a Britain gripped by unemployment figures tipping over the three million mark. With an acerbic brand of journalism forming the show's background, it's presented by the unpredictable, forthright stylings of Keith Allen. Whatever You Want is also a disjointed melange of viewpoints, moods and styles.

Genre: Youth / Current Affairs
Channel: Channel 4
Transmission: 08/11/1982 - 28/03/1983

Whatever You Want is a youth magazine show fronted by Keith Allen which looks to engage with the ideals of the early 1980s British youth. Presented from Brixton's ACE music venue, Whatever You Want investigates a number of pressing, contemporary issues such as teenage prostitution, the escapist route of sport, trade unions, apartheid and the army. Allen takes the helm for the majority of these features which include dramatisations - the teenage prostitution one features a young Gwyneth Strong - poetry and discussions, but young viewers are also tasked with creating films based on the subjects being explored.


Seeing as its based at the ACE, Whatever You Want is the perfect platform to showcase live music as well. And that's why we're treated to the myriad sounds making up the music scene at the start of the 1980s, so bands appearing include The Dead Kennedys (Allen stagedives during one of their songs), Orange Juice, The Redskins, Killing Joke and The Thompson Twins. Finalizing the magazine show feel, there are also a number of cartoons and sketches sprinkled throughout, most notably 'The Bullshitters' which is Peter Richardson and Allen's spoof of The Professionals that, eventually, became a one off special - The Bullshitters: Roll Out The Gunbarrel.

Behind the Anarchy

21 editions of Whatever You Want aired on Monday evenings in the 10pm slot with episodes running to an hour long. The final five episodes of the series were retitled Whatever You Didn't Get and featured live music performances from the ABC and interviews with the bands who had appeared in the series - the opening titles were markedly different and Allen was nowhere to be seen. RPM Productions produced the series for Channel 4 with Madeleine French and Don Coutts acting as producers.


Whilst Whatever You Want was an early vehicle for Keith Allen, it also provided a stepping stone for a pair of gophers in the form of Jonathan Ross and Michael Caton-Jones who certainly went on to earn a few quid in the entertainment world. Unfortunately, for Allen, his bristling dedication to the cause saw him falling out with Channel 4 over the channel's determination to pull a particularly sensitive subject. Allen recalls, in his autobiography Grow Up, that it was at this point that he put a letter in the post to Channel 4 telling them that he resigned and, the same day, received a letter telling him that he was sacked.

Is it Whatever You Want?

I've got a real obsession with the early days of Channel 4 and seeing as Whatever You Want aired within the channel's first week of broadcasting, it was ripe for my curious eyes. More importantly, I was intrigued by the content which promised to serve up a social and cultural time capsule from a time when I was literally a babe in arms. Seeing as babies have absolutely no respect for concepts such as night and day, there's a small chance that I watched Whatever You Want as my poor, sleep deprived mother stayed up all hours rocking me, but I can't remember.

Anyway, Keith Allen is on fine, fine form throughout. There's an engaging nature to his probing, investigative nature throughout the series and, although he tends to remain impartial, his natural tendency is to side with the oppressed - he happily dispenses details of a demonstration to support the oppressed 'residents' of Arlington House at the end of one episode. And his opening intros are a barrel of irreverent laughs too as he takes on the role of a surreal in-vision continuity announcer discussing spoof schedules and introducing that week's Whatever You Want - on one occasion he does this completely nude, but with one leg tastefully crossing the other.


And doesn't he look like Lily Allen here? I had to keep doing double takes as those piercing, meaningful eyes are truly a genetic marvel that they both share. Lily wasn't born until a few years later, but you can see the seeds of her activist leanings running through her father's veins in Whatever You Want.

The themes invest a heavy interest into the issues affecting the British youth at the time and, back in 1982, this provided a rare outlet for such an honest appraisal. Today, of course, there are countless, countless outlets for the youth to talk about the issues affecting them thanks to platforms such as YouTube, Twitter etc. However, this modern freedom - whilst capable of developing essential gems -doesn't half allow an awful lot of codswallop online (see Zoella) and dilutes the importance of that all important youth voice.


In particular, the bleak employment prospects on offer for the under 25s is laid bare as an appalling landscape. Teenagers in Hartlepool are seen dreaming of breaking into the world of professional boxing as their local backdrop consists of nothing but gnarled, dying industries. Young women, unable to make ends meet, are forced into prostitution and its all too common side effect of drug dependency to get through another night at Kings Cross. It's a disturbing present awaiting these young minds, but their potential future looks no better as the rigours of trade union disputes also show how economic hardship gets no easier as you get older.

Moving away from the weekly themes, the live performances are a welcome outlet for the exciting music scene and demonstrate Channel 4's dedication to music, The Tube launched just a few days before Whatever You Want and promised a more energetic and cerebral alternative to the BBC's efforts. And the comedy is clearly enshrined in the alternative comedy scene with The Bullshitters being the best example. Pleasing, though, that the music and comedy are, they're ingredients which don't mix so well with the main issues being explored.


All three components fail to ever truly segue into each other and, as a result, there's a jarring feel as you shift swiftly from a rather harrowing discussion of teenage prostitution into a Bullshitters sketch. For me, it just felt a little disrespectful when, perhaps, Whatever You Want could have flexed its comedy muscle in a more caustic and righteous manner. That's probably the most extreme example featured in the series, but there's an underlying feeling throughout that there are three separate showsunfolding. One section does find Chris Dead - singer from The Redskins - performing with his band and then heading off to talk to a miner in Barnsley about unions, so I think more of these seamless transitions could have bolstered Whatever You Want's message.

Nonetheless, there's plenty on offer within Whatever You Want to titillate the British youth and the opportunities opened by the series for journalistic spins in front of the camera are admirable. It's a series which is indicative of how those early, alternative days of Channel 4 promised so much, but have now descended into disposable, vapid fodder such as The Undateables. The youth seem less politicised these days, but the rise in young voters at the 2017 general election suggest that, maybe, a show such as Whatever You Want could work in a British climate full of uncertainty. And Lily Allen on presenting duties? Hmmm, I may just get on the phone to Channel 4...

When you watch Kazuko's Karaoke Klub you have to wonder exactly what Channel 4 executives were smoking in the late 1980s. Sure, the channel was a much needed beacon for the alternative and the strange and, in a trashy way, this continues with shows such as Naked Attraction. However, whereas Naked Attraction, serves up some mild titillation (no, I'm not going to apologise for the pun) that taps into our base instincts, Kazuko's Karaoke Klub is very much the kind of television that leaves you as bewildered as an aging aunt confronted with a new TV remote.

Genre: Chat Show / Music
Channel: Channel 4
Transmission: 25/05/1989 - 13/07/1989

Hosted by Kazuko Hohki of Japanese experimental pop group Frank Chickens, Kazuko's Karaoke Klub was a weekly show which aired on Channel 4 for eight editions on Thursday evenings in the summer of 1989. The series was a bizarre combination of Japanese culture, chat show frivolities and, the section which cements its outrageous curiosity value, karaoke strangeness.


Celebrities appearing are far from the top tier of showbiz and, instead, are more a mixture of B-list / C-list celebrities such as Frank Sidebottom, Janice Long, Spike Milligan, John Cooper Clarke, Lynne Perrie and George Wendt. Oh, and there's the Operation Yewtree contingent as well with not just Jonathan King, but Jimmy Savile slithering their way onto the show.

Now, Kazuko Hohki has a fine command of English (about a million times more capable than I'll ever be with Japanese), but the depth of questioning here is far from Parkinson or Frost levels. Naturally, the nature of Kazuko's Karaoke Klub hardly demands any sense of intellectual probing, but the questions posed here are banal and its left to the celebrities to wax lyrical to fill in the gaps. Frank Sidebottom, as ever, is brilliantly surreal and  Northern whilst Billy Bragg's Essex boy brand of socialism is always welcome, but there's very little to glean from the interviews despite Hohki's cheerful enthusiasm.


With the hindsight of everything that's unfolded in British television in the last few years, of course, Jimmy Savile's appearance is the most prescient. His self proclaimed boasts of a skillful prowess with women and the accompanying rage of their disgruntled partners truly makes you squirm. Savile features on an episode alongside George Wendt and I really do wonder what he made of this odd character who, even back then, baffled people with his ability to become such a strong sinew in the flexing muscle of British entertainment.


Moving back towards the format of Kazuko's Karaoke Klub, the karaoke sections fail to sparkle in any way, shape or form. Spike Milligan 'Spike Milligans' his way through Yesterday, Savile takes on It's a Long Way to the North of England and Janice Long hits the high notes in Leader of the Pack; the chances of anyone ever wanting to see or hear such combinations are zero, absolutely zero. The audience appear to be laughing their behinds off, but the number of empty glasses on their tables also indicate that they're completely smashed. And that's perhaps the only way that Kazuko's Karaoke Klub could ever be palatable.

Thankfully, Channel 4 only commissioned one series of Kazuko's Karaoke Klub, so it's clear they soon came to their senses. And hopefully sacked whoever gave it the green light in the first place because it's truly awful. Okay, it's got good intentions, so it's not an evil manifestation of televisual horror such as Gogglebox, but it still stinks to high heaven. You have to remember, however, that within six months of Channel 4's debut they commissioned the unthinkable Minipops, so curiously awful television is clearly embedded in the channel's DNA and will continue to be for some time...

If Scotland had only ever contributed Naked Video, Rab C Nesbitt and Still Game to British comedy then it would represent a significant contribution. Thankfully, for our funny bones, Scottish comedy doesn’t begin and end with these three shows.

With an output that also includes A Kick up the Eighties, City Lights and Limmy’s Show, Scotland can be rightly proud of its unique take on comedy. Cast your eye towards the periphery of these rightly venerated shows, though and you’ll discover one of the lesser known, yet just as fantastic, shows in the form of Laugh??? I Nearly Paid my Licence Fee.

Genre: Comedy
Channel: BBC2
Transmission: 29/10/1984 - 03/12/1984

Laugh??? is a sketch show that brings together Robbie Coltrane, John Sessions, Louise Gold and Ron Bain and casts them into a diverse comedy landscape of three minute laughs.

Football reporters concentrate their line of questioning on the horseplay in the team-bath afterwards than the actual match, hardline Protestant activist Mason Boyne rallies against the local video shop’s decision to sell corruptive videos of the Pope’s visit and the aliens from Nimon attempt to capture an Earthling, but end up abducting a goat to whom they administer large amounts of Tennent’s Lager.


Sketches often segue from one into another, so if all the Nimon aliens die in one sketch, the next sketch may find Edgar Bloodlusten – yes, a parody of crime writer Edgar Lustgarten – waxing lyrical about the deaths that have just occurred. As with most sketch shows of the era, there’s also time for musical numbers such as Robbie Coltrane’s completely unintelligible paean to Glasgow sung in strong, Glaswegian patois. Most elaborate of all is The Master of Dundreich, a weekly parody of period drama which finds Young Tom at the mercy of his cruel Uncle Murdoch who is keen on turning him into a ventriloquist’s dummy.

Breaking Down the Licence Fee

Six episodes of Laugh??? were produced by BBC Scotland and aired on BBC Two on Monday evenings in the 9pm slot in late 1984. Produced and directed by Colin Gilbert, Laugh??? arose like a phoenix from the ashes of A Kick up the Eighties and faced very few, if any, problems in being commissioned as Gilbert recalls:

“AKUTE came to an end because cast members like Rik Mayall and Tracy Ullman were becoming big stars elsewhere and wouldn’t be returning. However, the new Controller of BBC2 Graeme McDonald let us keep the budget and just said we had to make a similar sort of show. I was very keen to keep working with Robbie, so Laugh??? was conceived as a sort of vehicle for him.

The commissioning process was a lot simpler in those days, there were far fewer gate-keepers and a level of trust that people would find unbelievable today. Graeme MacDonald was a former drama producer and he wanted a sketch show for a certain slot. He didn’t see it as his business to tell comedy producers how they should do their shows, he just let you get on with it. I can’t remember ever being asked who was going to be in Laugh??? or what kind of show it would be”

Ron Bain and Robbie Coltrane made the leap over from A Kick up the Eighties, but John Sessions and Louise Gold made their way to Laugh??? along different routes as Gilbert explains:

“We had been watching John Sessions in his live one man shows for a while and had used him as the presenter of a one-off misinterpreted archive news show looking back at the events of 1983 called “A Clip Round the Year”. When Laugh??? was being cast he was top of our list after Robbie.

Louise Gold was recommended by the late Laurie Rowley - the script editor on AKUTE and for a brief period the script editor on Laugh??? He also wrote for Spitting Image and Louise was one of the puppeteers. He said she was very funny and had a fantastic singing voice so we met her, liked her and cast her”

As with all sketch shows, the writing credits are a lengthy affair, but putting the team together was relatively simple for Gilbert:

“Throughout the early 1980’s I had been trying to create a Scottish based writing team via shows like Naked Radio and by 1984 I had quite a few freelancers plus a couple of assistant producers, Neil MacVicar and Philip Differ, who also wrote. Niall Clark was an experienced sketch writer based in Edinburgh and Ian Pattison, although still pursuing his day job, was a major contributor”

Less straightforward, however, was the involvement of Laurie Rowley who was due to be the script editor. Rowley, of course, was a writer of some talent and you only have to look at his ‘darts’ sketch from Not the Nine O’Clock News for evidence of this. Unfortunately, a breakdown in communication occurred over a period serial Rowley had penned for Laugh??? called The Master of Pilestones.


Focussing on a brutal 18th Century English squire, the serial proved too similar to a pair of characters that Robbie Coltrane and Rik Mayall had been improvising named The D’Arcys. Coltrane was hopeful that The D’Arcys would lead to a series for him and Rik, so he felt that Pilestones threatened the viability of this. He was, however, prepared to do it if it was rewritten to be Scottish.

Phillip Differ and Gilbert made a few slight adjustments to the script and handed them to Rowley to review. Unbeknownst to Gilbert, though, his PA had typed up the new script on a new word processor that she didn’t really know how to use. The resultant script was an incomprehensible jumble and Rowley did not react well as Gilbert remembers:

“The next day I got his furious letter of resignation saying we had destroyed his “baby”. How Laurie thought that we would have even been able to film it in that state is beyond me to this day. Unfortunately, the damage was done and irreparable as some of the things he said in his letter about other members of the team couldn’t be unsaid.

He didn’t want a credit which is why The Master of Dundreich is credited to Robert Louis Armstrong. The sad thing is that many years later he congratulated us on what a fine job we had made of it. He was a major loss to the writing team as he would have upped the more accessible type of material in the show which might have made it more of a success at the time”

Although a few episodes were repeated in 1985, Laugh??? did not prove successful enough to merit discussions of a second series. The demand for Robbie Coltrane’s talents was also rapidly rising, so Gilbert decided to move onto pastures new with Naked Video which would prove to be a massive success.

Understanding the Laughs

Given the wild success of A Kick up the Eighties, it comes as no surprise that BBC2 would keep faith in Colin Gilbert et al. And, with Robbie Coltrane given centre stage, Laugh??? was clearly positioned to do some serious business in the world of comedy. Unfortunately, Laugh??? didn’t capture the zeitgeist in quite the same way that A Kick up the Eighties did and, yet, there’s plenty to celebrate within.


The most impressive aspect of Laugh??? is the acting on offer. It’s clear to see that Coltrane is destined for great things due to the sheer variance of characters and moods he adopts throughout the series. From the religious fury of Mason Boyne through to the creepy glee of Edgar Bloodlusten and finishing on the hilariously bad Ted Rogers parody Ted Todgers, it’s a masterclass in range. The quality doesn’t end with Coltrane either.


Sessions, whose vocal talents merit a book all of their own, delivers his usual refined grace and forms a sparkling partnership with Coltrane, particularly when they play the cocksure, but dopey New York cops. Louise Gold – the only English member of the cast – brings great vibrancy to Laugh??? and her singing voice is quite remarkable, check out her sketch which lampoons Christmas pop songs for verification. Ron Bain, of course, has helped populate some of the most successful Scottish comedies of all time, so, even though he rarely takes centre stage in Laugh??? his character work is more than enough to eke out every last laugh.


And, when it comes to laughs, the writing behind the cast is more than strong enough to guarantee more hits than misses. Given the inherent variety of a sketch show, the writers are given free rein to tackle almost every avenue of comedy and the hilarity is delivered with a remarkable precision. With the benefit of hindsight, the strength of the writing should come as no surprise as the majority of the writers went on to work for Naked Video and, for Ian Pattison, he would go on to write one of the country’s greatest ever sitcoms in Rab C. Nesbitt.


One of the real curiosities of the writing behind Laugh??? is the segue format employed between sketches. Sure, it brings a delightfully clever sense of consistency, but too often it backs itself into a corner with the restrictions imposed on where it can go next. Accordingly, the device disappears for a few sketches and renders any previous consistency redundant. For Gilbert, it was a format he was not particularly keen on:

“The problem is it ties you into a fixed running order and in the worst case scenario forces you to use material you would otherwise jettison. The reason we used it in Laugh??? a lot was because Robbie Coltrane had insisted he would only do the series if it were not, as in AKUTE, stuffed with quickies and one-liners. He found the process of changing costume and make-up for a 30 second gag multiple times a day irksome.

This went entirely against my instincts because quickies give you the punctuation and change of pace that sketch shows need. We tried to achieve said changes of pace with the segue sequences but not entirely successfully and I think the absence of quickies was a major factor in the show’s lack of success with the audience at the time. In the end there was only one quickie in the entire series, a First World War poem written by Coltrane himself!”

Worth the Licence Fee?

Laugh??? may not get the plaudits that have been bestowed on other sketch shows from the same era, but this is no reflection on its quality. Coltrane and Sessions are clearly the stars, and they’re truly magnificent, but it’s a team effort that ensures Gold and Bain never languish on the sidelines. The sharp and gloriously silly writing (one sketch finds Louise Gold dating a door) is the final piece of the jigsaw and ensures that Laugh??? embodies everything that was exciting about Scottish comedy in 1984.