YouTube Pick of the Day: Tees Street Isn't Working (1985)
The Thames channel on YouTube is packed full of fantastic gems from the archive, and that's exactly where today's YouTube Pick of the Day comes from. The video itself is part of an edition of current...
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Four Fantastic Minutes Straight from 1979
My ongoing quest to salvage ephemeral goodness from British television's distant past continues, and, once again, I've been able to dig all the way back into the 1970s. And it's all courtesy of the...
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Random Episode: Thinkabout (25/11/1985)
Over the many years that Curious British Telly has been running, I've covered plenty of children's programmes which have become obscured by the mists of time. However, barely any of these have fallen...
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Remembering Paul O’Grady’s Cheeky Forgotten Sitcom “Eyes Down
Welcome to The Rio bingo hall in Liverpool. It’s where short-tempered manager Ray Temple (Paul O’Grady) tries to corral his lackadaisical staff and impress the elderly collection of customers who...
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Don't Forget About the Curious British Telly Substack
Just a quick reminder that the Curious British Telly Substack is alive and well. If you're not familiar with Substack, then read on. Substack is, in fact, many things: a newsletter, a blog, a website...
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New 'Old' Episode of Bric-a-Brac Emerges onto YouTube
In what can only be described as excellent news, Neil Miles (tape archaeologist extraordinaire) has captured a complete episode of Bric-a-Brac and uploaded it to YouTube. Starring the inimitable and...
View ArticleIs it Time to Revive the British Superhero Classic Misfits?
British television writers are famous for offering their unique takes on classic themes, and the way that Misfits subverted superhero themes was a prime example of that. The black comedy from Howard...
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A King Rollo Comic Strip from July 1983
Digging deep into my collections of Buttons comics, most of which I picked up in a job lot off Ebay in 2021, I found this charming King Rollo adventure which I just had to share. It's from the 23rd...
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Betamax Find: Claire Rayner's Casebook (Homosexuality)
Every now and then, I come across something on an old video tape which strikes a chord with people. At the weekend, I dug up a 1983 edition of Claire Rayner's Casebook, a series which looked at the...
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The Book of Beasts - Out Now!
Beasts is one of the calling cards of 1970s British folk horror, and this is an unarguable fact. Unless, of course, you haven't watched it. And, in that case, you need to rectify this immediately. Each...
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Betamax Find: In Front of the Children (1983)
There’s not a person in the country who didn’t love at least one children’s programme on the BBC whilst growing up. It’s an impossible proposition, the quality of the output was simply too high. And,...
View ArticleA Mirror Into Society: The Good Life 1975 Series
On this date: 1975 - The first episode of The Good Life was shown on BBC1. pic.twitter.com/Ze4a4q5Spf— 🇬🇧📺 Classic British TV 📺🇬🇧 (@Classicbritcom) April 4, 2022Mentioning this archetypal film, The...
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Navigating Career Transitions: A Guide to Embracing Change and Finding Success
Career transitions are an inevitable part of professional life, and in today's dynamic job market, individuals often find themselves navigating through various changes in their career paths. Whether...
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Philip Schofield's Final Day on Children's BBC
2023 was a disastrous year for Philip Schofield's television career and private life, and it remains to be seen whether he'll ever return to our screens again. However, back in 1987, life for Schofield...
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All the Slices of Archive TV Christmas Footage I've Found
Christmas television has always been a landmark event. Or, at least, it always was. These days, scanning through the Christmas issue of the Radio Times with a highlighter is more a novelty than a...
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New Print Article: The Birth of Teletext
A year on from my last published article, I’m back in the pages of Best of British with The Birth of Teletext.Ever since I first laid eyes on Pages from Ceefax back in the mid-1980s, I’ve been a little...
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Early Children's ITV Continuity Captured
I’ve been digging through some Betamax tapes this weekend and, as luck would have it, the first one I pulled out of the box had an absolute gem on it. And it came in the form of a rare clip of...
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BBC Select: A Failed Subscription Service
If, in 1987, you had been watching television very late at night, we’re talking post-closedown late, you could have stumbled across something very interesting on BBC2. To be precise, you would have...
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YouTube Pick: My Brother David
The tale of David Scarboro isn't one I was overly familiar with, but his short life and career on British television is, in itself, very much like the soap opera which defined his early fame. Full of...
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The Slow, Slow Start of BBC Video
I still remember the first BBC Video I got: Pyramids of Mars, the classic 1975 Doctor Who serial featuring Tom Baker. This was in 1987, and it meant a lot to a five-year-old who had only been on the...
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The Birth of Thames Television in 1968
Boasting productions such as The Bill, Minder, Man about the House, Rainbow and The Sooty Show, Thames Television produced some of my favourite television programmes of all time. And then there’s that...
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Winning a Lunch with Brian Cant in 1981
I’ve always been careful to ensure Curious British Telly doesn’t become a rose tinted, nostalgia-for-the-sake-of-nostalgia borefest - you know the thing, see all those Channel 5 documentaries about the...
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Book Review: Opening The Box of Delights (2024 Edition)
The festive season is upon us once more and, of course, that means The Box of Delights will be getting its yearly airing for countless fans of vintage British television. And 2024 marks 40 years since...
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Archive Tape Digging: December 2024
It's time for another look into the increasingly distant past with another edition of Archive Tape Digging, the feature which digs up old programmmes, mind-bending adverts, and curious slices of...
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Prospects - The Face: August 1985
One of the earliest programmes covered on Curious British Telly was the much underrated Prospects. Since that article, written over 12 years ago when I barely knew what I was wittering on about,...
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