Fun House and Knightmare
Friday, 22.00 and 22.30, Challenge

The Children’s ITV anniversary weekend back in January was seemingly enough of a talking point for Challenge to snap up the rights to two of the Twitter hits, schedule them in suitable post-pub timeslots and apparently they’ve even engaged Pat Sharp and Hugo Myatt to knock off a few new links for them as well. But never mind that, the answer to the question you’re all asking is… yes, we do believe the mullet is present and correct.

• Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

Brushing Up On…
Thursday, 20.30, BBC4

“That’s a terrible question, Pete!” Sadly the episode on bridges ended up giving us nightmares, not just for that bizarre Joan Bakewell-fronted schools programme but also Toni Arthur’s rather unsettling stare down the camera while Brian Cant did his London Bridge song. Brrr. This is about factories and it’s the last in the series, but let’s hope for a second run as soon as is humanly possible from Dan, who incidentally also started following TV Cream on Twitter this week and therefore made us admire him even more, and we already admired him enormously.

• Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

The People’s Songs
Wednesday, 22.00, BBC Radio 2

Thatcher’s death has doubtless spurred many people to read again the late and much lamented Tom Hibbert’s interview with her for Smash Hits in 1987, where along with her enthusiastic patronage of the day’s modern pop stars (“My goodness ME, we’ve got some smart ones!”), she was also invited to select her favourite pop songs and rather oddly expressed a liking for Telstar by The Tornadoes. That’s the subject of this show but it’s less about its appeal to Thatcher and more to do with how in 1962, at the height of the space race, it sounded like it came from another planet.

• Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

I Claudius
Tuesday, 22.00, BBC4

You can of course see Derek Jacobi on your screens on Monday nights on ITV with Vicious, although we’re afraid we didn’t like it at all, not least because the plot, if you can call it that, made no sense whatsoever (if you’re looking for the house next door, why don’t you use that toilet?), and it was hardly a great step forward in sexual explicitness when Gimme Gimme Gimme was far more explicit, and far funnier, on BBC1 over a decade ago. Much of the fun appeared to come from the idea that Derek Jacobi was delivering crude jokes, and to be honest, distinguished actor though he is, we’re not sure sitcom is his forte. Remember him this way, we’re saying.

• Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

The Joy of Country
Monday, 21.00, BBC4

A bit of Friday on a Monday as BBC4 mark the Bank Holiday with a trio of repeats recalling the days when the genre always had the words “and Western” affixed and when Sing Country was a fixture in the BBC2 schedules, featuring highlights from the Wembley Festival of Country Music which gains extra Cream points by being sponsored by Silk Cut.

• Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

Dave Allen – God’s Own Comedian
Sunday, 23.00, BBC2

If you wasted your time on Monday night watching a not very good ITV sitcom rather than watch this, you’re in luck, although obviously this start time is subject to wild fluctuations if the snooker overruns. If we do get it, here’s your chance to spot the cue card reminding Dave to do “SCROTUM RESTAURANT”, which sounds a hell of a routine.

• Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

Britain in a Box
Saturday, 10.30, BBC Radio 4

“We should have provided chairs, we didn’t!” The return of the series where Paul Jackson tells the story of a classic TV series, and this week it’s the story of Nationwide, the epitome of doing-the-pots accessible current affairs for over a decade, and initially so unwieldy it had to be “co-ordinated” rather than presented. Then David Dimbleby ruined it, of course, but here’s Michael Barratt and Sue Lawley to reminisce about those freewheeling early days.

• Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

Vote 2013
Friday, 12.00, 14.00, 17.00, BBC2

A very low-key local election day this year, with no mayoral election and most councils not even bothering (normally we get to vote for at least something on our council but not this time), so the traditional all-nighter has been abandoned this year and we’re only getting these updates interrupting the snooker – and indeed in Scotland and Northern Ireland they’re irrelevant so they’re not being shown at all, and we wonder what people in the latter will make of live snooker being taken off to make way for a repeat of The Great British Sewing Bee. They’re so dull David Dimbleby can’t even be bothered turning up though Huw Edwards is a suitably solid stand-in, and it’ll certainly set your Bank Holiday weekend up right.

Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

Top of the Pops
Thursday, 19.30, 00.30, BBC4

Bit of repetition this week, we’re afraid, as we’ve missed a show and that, coupled with the bumper episode lengths that require so much content, means that there are some very familiar songs featured here this week, and even with the new songs the bands aren’t, thanks to Darts and Manhattan Transfer really churning out the singles in 1978, though Kid will add his usual dynamism to proceedings. Wonder if they’ve actually managed to find a picture of The Michael Zager Band yet.

Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

We Love The Monkees
Wednesday, 22.35, ITV

BBC2 are repeating Celebrity Mastermind from last Christmas at ten o’clock, not they’re desperately short of ideas or anything, but once you’ve seen Lizo Mzimba answer questions on John Le Carre we’re not sue you need to see it again. More worthy of a second outing is this which last time served as an unexpected tribute to Davy Jones. Yeah, they didn’t play their own instruments, but given they had the greatest songwriters in America pulling the strings, who cares?

Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

I Claudius
Tuesday, 22.00, BBC4

As usual, nothing much to say about this, but Tim Worthington is here to save the day, after we discussed last week markers on the road to old age. He says, “The ultimate marker on the path to old age is surely trying to explain to incredulous younger work colleagues how and why everyone over thirty knows what song appeared on what Now That’s What I Call Music album.” And which ones were on the Hits album instead, no doubt.

Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

Dave Allen – God’s Own Comedian
Monday, 21.00, BBC2

It’s somewhat obligatory to refer to Dave as the godfather of alternative comedy but it seems pretty true as he was a very appealing diversion from the norm in his pomp and was so controversial that he once managed to get banned for life from Australian television (although they changed their mind not long after). He did it all on primetime BBC1 as well, with his seventies shows being hugely fondly remembered, though sadly his later career was overshadowed a bit by a huge over-reaction to his use of the word “fuck”, once, at ten o’clock at night. Remember him this way, with this documentary that apparently is excellent.

Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

Rupert Murdoch – Battle with Britain
Sunday, 21.00, BBC2

So the press are continuing their inevitable slide into irrelevance, sticking with the same old tabloidese and nastiness despite the public clearly not wanting it, and consistently slagging off the Beeb for being unaccountable when if you complain to a paper you get ignored, belittled and insulted, despite all they lie about loving their readers. Anyway, Murdoch has been a major player since he launched what was known in the industry as “Rupert’s shit-sheet” and here’s a look at what he’s actually done to this country.

• Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

United States of Television
Saturday, 22.30, BBC2

So this is an American series which has been suitably anglicised for our consumption with Alan Yentob revoicing the narration and popping up in vision occasionally, hence the stellar line-up of interviewees for a show going out this late at night. Last week’s also reminded us that the highest rating for Breaking Bad in America was 1.9 million viewers and, yeah, we know it’s on a pay channel, but stuff on Sky can get audiences like that and we’re tiny compared to the USA, so the idea that British audiences are morons for ignoring it in large numbers is ridiculous. This one’s about the misfit, a la I’m Bland But My Friends Are Krazy, with the likes of Larry David contributing.

• Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

The Joy of Easy Listening
Friday, 21.00, BBC4

BBC budget cuts have meant that we don’t appear to be getting as many new musical theme nights as we were in previous years, but much of the appeal of this genre comes from its familiarity so we’re happy enough to wallow in it again.

Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

Top of the Pops
Thursday, 19.30, 00.30, BBC4

The full version of this episode wallows in a whopping fifty minute slot so it’s one of those episodes where the quality control goes out of the window and every eligible song gets an outing, if it’s going up and wasn’t on last week it’s included regardless of whether they’ve already played it a trillion times or they have to plunge right to the bowels of the Top 75. Of course, those episodes are often the most entertaining so here’s Peter Powell with a single released on BBC Records And Tapes and a memorable Legs and Co routine with outfits seemingly modelled on Lulu’s hairdo.

Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

The People’s Songs
Wednesday, 22.00, BBC Radio 2

The verbose Radio Times radio pages can devote space to saying what studio Mark Radcliffe’s folk show is broadcast from but can’t be bothered to point out what song this programme is featuring, despite the fact it’s the whole point of the programme. Anyway, extensive research reveals that it’s The Coronation Rag by Winifred Attwell, written for an event in 1953 we’re sure you can work out and the starting point for a discussion of the royal relationship with pop.

Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

I, Claudius
Tuesday, 22.00, BBC4

Avert your gaze, Jeremy Vine, as we actually are talking about cookery shows here, as we have nothing much to say about this that isn’t mentioned elsewhere on TVC. Stephen Woollen says, “OK, so this might be a little bit out of leftfield, but the most recent Hairy Bikers TV series is well worth a watch. Their current Best Of British liberally sprinkles archive footage all over the sherry trifle of their programme like those little silver sugar balls that were all but inedible but forced upon us during school cookery lessons. I must single out this episode as it was a seventies special that far from being a dull cookery show became an in depth look at the culinary history of both the UK and UK culinary TV in the seventies! Truly, it was excellent. Check it out.” And also, when we visited our parents the other week, Creamguide’s mum served up a meal she got from one of the Hairy Bikers’ cookbooks and it was jolly tasty, so we heartily endorse their work.

Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

The Unforgettable Larry Grayson
Monday, 22.45, ITV

Creamguide has various markers on the path to old age, some of which have now been passed – because we’re older than Doctor Who – and some of which we’re still yet to meet, as there are numerous Premier League footballers older than us, so we can still kid ourselves that we’re quite young and if we wanted to we could do anything. If all else fails we can still comfort ourselves with the fact Lal didn’t become famous until he was in his fifties. Actually, we’re almost younger than this documentary, it was made a while ago.

Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide

Perspectives
Sunday, 22.00, ITV

No idea what’s happened to that Top-Gear-but-with-films programme that Jonathan Ross has been saying he’s doing for absolutely ages, but here he is talking about films for the first time since he left the Beeb. Specifically he’s talking about Hitchcock, who like him came from Leytonstone – and we’ve stayed at the hotel named after him – and visits many of his old haunts, some with Jean Marsh in tow.

• Click for more listings in this week’s Creamguide