Comments on: “All them programmes is recorded in August!”

By: Richard Davies

Richard Davies — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:11:48 +0000

I remember at a few Xmases there being a one-off (often non-xmas themed) nearly all star comedy drama, that would be shown once, & only repeated if there was a sudden gap in the schedules about 18 months later.

A glut of output from Aardman Animation is common at Xmas, though mostly outside the Cream era.

By: Martin M

Martin M — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:43:45 +0000

For the last 4 or 5 years …Excuse? has been a lot more miss than hit, but the stage show is still worth a chuckle. Plus, didn’t ITV give up on the xmas day ratings battle years ago?

By: TV Cream

TV Cream — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:29:37 +0000

Yes, the name Only An Excuse baffled Sassenach TV Cream for years until we were finally told. That said, we did actually remember watching Only A Game? when it was networked on BBC2 in the afternoons in the summer of 1987.

And we do enjoy watching clips of …Excuse on YouTube, despite not knowing who half the presenters and commentators being satirised actually are. It’s fantastic that a show can exist to take the piss out of Jim White.

By: goodpudding

goodpudding — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:19:51 +0000

Me thinks Big Top Christmas Special…. Ruth Madoc and a Performing Dog… All they need is a snowman on the titles and then you’ve got a special!

By: David Smith

David Smith — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 23:09:10 +0000

It rather amuses me to think that Only An Excuse? owes its name to a jokey reference to a somewhat obscure documentary series that ran for just five weeks 23 years ago, and I do wonder how many of its viewers still get the gag (if they ever did)…

By: johnnyboy

johnnyboy — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:34:10 +0000

“…Scottish telly schedule at Hogmanay was (and is) miserable”

‘Only an Excuse’ is probably the one shining light on Hogmanay in Scotland nowadays. Always worth putting down your drink for 10 seconds; just to stop spilling it, mind.

By: Vole

Vole — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:55:51 +0000

“If you were sober enough to recognise him you were doing it wrong.”

Perhaps, but under-age drinking wasn’t encouraged in my house.

By: TV Cream

TV Cream — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:00:02 +0000

On the subject of Sports Review Of The Year (call it by its name, BBC!), for a long time there’d always be an afternoon repeat on BBC2 (which, we think, began as an unscheduled replacement for some abandoned racing) which, in itself, became another staging post on the road to Christmas.

And yes, interminable is the word. “Well, what a year it’s been for golf.” Just get to the Bit Of Fun!

By: Adrian Fry

Adrian Fry — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 09:01:50 +0000

I always like watching for the early signs of Christmas TV and radio. Thee’s nothing very festive about Powell and Presburger films, but their appearance on BBC2 any Saturday afternoon from December 1st certainly gets me breaking out the advocaat. The BBC’s Sport’s Personality of the Year, interminable as Advent to an eight year old, is another early signpost on the road to Christmas. Oddest thing so far this year was the festive edition of Radio 4′s The Moral Maze debating, rather half heartedly, whether Christmas is a good thing or not. Brian Redhead’s A Word in Edgeways did it so much better in 1977. Probably.

By: Applemask

Applemask — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:27:29 +0000

Oh, also The Great Escape is on at some point during the Radio Times double issue weeks (which is what “at Christmas” is, of course).