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With programmes to distract us from the H-bomb
Yes, you’re just in time for some more Kreamguide Kapers. But before we get onto that, here’s an update on our Why Don’t Comedy Central Show 30 Rock Or Indeed Any Of Their Bloody Programmes In Widescreen On SD, Because Widescreen Is Not HD “campaign”. Well, we say “campaign”, all we’ve done so far is moan here and send an e-mail to Comedy Central which they’ve completely ignored. But anyway, Smiley says, “The simple answer is to force your TV (out of what I’m assuming is auto or 4:3 mode) into either 16:9, smart or zoom mode – all of which worked on my telly to at least remove the left/right boxing.” That’s as maybe, Smiley, but it means picture quality is reduced, and we shouldn’t have to do that, should we, if this channel showed their programmes properly. Smiley also confirms that the HD version is in widescreen, which not even Sky do to convince us to get HD. The HD channel is always going to look so impressive if they make the SD version look so shit.
Smiley also says, “You missed the most important question of the recent live edition – which one would / did we get? We got the first (ie East Coast) version. The West coast version had five differences – the opening songs (and performers), Dr. Spaceman’s song lyrics, the punchline to the Jon Hamm “hand” sketch, when Liz taunts Jack’s assistant, and the Fox News sketch. Yes, I’ve watched them both… *cough* somehow *cough*”
Thanks for that, and if you have any more comments on 30 Rock, as it is an ace series, or maybe even something we’re actually supposed to be talking about, why not let us know on creamguide@tvcream.co.uk. Especially if you’re Comedy Central. It’s bad manners.
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BBC2
18.30 Dad’s Army
Here’s a letter about something in TV Cream’s jurisdiction, old cinemas again, this time from Gary B, who heads his e-mail “even less earth-shattering”. This should be our new catchphrase. Anyway, Gary says, “If you want to relive your experiences of what going to a cinema felt like 25 years ago, why not try the Commodore in Aberystwyth tomorrow? As the only proper cinema in the area it’s not had the competition to up its game, so you still have the following – long queues for any new release, tickets that pop up out of a metal slot, man running the ticket machine, popcorn stand and ticket checking at the same time, downstairs bar with hopelessly out of date posters, one screen, a break in between the adverts and main film, and fans bolted to the wall to cool a packed cinema during the summer.”
19.00 Spike – I Told You I Was Ill
David Cobley’s got back to us regarding John Philips’ comments last week. He says, “Has my time in Germany blunted my cultural sensibilities so much that a piece of gentle reminiscing comes through as ‘slagging off’? While Beat the Star may be as great as a Vernon Kay-fronted vehicle may be, it pales against Schlag dem Raab. When the UK show finishes, the German show would literally just be getting started, having taken the best part of the first hour to choose a candidate to take on Stefan Raab, who genuinely wants to win. You get double the number of games, all taking place live, and usually including at least one walk through the corridors of the TV studios in Cologne to get to a game in the car park. I have a genuine love for this programme, probably the only German show that I do, and will still be sitting there at 1am waiting for a result.”
ITV
19.20 Harry Hill’s TV Burp
No overseas readers this week, apart from David Cobley, so we think we might have exhausted that. One thing we are trying to get off the ground to fill these dull Saturdays is a thing about the bits you notice afresh in overfamiliar TV clips. Brian Sutherland’s joined in, saying, “What I’ve always enjoyed about Eric and Ernie versus Andre Privet is the orchestra. They seem to have an about equal mix of laughter and shock, especially when Eric grabs Mr Preview’s lapels. Bet they’ve never seen him treated like that before. It’s just great to see them enjoying it as much as we are.” Indeed. If you have any more things like this, do let us know.
BBC3
20.30 Pop’s Greatest Dance Crazes
Tonight sees the final of Let’s Dance For Comic Relief, which is an entertaining show, but the final’s always a complete anti-climax because everyone does the same routine as they did the first time round, not helped by the fact the winner is always obvious from show one. And Steve Jones is an absolute bellend, and while we’ve never had much love for Keith Lemon, we did love how he genuinely angered Jones by purposely taking several minutes to announce the winner the other week. He doesn’t like it when someone else drags it out, does he? We also like Jarred Christmas being the millionth person to drag up, clearly assuming success, and failing miserably, presumably because everyone hates him and his awful Pot Noodle adverts. Anyway, Robert Webb’s still the best contestant they’ve ever had, and here he is killing three hours of a Saturday night, which we suppose might make for adequate viewing if The Killing is a bit too involved for you.
BBC Radio 2
13.00 Pick Of The Pops
1964 and 1978. As we say, there must be clips that have been shown a million times where there’s something new to say. For example, we’ve always pondered whether, in Don’t Tell Him Pike, Ian Lavender is actually genuinely corpsing while he’s singing or that’s an in-character laugh. It’s fun either way, natch.
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BBC3
22.00 24 Hour Panel People
This could potentially be the most interesting thing Comic Relief have done for ages, as last weekend David Walliams spent 24 hours doing nothing but competing in quizzes, and you know how nuts we are about the quizzes. The whole thing was streamed live on the web, and highlights included David Frost himself presenting Through The Keyhole, Whose Line Is It Anyway with panellists including Tony Slattery, a Give Us A Clue reunion with Lionel and Una at five in the morning, Rufus Hound competing in, and relentlessly slagging off, Celebrity Juice, Sean Lock swearing non-stop during 8 Out Of 10 Cats and apparently the most shambolic hour of television ever as Paul O’Grady completely forgot the format of Blankety Blank. If you couldn’t make it through the 24 hours, over the next five days the best bits, and hopefully many of the worst too, are being served up in half hour chunks here, and it should be a lot of fun. Apart from the bizarre It’s Only TV But I Like It revival.
BBC Radio 4
11.15 The Reunion
Comic Relief used to seem more interesting in the past, but that might have something to do with the fact it was one of the few nights of the year we were allowed to stay up, and the idea of a TV show that never ended was an exciting one in itself, let alone the fact it was an absolute shambles. Two veterans of those pioneering days, Lenny and Griff, take part here, alongside Richard Curtis and Helen Fielding to explain how the whole thing started. |
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BBC4
19.30 The Way We Travelled
For some reason, after its promotion to primetime last week, there’s no Blue Peter at all this week. So much for it being a rock in our lives. However the programmes devoted to Helen’s highwire exploits was fantastic, as she once more proved herself to be one of the best presenters on telly, such is her warmth, even when she announced she had to stop training because she had diarrhoea. In its place this week is All Over The Place, which isn’t so bad as it involves the great Ed Petrie and his CBBC mates going somewhere and just, basically, doing stuff. Anyway, in lieu of us billing that, here’s the umpteenth outing for this series, which is certainly worth seeing again for some prime Whicker.
20.30 Only Connect
A Comic Relief special! Although we’re not sure how special it is given five of the six celebrities were on the last celebrity special as well. Still good, mind.
BBC Radio 2
22.00 George Formby – Britain’s First Pop Star
We enjoyed the second part of Michael Grade’s documentary last week, though probably not quite as much as the first, mostly because so much of it was so familiar – especially as most of it turned up again in the repeat of The Story of Light Entertainment straight after it. And sadly that’s the end of the variety season, which rather disappointingly featured no variety shows whatsoever, just endless clippage, which is a bit off for BBC4. They wouldn’t run a Shakespeare season and just show the Reduced Shakespeare Company, would they? They didn’t even show that Val Doonican show for the umpteenth time.
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This is our last jaunt through The Time Tunnel for a while, as we’ve decided to rest this for a little bit and do something different in this spot, but it’ll be back later in the year as we continue our quest to joylessly catalogue every single moment of the Cream Era. And what more appropriate way to temporarily bow out than with a trip to the year we’ve decided marks the end of the Cream Era, not least because TV Cream itself began during it. And here’s what was going on when The Arkhive hit the information superhighway for the first time. That’s how we talked in those days.
FA CUP WINNERS: Chelsea
CHRISTMAS NUMBER ONE: Spice Girls – Too Much
UK EUROVISION ENTRY: Katrina and the Waves – Love Shine A Light
BLUE PETER TEAM: Tim, Stuart, Katy and Romana, than Stuart, Katy, Romana and Richard, then Konnie turning up at the end
DOCTOR WHO: Doctor Who Paul McGann (in the Radio Times comic strip, at least)
RADIO 1 BREAKFAST SHOW JOCK: Chris Evans, then Mark and Lard, then Kevin Greening and Zoe Ball
BIG CHRISTMAS DAY FILM ON BBC1: The Mask
New thrill!
FAMILY AFFAIRS (1997-2005)
If Channel Five has brought us nothing, and it hasn’t, really, it can at least provide the great Tim Vine with an impressive line on his CV as he was the first man seen on the channel. Also assaulting the nation – or at least, the part of it that could receive it – on Sunday 30th March was Family Affairs, the Channel Five soap, seemingly as it was the law for a new channel to launch with a new soap opera. The main attraction of Family Affairs when it began was that it was the first home-made British soap in the modern era to run five days a week – since the shambolic early days of Crossroads – and such was the exposure that it also aimed to introduce a lot of new talent to television, both in front of and behind the camera, including new writers like one Andrew Collins. But despite that, the most interesting thing about Family Affairs was how dull it was. While the rest of Channel Five’s output at least had a bit of curious appeal for its amateurish nature, Family Affairs was just like any other soap you’d ever seen, with rather dull characters involved in rather dull adventures. Hence ratings stubbornly refused to rise above the average, and eighteen months in noted soap axeman Brian “Nirab” Park was drafted in to revamp it, which he achieved by killing off the entire cast in a boat explosion and moving the action from a dull Home Counties town to a London borough. Yet all this did was piss off its tiny band of loyal viewers without luring in anymore. It still carried on, though, despite Five’s plunge downmarket, and then its equally abrupt hike upmarket, with a few stunts to try and get it in the papers – like getting viewers to vote for the resolution of a plot – but still very little attention, seemingly only existing so Channel Five could say they were making X hours of drama a year. However it eventually became overshadowed by the slightly sexier Hollyoaks going up against it every night, not just twice a week, and Five buying up Home and Away, which did everything Family Affairs was trying to do with a bit more glamour. Still it continued, though, until in 2005, it was announced it had reached its natural conclusion and would be coming to an end at Christmas, which it did, to massive apathy. Surely the longest running but least famous television programme in history, the ratio of hours produced to viewers must be the widest ever, with most of the population presumably never having seen a single one of the 2285 episodes. Even the name was boring.
Old thrill!
SURPRISE SURPRISE (1984-97)
Cilla’s status as the queen of light entertainment in the eighties and nineties is mostly based on Blind Date, but this evergreen series is responsible for getting her back on the screen in the first place, and almost outlasted it. The series was actually invented, according to Jeremy Beadle, by Jeremy Beadle, who pitched the idea of a show based around reunions and fix-its as a vehicle for himself to LWT, who waited until he was on holiday and then secretly made a pilot, much to his disgust. The first series saw Cilla paired with Christopher Biggins and broadcast live, and while successful was less than sure-footed. From series two it was pre-recorded while Biggins was swapped for Bob Carolgees, who made a much better job of the sidekick role, and when Gordon Burns arrived a few years later, the imperial phase line-up was settled. The format stayed sturdy throughout the run – a few surprises on members of the audience, Bob following someone whose dream was coming true, Cilla phoning up next week’s victim on an absurd telephone, Gordon trying to reunite former servicemen and workmates, the tacky-but-entertaining Cillagram when Cilla would surprise someone with a suitably topical song and the final huge reunion with many years and miles separating the participants, who would blub while Cilla sang the theme. None of this was very challenging but it was all executed with panache and it was consistently successful Friday and/or Sunday night viewing for over a decade. However after several series the format was getting a bit familiar and the various bits of tinkering – dropping the Cillagram, dropping Bob and Graham and bringing in the likes of Tessa Sanderson – failed to arrest the decline. When David Liddiment arrived at ITV Network Centre in 1997, the current series of ‘surprise was hardly setting BARB boxes alight, and while Liddiment failed to be drawn on its future – seemingly as it wasn’t the done thing to axe Cilla – it never came back as a series. However it did make occasional returns for special occasions – such as Mothers’ Day or Christmas – for another few years, well into the 21st century. Never quite making it to the top table of light entertainment, Surprise Surprise was, like its LWT stablemate You Bet, which also ended this year, a perfectly professional and entertaining show that would while away a tedious hour on a chilly evening, which is something a broadcaster can never have enough of.
Everyone’s talking about…
BBC NEWS 24! A hugely controversial launch at the time – as it was only available on cable before digital telly began – the news started rolling at 5.30 on Sunday 9th November, though quite why they didn’t launch on the hour we don’t know. In any case it also meant the end of the BBC1 closedown, with nightly simulcasts seeing the end of the national anthem.
DIANA! We remember William Phillips in Broadcast referring to the first week of September as featuring the most disruption to programmes since World War II, which given the disruption there involved closing TV down completely was some going. At least Kate Thornton was there to soothe us.
THE ELECTION! “Ken Skinner, there!” It was the clash of the Dimblebys on election night, although despite the interesting presence of a studio audience on ITV, everyone as usual opted for Dave above Jonny and watched a genuinely incredible night on the Beeb, where everything was great fun apart from Frank Skinner dying on his arse.
CHANNEL FIVE! We mentioned it up there, of course, but all the fun with the retuners was a national talking point, and probably more interesting than the actual channel when it got going. And still nobody could tell you who Jack Docherty was.
THE HONG KONG HANDOVER! An intriguing bit of colonial business was also, we think, the last thing on the Beeb to fall under the auspices of the events department so all the news people had to take second place behind the ancient likes of John Tusa and Eric Robson. And it happened during Wimbledon making it the first time, we think, there’d been no Children’s BBC at all.
RIP
“God, Ted! Do you remember that fella who was so good at fashion they had to shoot him?” So as well as him, and the producer of FX – Murder By Illusion, in 1997 we also lost two cinematic giants in James Stewart and Robert Mitchum. In the world of football Billy Bremner and Ivor Allchurch died, and broadcasting stalwart Charlie Chester also passed away. Ace actor Brian Glover died, as did the gravel-voiced and purple-haired Corrie star Jill Summers, as well as ‘stEnders creator Julia Smith. Jeff Buckley died in 1997, as did James Goldsmith, just a few months after perhaps his most famous moment, heckling David Mellor when he lost his seat, although it’s worth pointing out that the heckling actually began by a candidate running on a pro-gun ticket, as Mellor was very vocal in the campaign to ban them, which saps some of the joy out of it.
Show of the year
THIS LIFE
“I’m still gutted about Incey!” If ever a show defined word of mouth, it must surely be This Life, which took an age to take off but eventually became the most talked about show in Britain. Indeed it all started in the quietest of fashions, with the original series going out on BBC2 on Monday nights in 1996 to little acclaim, and with one episode being dumped out after eleven o’clock to make way for snooker. Nevertheless Michael Jackson was mad keen on the idea of developing a BBC2 soap, aimed at a rather more upmarket audience than EastEnders, so it returned the following year with a marathon 21 episode commission, and again audience figures were lukewarm at best. However a change of day to Thursday, and apparently Mark Thompson begging BBC1 for some Absolutely Fabulous repeats to run before it, was the catalyst for a huge upsurge in interest. In truth ratings were never stratospheric but the “right” kind of people were nuts about it, with The Observer devoting pages to it, and student unions talking about nothing but. However it all ended rather messily as, despite the final scenes of the series involving someone looking at an ad for new flatmates, a third series only got as far as some speculative scripts, much to everyone’s disgust, and that was it until ten years later when the gang got back together for an underwhelming one-off special. In the meantime a million other dramas attempted to replicate its success, none of which managed to get the mix quite right, and the series continues to enjoy a mythical quality to this day. Shame The Way Out never had a hit, mind.
Let’s go there now!
We’re not sure these 1997 clips will be quite as exciting as some of the others we’ve done, but here’s a couple of fairly intriguing moments, First we’ve got one of the all time great TV themes which was heard for the last time this year as Sportsnight ended, which was a shame. This was the year, of course, that saw the arrival of the BBC1 balloon, although they launched it at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning and everyone missed it. Nevertheless, here’s its first night with a menu nicked off TV Ark. We remember The Fix was in production for about a hundred years, Coogan seemed to be forever filming it when he was interviewed, and nobody watched it or remembers it. For the first month, the balloons accompanied the national anthem at closedown, but as this appalling quality clip illustrates, that soon ended in favour of transmissions from the new News 24, and here’s an early example with the great Christopher Price in charge. Top of the Pops wasn’t very good in 1997, so instead of any clips from that, here’s the best song of 1997.
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Sky Sports 2
12.00 The Sky Sports Years
What with there not being any Blue Peter there’s absolutely nothing else to bill today. So instead we’ll include the repeat of this, which is first shown on Monday night at 6pm on Sky Sports 1 and then repeated at ten, which is when we normally watch it. Clearly nobody at Sky is watching it, or they’ve completely forgotten about Keys and Gray, as the 1997 episode two weeks ago could virtually have served as their showreel, with clips of Gray being named Sports Broadcaster of the Year and Keys being presented with a bottle of champagne for his five hundredth match, being told how much all at Sky Sports think he’s great. We also got a long interview with Andy Gray about him declining the job of Everton manager, where he said he would have to think long and hard about leaving Sky as he loves it so much. In fact we’re slightly loath to bill this in case someone at Sky notices and takes it off. This week it’s 1999, the year they showed The Ryder Cup on Sky Sports News and free on Sky Box Office, just coincidentally of course the only Sky Sports channels you couldn’t get on ONDigital. |
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BBC Radio 1
06.30 Chris Moyles
Not a programme we’d usually bill in Creamguide, natch, but as you may know Moyles is going for the record of the longest ever Radio 1 show and is going to be broadcasting non-stop from now until nine o’clock tomorrow night. It’s been done before, of course, with the Reverend Mayo in 1999, which was great fun, including his massive anecdote-off with John Peel and various daft bits and pieces with Mark and Lard. This is unlikely to be as great, not just because there’s no John Peel or Mark and Lard, but because Moyles is by some distance a less appealing broadcaster than Mayo, but it should be intriguing and at least he’ll be massively discomforted and inconvenienced, so that’s something to cling onto.
BBC Radio 2
22.00 Cliff – Congratulations
You’d probably have to say that Cliff’s imperial phase was the late seventies and early eighties, with the glossy Look-In pop of the likes of Wired For Sound, We Don’t Talk Anymore and, natch, Little Town suiting his style perfectly. There’s other ace Cliff stuff as well, of course, including his brilliant Stock Aitken and Waterman collaboration – which still baffles us somewhat as to how it happened, but it is ace – and also What Car, which he did the other year and we found very agreeable, so do check it out on Spotify. Inevitably, though, his latest project is, like every other singer on the planet, the Great American Songbook, which is why he’s talking to Penny Smith here. |
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BBC2
21.00 The British at Work
This is doubtless going to be the most interesting episode of the series, as it features the seventies and that means endless strikes, including the Three Day Week. In fact we recently acquired a stack of Radio Times from the beginning of 1974, and the schedules are fantastic, not least the fact BBC1 alternated closedown at 10.20 and 10.30 every other night, and vice versa ITV, so people wouldn’t all turn their tellies off at once in case they exploded or something.
BBC4
21.00 The End of the World – A Horizon Guide To Armageddon
Charlie Brooker managed to get Ghostwatch trending on Twitter the other night, but of course there’s been much more terrifying telly in the past, and here’s a cheery compendium of all the various ways Horizon has scared us shitless over the past four decades, from supervolcanoes to asteroids. You may wish to watch this but we’re afraid we can think of nothing more horrendous and indeed will attempt to detune BBC4 during its transmission so we don’t accidentally stumble on it, no matter that there’s a tokenistic happy bit at the end about how we’ve cured smallpox. |
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BBC1
19.00 Comic Relief
We cannot slag off Comic Relief because it’s got a picture of Helen Skelton in Heat. We mentioned up there how appealing the show was in its early days, which you don’t get now it’s all boringly professional and stuffed with non-comedians, but if that’s what it takes to get the cash then that’s what they should do, we suppose. Watch out anyway for a Doctor Who thing, the wonderful Claudia Winkleman on Masterchef, Paul McCartney showing up and some new Partridge, plus the usual splurge of clippage at one in the morning, apparently including “some exclusive comedy that has never been shown before on British TV”, whatever that is.
BBC2
20.00 Mastermind
Suitably sober alternative viewing on BBC2, although someone is answering questions on Black Books. And rather whimsically, someone else is doing Deep Purple. Ha ha ha.
BBC Radio 3
19.00 Performance on 3
Watch out, everyone, Radio 3 is having a bit of fun. In fact the whole day is being devoted to musical jokes, with Ian McMillan inventing poems on the spot and Dame Edna showing up on drivetime (or whatever they call it on Radio 3), but this is the biggie, a concert presented by Katie Derham and, for some reason, the rubbish Basil Brush, with Sue Perkins conducting, a load of suitably vulgar popular classics and, best of all, Tim Vine doing stand-up, which is always worth hearing, although some of this may have even the most liberal listener harking back to the days of the Third.
BBC Radio 5 Live
21.30 Tony Livesey
And there’s Red Nose business here, too, as this is a live show coming from backstage of the telly show, which among other things will be revealing the winner of that huge pan-network stand-up contest we mentioned last week. But basically the main reason we’re billing this is that Tony’s co-host is Helen Skelton. Little by little, she’s getting more and more famous, and that’s ace news. |
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TV Cream was very sad this week to hear of the death of Steven Stones. Steven was a regular correspondent to TV Cream for many years and we very much enjoyed receiving his letters which appeared in many editions of Creamguide and Creamup. RIP Stonesy.
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Interestingly, most of the big deaths of ’97 took place in July – Mitchum on the 1st, Stewart the following day, “Golden Boy” Allchurch on the 10th, Versace on the 15th, Goldsmith on the 18th and Glover on the 24th.
And, of course, Mother Teresa died six days after Diana and no-one noticed…
Family Affairs, meanwhile, didn’t get many viewers in Ireland either – though TV3 also showed it five evenings a week, and stuck with it till the very end too.
And the London borough that most of the action took place in? Hillingdon.
Agree that it was a shame to see the end of Sportsnight – but then one has to remember that this came at a time when things were pretty bad for the Beeb as regards sports programming, 1997 also seeing the loss of coverage of Formula 1 and the FA Cup to ITV.
Finally, not only was the manner of BBC News 24′s launch controversial – but the channel itself attracted no shortage of criticism in its first days, the biggest talking point being the men reading the news in their shirt sleeves…
Other things I remember about 1997 pop culturewise.
The rise of docusoaps such as Vets In Practice & Driving School, luckily TV chiefs got bored of them after a few years, though it led to some even worse reality TV.
The music press got really excited about Oasis’s Be Hear Now, which had a near record on pre-orders. Within a a couple of years even the group were writing it off as ‘Pub Rock’ & it was becoming the CD most commonly found in second hand shops.
Two more big names dying in ’97 were men who had a lot to do with Paula Yates – Michael Hutchence hanged himself in November, of course, while Hughie Green succumbed to lung cancer in May, having pretty much been a recluse ever since losing a long and expensive court case against the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation.
I think I’ve still got the TOTP2 that was a tribute to Michael Hutchence.